Ireland, Spain and Norway have announced they will formally recognise a Palestinian state on 28 May, triggering an immediate response from Israel, which said it would retaliate by recalling its ambassadors from Dublin, Madrid and Oslo, and withholding vital funds from the Palestinian Authority.
The three European governments made the long-awaited announcements in coordinated moves on Wednesday morning that they said were intended to support a two-state solution and foster peace in the Middle East.
“We are going to recognise Palestine for many reasons and we can sum that up in three words: peace, justice and consistency,” Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told the parliament in Madrid, to applause. “We have to make sure that the two-state solution is respected and there must be mutual guarantees of security.”
The Israeli government (and many but not all Israeli people) will seize on any excuse they can to punish the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people at this point. So tying such actions to the recent decisions of Ireland, Norway, Spain, or whoever else is very disingenuous.
They want all the Palestinians to suffer, and preferably disappear forever. These punitive steps are just a means to that end.