Israel: far-right shift ‘key factor’ in European nations recognising Palestine

The recent move by some European nations to recognise the state of Palestine will have wider repercussions for Israel and the far-right elements within its government and society, according to experts. Ireland, Spain and Norway plan to formally recognise Palestine next week, and more European nations are expected to follow suit in the coming days.

“This issue of Palestinian statehood has been discussed for many years,” Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s MENA Programme, told Anadolu. “I think what accelerated it recently is the war in Gaza, and all of a sudden, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is back on the table.”

With their announcement, these European countries have sent a “signal that leaving this conflict unattended has dire consequences,” he said. “One of the ways to deal with it is to change the dynamic in the relations between the Israelis and Palestinians.”

According to Mekelberg, a lot has to do with the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a key factor being the fact that it is the most far-right in history. “Plus there is the continuous building of settlements and settler violence, which sends the message to the international community that… the government has no interest in peace.”

The three countries have their own different ways and reasons to recognise Palestine, but the common thread could be an attempt at “breaking the deadlock,” the expert suggested. “It needs to be broken by changing the balance of power between the Israelis and the Palestinians, by making negotiations between a state and state, and not between a state and an organisation [the PLO].”

READ: EU’s Borrell says recognising Palestine is not a gift to Hamas

Israel, on the other hand, is “trying to spin it as a sort of a reward for Hamas or something that will derail any future peace process, which I think is not the case,” he said. “If all sides read into this, what they should see is that it can actually enhance the chances of peace.”

On the US position on the issue, Mekelberg said that there are divisions between Washington and some EU countries. He pointed out that the US veto remains the only obstacle to Palestine getting the UN Security Council’s backing for full membership.

“I think that when it comes to Palestinian statehood, the US is quite isolated in its opinion, not only with the EU, but also internationally.”

The decision taken by Spain, Ireland and Norway is the outcome of “growing coordination to advance a credible political track to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and support Palestinian self-determination,” added Hugh Lovatt, senior policy fellow with the MENA Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Recognition can contribute towards advancing a sustainable post-conflict solution for Gaza… Without strong political support for Palestinian self-determination, any post-conflict political efforts for Gaza will lack legitimacy.”

Recognition, he said, will provide further European impetus to exclude and sanction Israeli settlements – including potentially setting the scene for a push by “like-minded” countries for an EU ban on settlement products and financial services.

Lovatt expects more countries to recognise Palestine in the future. “Slovenia has indicated that it will follow suit by 13 June once its parliament votes on the subject. Other European countries such as France and Belgium are contemplating similar moves, although this does not appear imminent.” He pointed out that European governments are also responding to domestic public pressure to do more to support Palestinian rights. “So, it is good foreign policy and good domestic politics.”

Lovatt believes that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will see this as a victory for his “internationalisation strategy launched in 2011,” but many Palestinians will view it as “symbolic” and “without concrete action for a ceasefire in Gaza and holding Israel to account over its violation of international law and settlement policy.”

Spain, Ireland and Norway are all countries that had been pressing Israel to stop its deadly attacks on civilians in Gaza, noted Tugce Ersoy Ceylan, an associate professor at the Izmir Katip Celebi University in Turkiye.

“Since international bodies did not take any sanction decision within the context of international law, they may have decided to take such a path to make a stand. This unilateral symbolic recognition may have been made so as not to remain a spectator, even if it is late in the day.”

Ceylan does not view the move as “progress towards resolving the Palestinian issue,” but said that it was significant that “the right of Palestinians to establish a state, which had been forgotten and condemned to the status quo of unresolved issues, is being brought up again by significant Western states.”

She suggested that this would not lead to “any immediate pressure” on Israel to sit at the negotiating table, not least because “Netanyahu is determined not to compromise.”

A wave of recognition by other countries is unlikely, but “it would not be surprising if EU governments… developed other formulas… to clear their names.”

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