From the May 28th Spain, Norway and Ireland will join the countries that formally recognize Palestine as an autonomous and independent state. This was communicated by the Prime Ministers of the respective countries, Pedro Sanchez, Jonas Gahr Simon Harriswhile reiterating their condemnation of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and the right to Israel to exist. Thus the number of countries that have begun to exert indirect forms of pressure on the Israeli government to ask for an increase is increasing ceasefire in Gaza, where from 7 October to today, according to the United Nations, civilian victims have exceeded the number of 35,000. Following the announcement, the Israeli government decided to revoke its ambassadors from Madrid, Oslo and Dublin.
Which states recognize Palestine
There Palestine is currently recognized by 142 countries (including Spain, Norway and Ireland), of which Italy is not included. In Europe, in fact, the issue still remains very divisive: many countries including Germany and Italy continue not to recognize it as an independent and sovereign state. Between European countriesin 2014 the Sweden had declared to recognize the Palestinian state, even if already during the Cold War period other Eastern European countries such as Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic they had already started the process. There Romania for example he recognized Palestine as an independent state in 1988 and had very close diplomatic relations withPLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). Currently, after the three European countries that will recognize Palestine on May 28th, also Malta, Slovenia and France do not exclude this possibility. French President Emmanuel Macron has in fact declared that the recognition of a Palestinian state without a negotiated peace “no longer represents a taboo for France”.
What is Italy's position on the Palestinian state
Following the decision of Spain, Ireland and Norway to recognize the State of Palestine, the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani reiterated his willingness to work towards achieving the “two peoples, two states” solution, with the birth of a Palestinian state among the solutions of which a UN-led administration is considered or a peace ensured by a military presence to which Italy is ready to contribute by sending soldiers. In any case, currently the'Italy does not recognize the Palestine as one Independent state and the last votes of'General Assembly from the United Nations for the recognition of Palestine it is abstained.
What does the recognition of Palestine as a state mean?
Without a doubt the recognition of the Palestinian State has a political and symbolic value important, not just to put pressure on Israeli government for a ceasefire in Gaza, but also to reiterate the commitment to respect the principle of self-determination of peoples, sanctioned by international law. To ensure that there is recognition of a State, some prerequisites are needed: a defined population, a delimited territory with clear borders, which currently does not exist in Palestine as the borders are not established and recognized at an international level and a government in office that has authority over the territory and the population present there. In the Palestinian case, the West Bank is governed by'ANP (Palestinian National Authority) while the Gaza Strip is governed by Hamas. Therefore, not being able to speak of a legal value, the international recognition however, it has a strong political value to initiate and push towards a peace process which can then lead to full recognition of territory and the Palestinian people.
