The Diplomat
The governments of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden yesterday urged the Israeli government to reverse its decision to move forward with plans to build nearly 3,000 new housing units in West Bank settlements.
In a joint statement, the twelve signatory countries reiterated their “firm opposition to its policy of settlement expansion in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which violates international law and undermines efforts to realize the two-state solution.”
“We call on both sides to further deepen the steps taken in recent months to enhance cooperation and reduce tensions,” the statement continued. “We reiterate our call for the implementation of UN Resolution 2334 in all its provisions, in order to restore confidence and create the necessary conditions to promote peace,” the text concludes.
Yesterday’s is not the first joint declaration of several European countries to which Spain adheres against the Israeli settlement policy, although the novelty in this case is the high number of signatory countries. Last May, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement calling on Israel to reverse its decision to promote the construction of 540 housing units in East Jerusalem and to put an end to its “settlement expansion policy in the occupied Palestinian territories”.
Separately, in October 2020, the same four countries signed a joint statement opposing the Israeli Executive’s decision to build more than 4,900 housing units in the occupied West Bank, on the grounds that it violated international law and represented “a counterproductive measure” in light of “positive developments” related to normalization agreements between Israel and several Muslim countries, namely the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. The agreement with the Emirates included, in fact, Israel’s commitment to suspend the annexation of parts of the West Bank.
Spain has always condemned the policy of settlement construction and annexation of areas of the West Bank carried out by the Government of Israel, both during the current period of Pedro Sánchez (PSOE, in coalition with Unidas Podemos) and during the previous period of Mariano Rajoy (PP). Specifically, the Spanish Government condemned on up to 35 occasions the policy of settlements and confiscations of Palestinian land by Israel under Rajoy’s presidency (December 2011 to June 2018) and has done so on a dozen occasions since Pedro Sánchez has been in office.
