IRELAND, Norway and Spain formally recognised the state of Palestine yesterday, infuriating leaders of the genocidal Israeli regime, while Hamas described it as ‘a turning point on the international position on the Palestinian issue’.
‘Today Ireland, Norway and Spain are announcing that we recognise the State of Palestine, each of us will undertake whatever national steps are necessary to give effect to that decision,’ Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said at a news conference in Dublin.
‘I am confident that further countries will join us in taking this important step in the coming weeks.’
Shortly after Harris spoke, his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store followed suit.
Sanchez said it is clear that ‘(Israeli) prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not have a project of peace for Palestine’, while Store said ‘there cannot be peace if there is no recognition’.
Secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Hussein al-Sheikh, responded: ‘We thank the countries of the world that have recognised and will recognise the independent State of Palestine. We affirm that this is the path to stability, security and peace in the region.’
Palestinian Legislative Council member Mustafa Barghouti said: ‘It is a very important step in determining the rights of the Palestinian people – our people – for self-determination.
‘Also, it blows away a lot of the de facto effects that Israel has created through settlement building on the ground – by confirming that Palestine today is a state under occupation.’
The Zionist regime responded furiously.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that Israel will cease the transfer of tax funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and cancel the set-up in which Norway collects the PA’s tax funds. He demanded ‘punitive measures’ from Israeli PM Netanyahu, including a settlement on the occupied West Bank ‘for every country that unilaterally recognises a Palestinian state’.
National security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, went to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem and claimed the holy site belongs ‘only to the state of Israel’, calling the visit a response to the three countries recognising the Palestinian state, adding: ‘We will not even allow a statement about a Palestinian state.’
However, Bassem Naim, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, insisted that it was the ‘brave resistance’ of the Palestinian people that had spurred the recognitions.
‘These successive recognitions are the direct result of this brave resistance and the legendary steadfastness of the Palestinian people.
‘We believe this will be a turning point in the international position on the Palestinian issue.’