By Pedro Canales
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced yesterday that “Spain and Palestine will hold their first bilateral summit before the end of the year” aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation in all areas. It will be a meeting “between the two governments,” during which several collaboration agreements will be signed.
In the same statement, the Spanish President reiterated that “we will continue to support the people of Gaza, sustaining UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), pressing Netanyahu at the International Criminal Court, and strengthening our ties with the Palestinian state.”
At first glance, it is assumed that the Spanish government is continuing the recognition of the “Palestinian state,” which was made on May 28 along with Ireland and Norway, within the 1967 ceasefire lines, encompassing the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. The Spanish decision was adopted by the Spanish Parliament in 2014, but no date had been set.
In that statement, Pedro Sánchez said that “one of the priorities of his Government will be the peace of our eastern and southern neighbors,” referring to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the situation in the Sahel, and the Western Sahara conflict, which has extended to the geopolitical rivalry between Algeria and Morocco.
The announcement of the Spanish President of the bilateral summit between Spain and Palestine raises a reflection not without ambiguity. For the Spanish government, the Palestinian state exercises “its sovereignty” over the territories of 1967, Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. However, this exercise is carried out by a “government.” Which one is this?
Since 2007, the Palestinian Authority, composed of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and its dominant faction Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas, has ruled the West Bank. But in Gaza, the radical movement Hamas governs, having come to power a year earlier, in the 2006 elections.
Therefore, the question is: who will represent the Palestinian state at the end-of-year summit? In Gaza, the Palestinian Authority has no roots or representation unless elections are organized in the coming months and Mahmoud Abbas’s PA wins them. Otherwise, there are only two options: either Hamas participates in the summit as the “legitimate ruler of Gaza,” or Gaza will remain without representation.
When Spain recognized the Palestinian state, the President of the Government, a firm defender of the “two-state solution, one Palestinian and one Israeli,” declared before the Spanish Parliament: “The terrorist group Hamas is the most interested in ensuring that the two-state solution does not exist, as its main objectives are the destruction of Israel and the elimination of the Palestinian Authority, an actor that will undoubtedly be strengthened after our recognition.”
Have these months of massacres and devastation of Gaza’s civilian population by the Israeli army changed Pedro Sánchez’s view of “the representativeness of the Hamas movement”? Or, in other words, can the radical movement Hamas, which Pedro Sánchez labeled as “terrorist,” participate in Madrid? Questions that remain unanswered for now.
It is worth recalling that during the Franco era, Spain maintained relations with Yasser Arafat’s PLO, which had a political office in Madrid. Later, during the Transition, these ties intensified, especially with the governments of Felipe González, who organized the Madrid Conference in 1991 as a precursor to the Oslo Accords of 1993.
In those years, President González, his government, and Spanish intelligence services maintained close contacts with all factions of the PLO, including the most radical, such as the Popular Front of George Habash, the Democratic Front of Nayef Hawatmed, the PFLP-General Command of Ahmed Jibril, the Palestine Liberation Front of Abu Nidal, and others. All these radical groups were considered “terrorists” by most Western countries, led by the United States, and although they did not participate directly in the Madrid and Oslo conferences, they reached preliminary agreements with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.
Will Pedro Sánchez try to follow in Felipe González’s footsteps to act as a recognized mediator in the current conflict? Or will he limit himself to strengthening humanitarian, social, health, educational, and food ties with the “Palestinian state” whose survival is at risk?