The Spanish Government has said it will allocate at least €75 million to the Palestinian National Authority over the next two years to support Palestinian State-building.
This decision, agreed upon during the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ visit to La Moncloa Palace goverrnment office in Madrid on November 22, was made public on November 28.
During the meeting, the two sides agreed on a new bilateral co-operation strategy focused on “building the State of Palestine”. The plan included supporting Abbas’ Palestine and promoting the “recovery of the country from the effects of the conflict [with Israel]”.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government officially recognised Palestine as a State on 28 May amid the military conflict that has sparked a severe diplomatic crisis between Spain and Israel.
Foreign minister José Manuel Albares explained the plan and other aspects of Spanish initiatives to promote peace in the Middle East in Congress on November 28.
The foreign ministry had already allocated €50 million in 2023 for co-operation and humanitarian action in Palestine, tripling the previous year’s amount. By 2024, it plans to maintain “similar levels”.
International humanitarian aid to Palestine has been questioned for some time by Israel, which accuses organisations such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (URNWA) of diverting funds to terrorist groups, including Hamas.
According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, some of the October 7, 2023 attackers of his country were members of URNWA. It has also denounced what it called a lack of control over refugee camps for which the Palestinian Authority receives significant humanitarian resources without , the government said, “adequate oversight”.
Albares rejected the idea that Spain’s position was more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli. He said the Middle East conflict should not be analysed in those terms but rather in “the search for peace, justice, and coexistence”.
“We have strongly condemned Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and Lebanon, as well as the violence in the West Bank. We have also condemned Hamas’s terrorist attacks and Iran’s and Hezbollah’s firing of missiles into Israel,” the minister said.
In statements to the press after his speech in Congress, Albares insisted that should Netanyahu visit Spain, the government would comply with the arrest warrant issued on November 21 by the International Criminal Court (ICC): “We will comply with all our obligations,” he said.
Although Spain is not alone in making similar decisions, diplomatic tension with Israel has been growing increasingly acute.
COMMENT: With their recent treatment of Israel, many of our greatest and most revered institutions have had a profound flirtation with moral bankruptcy, writes @ConradMBlack. https://t.co/8h4hI1Jm1a
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