Spain gives voice to Palestinian cause in EU  

 

Spain has said it will push the European Union to adopt policies more in line with Palestinian wishes and the approach was on display Thursday as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited Israel.

"It is in Israel's interest to work for peace. And today peace means the establishment of the Palestine state," the Socialist premier, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, told his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu.

While Sanchez stressed that he backed Israel's "right" to defend itself, he said the number of Palestinians killed by Israel's military response "is truly unbearable".

More than 14,100 people have been killed in Israel's offensive on Gaza. Sanchez, who is also to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, has repeatedly endorsed the two-state solution -- a Palestinian state established in territory that Israel captured in 1967 -- since the conflict began.

As he was sworn in for a new term this month, Sanchez said his foreign policy priority would be to "work in Europe and in Spain to recognise the Palestinian state".

Sanchez will on Friday travel to Egypt. He is accompanied on his trip to the Middle East by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, whose country will take over the EU presidency on January 1.

Sanchez hopes his stance will have a "ripple effect" in the rest of Europe, at a time when many in the Arab world say that Western countries are being too friendly to Israel, Isaias Barrenada, an international relations professor at Madrid's Complutense University, told AFP.

Spain's parliament voted in 2014 in favour of a resolution calling for the recognition of Palestine as a state. The vote however was non-binding and there has been no follow-up.

Several smaller European nations such as Sweden and Malta have recognised Palestine but so far no major EU member has taken this step.

Sanchez, who appointed a minister whose father is Palestinian in his new cabinet, is under "pressure" to take this step from the left-wing and public opinion, said Barrenada.

Sanchez governs in a minority coalition with the hard-left formation Sumar. In October Israel's embassy to Spain accused some of Sanchez's ministers of aligning themselves with Hamas after a hard-left cabinet minister called Israel's military offensive in Gaza "a genocide".

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, a former foreign minister in Sanchez's government, said in an interview published Monday in Spanish daily El Pais that Spain forms part of a group of nations with "clearer sympathy for the Arab world".

Geographically close to North Africa, Spain turned to Arab nations during the 1939-1975 dictatorship of Francisco Franco to get around its isolation in the West, said University of Burgos international relations professor Juan Tovar.

The country only established official ties with Israel in 1986. That followed lingering tensions over Israel's opposition to Spain's entry into the United Nations at the end of World War II because of Madrid's close ties with Nazi Germany during the Franco regime, added Barrenada.

In a mediation role, Spain hosted a 1991 peace conference attended by all Arab parties in direct conflict with Israel -- the Palestinians, Syrians, Jordanians and Lebanese.

Given the divergences within the EU "it is hard to imagine that Spain has the capacity to reorient the European position" but "it can help show there are different sensitivites within the EU," said Barrenada.

Ukraine says Russian shelling killed five in last 24 hours

At least five people were killed in Russian shelling attacks in the south and east of Ukraine over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday.

Ukrainian towns and cities near the frontlines have been subjected to relentless artillery fire since Moscow invaded last February.

Three people were killed in an attack on Chornobaivka in the southern Kherson region on Thursday, said Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff.

He posted photos on social media of a destroyed building and a pool of blood on the floor in what he said was the aftermath of the strike.

Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said another five were injured and 60 buildings were destroyed.

Ukraine's army has said it is trying to push Russian forces back from the banks of the Dnipro River -- the de facto frontline in the Kherson region -- to protect Ukrainian towns from daily Russian artillery fire.

Another two people were killed by shelling on Ukrainian-held areas of the eastern Donetsk region over the last 24 hours, governor Igor Moroz said Thursday.