Semafor Signals
Why Ireland, Norway, and Spain are set to recognize Palestine
Insights from Euronews, RTÉ, the Los Angeles Times, and El País
The News
The governments of Ireland, Norway, and Spain said Wednesday that they will officially recognize Palestine as a state from May 28 in a move that seeks to drive discussions on a two-state solution to end the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They will join a majority of United Nation member states in recognizing Palestinian statehood at a time when other European countries including Belgium, Malta, and Slovenia are mulling formal recognition too.
The announcement drew praise from the Palestine Liberation Organization and its rival Hamas, while angering Israel, which recalled its ambassadors from Dublin, Oslo, and Madrid.
SIGNALS
Ireland draws parallels between British colonialism and Israeli occupation
Ireland has consistently taken a harder stance against Israel than many other Western nations, criticizing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack shortly after the war began. The country’s experience of British colonialism has made many Irish nationalists sympathetic to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Irish Senator Tom Clonan told Euronews in November that the government was calling for a “proportionality of response” to Hamas in accordance with international humanitarian laws: “When the IRA was setting off bombs in the UK and murdering innocent civilians … the UK government didn’t order air strikes on republican neighbourhoods in Belfast.”
More than 140 UN member states recognize Palestine
More than 140 of 193 UN member states recognize Palestine — the majority of those that do not are Western nations and Israeli allies. No Group of Seven country recognizes Palestine, and in April, the US used its veto powers at the UN to block a resolution that would have seen Palestine recognized as a formal member. Washington has said it backs a two-state solution, but Israel has repeatedly ruled that out. For now Washington “should use all its influence to ensure that Gaza and the West Bank can function as a unit, that the two territories do not remain separated and that a settlement freeze is implemented,” Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab wrote in the Los Angeles Times.
Hamas attack may have weakened two-state solution
Hamas as a militant organization emerged in part because of Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories, and spokespeople for the group have tried to justify the Oct. 7 attack as part of a bid for self-determination. Netanyahu’s government has further entrenched Israel’s occupation over the course of the war in Gaza. Oct. 7 served “on a silver platter to the Israeli government the long-awaited pretext to deepen its colonizing policies and … bury, perhaps definitively, the two-state solution,” Ignacio Álvarez-Ossorio, the chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Madrid’s Complutense University, argued in El País.
