Eduardo González
The acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, announced yesterday that the Government is going to increase humanitarian aid to Palestine to up to forty million euros. Likewise, he praised “the leadership” of the acting head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, which has allowed the Spanish proposal for an international peace conference on the Middle East to be included in the conclusions of the European Council.
“Hamas does not represent the legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people, Hamas is not the Palestinian National Authority and, of course, Hamas is not the Palestinian people,” Albares declared during his speech at the seminar Strategic alliance European Union – Latin America: challenges and opportunities, organized by the Rafael Campalans Foundation (linked to the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, PSC) in Barcelona, attended by the former president of the Government José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero; the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños; the first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, and the former president of the Generalitat and president of the foundation, José Montilla.
“The Palestinian National Authority has been a good partner for Spain and for the EU, it has been a good partner in cooperation,” and, therefore, “I, as Minister of Cooperation, immediately announced that, of course, Spain was going to maintain cooperation and that we were also going to increase it,” he continued. “It has already been increased by four million, to 21 million at the moment, and we are working on a plan to, in a very few days, be able to announce that we are doubling the aid, we are literally doubling it, because much more is going to be necessary,” he said.
On the other hand, Albares warned that the peace conference proposed by Spain “is what has to materialize, once and for all, the two-state solution” that “guarantee the prosperity and stability of the entire region.” “Many times we have been two steps away, like in Oslo, from achieving it, but there has not been the courage to make peace, which is much more than the courage to make war,” he lamented. The “flag of peace,” he continued, “will only be able to triumph definitively, so that we will never see this horror again, if this peace conference is held, which, thanks to the leadership of President Sánchez, is there, assumed, by the 27 EU countries in the Council conclusions.”
“We have to join forces right now to stop this spiral of violence and to prevent it from advancing to the West Bank,” Albares warned. “In the West Bank you see the difference between the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas; In the West Bank there is no violence thanks to the Palestinian National Authority, which is the partner of Israel and Europe for peace”, but “for there to be peace, the Palestinian National Authority and the Palestinian people must be given a realistic path to materialize the two States in one Palestinian State,” declared the acting minister. “Many people in Israel think exactly like us and, what’s more, there have been governments in Israel that have walked that path,” and for that reason “we have put the peace conference as the objective,” he added.
