European recognition of Palestine sparks diplomatic spat with Israel

On one day in May 2024, three European nations recognised Palestine in a coordinated move. Spain, Norway and the Republic of Ireland made the announcement. Tel Aviv reacted with fury to these countries exercising their undoubted legal right. Israel withdrew its ambassador from all three countries.

The Zionist entity hit back by being as insulting as possible against three countries that have never done it any harm. They released mocking views contrasting jaunty Irish folk dancing with images of Hamas slaying Israeli civilians. They did something similar for Spain and Norway. The Irish Ambassador was summoned to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and treated very offensively.

The Israeli media filmed the whole outrageously undiplomatic spectacle. It is a disgrace that Dublin did not expel all Israeli diplomats for this disgusting breach of diplomatic protocol. Mossad (Israel intelligence) is one of the most extensive in the world besides the CIA. Many Israeli diplomats are Mossad officers. Mossad would not want to lose Ireland as a listening post. Having all its diplomats would hurt Israel’s spying operations. If all Irish diplomats were booted out of the State of Israel, it would hardly damage Irish interests. There are very, very few Irish-Israelis. The two countries hardly trade.

There are many pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Ireland. Ireland is only 1% Muslim. The recognition of Palestine was greeted with jubilation in Ireland.

Sinn Fein (the hardline nationalists) are particularly supportive of the Palestinian cause. The governing coalition did not wish to be outflanked by Sinn Fein on the issue.

Spain often treads delicately on Israel. Muslim Spain was a tolerant place for the Jews. When the Christians conquered the Muslim kingdom of Al Andalus in 1492 they demanded Muslims and Jews convert to Christianity or be expelled. Many Muslims and Jews emigrated. Some changed their faith but secretly practised their real religion. These converted ones remained crypto-Jews for centuries. They knew who the other secret Jews were and intermarried for centuries. Only in the 1980s did they feel secure enough to proclaim who they were. Spain has made it up to the descendants of those expelled in 1492. They are offered Spanish citizenship. Because of the Spanish mistreatment of the Jews, Spain has been hesitant to criticise Israel. A 15th-century injustice against Jews is no reason to tolerate a 21st-century genocide against Palestinians. Spaniards now speak up for justice for Palestine.

The recognition of Palestine is long overdue. Palestine is a nation whether its government is good or bad. Its nationhood is not contingent on the conduct of its government or its armed forces.

Israel claimed that recognising Palestine’s sovereign rights was somehow an endorsement of the Islamic Resistance Movement killing Israeli civilians and kidnapping others.

Failing to recognise Palestine would be an endorsement of Israel’s murder of over 36,000 Palestinian civilians, its industrial-scale use of torture and the kidnapping of over 8,000 civilians. The gratuitous use of violence against Palestinians has continued with relatively little protest from Western governments. The massive scale of premeditated violence against unarmed Palestinians made even the US Government blanch. President Biden withheld some weapons from Israel for a few days. CNN proved that weapons provided by the United States have been used in atrocities against Palestinian civilians. Fully cognizant of this the Biden Administration has continued to provide weapons for free knowing that they will be used for mass murder.

Spain and the Irish Republic are members of the European Union. Norway and Spain are members of NATO. There are several other EU countries and NATO countries that recognise Palestine.

It is important that Palestinians know they have friends in the West. They need to know that many whites and Christians recognise the horrific violence and outrageous injustice to which Palestine has been subjected.

The former Prime Minister of Ireland, the Indian origin Leo Varadkar explained why many Irish people have such fellow feelings for the Palestinians. Dr Varadkar stated that in the cases of Ireland and Palestine, nationality was disputed, there was population displacement, and many people were left to starve. People moved into both countries without seeking permission. For hardline Irish nationalists, there are blatant resonances between the history of both nations.

The similarities between Palestine and Ireland must not be overstated. The illegal immigrants into Palestine were Jewish. The legal immigrants into Ireland were English, Welsh and Scots. Most Irish people are at least partly descended from them. Very, very few Palestinians are of Jewish stock. Irish people were without exception the same religion as the English, Scots and Welsh: Christians. Admittedly the Irish are usually Catholic whereas the others are mostly Protestant – a different denomination of the same religion. The Irish all speak English, and few speak Irish as their daily language. Palestinians speak Arabic and not many speak Hebrew even as a foreign language. Very few Israelis are now native speakers of Arabic.

More Western countries will likely recognise Palestine. France is tempted to do so and is over 10% Muslim. Left-wingers in France tend to be deeply sympathetic to Palestine.

In Canada, the government says it is waiting for the propitious moment. In the United Kingdom, His Majesty’s Government says it believes that recognition should only come as part of an overall peace settlement. These are mealy-mouthed words. Palestine is a nation. It has a right to recognition. Zionist oppressors have denied Palestinians their every right. They seek to deny Palestine its very name. They often call it Judea or Samaria. They claim that there are no Palestinians and that such people are Egyptian, or Jordanian or Syrian. It would make more sense to say that there are no Israelis. The Israelis are illegal immigrants from Poland, Germany, Romania, the UK, France and other European nations. After Israel was declared in 1948 some Jews from Arab lands came as they were pushed out of Araby in response to Palestinians being forced at gunpoint to flee their homes.

Palestinians do not wish to be Jordanian or Egyptian. Neither Jordan nor Egypt claims Palestine. It is true that they administered Palestine after 1948 when the fledgling nation was recovering from the brutality of Al-Nakba. Many Palestinians fled to Jordan and are dual citizens.

The State of Palestine is now recognised by over 100 countries. Palestine is a nation by any definition.

In the 20th century, Palestine lost 90% of its territory. Israel illegally occupies much of what even Israel recognises as Palestine. No nation would accept this. No nation would be asked to accept it. Why should Palestine? Oppression provokes resistance. It was the Palestinians who were dispossessed and not the Israelis. Zionists pretend that they are the victims. Remember who is occupying whom. Israel also illegally occupies land belonging to Syria and Lebanon which even Israel recognises as sovereign nations.

The people of Gaza are living in an open-air prison. They cannot escape and they are killed every single day. A totally inadequate amount of food and medicine reaches them. When Israel lets a few trucks through for PR purposes, Israeli civilians sometimes stop the trucks and destroy the food. Put yourself in the position of a Palestinian. Do you not have the right to defend your homeland?

Many immigrants to Israel were Jews from the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. These were the European imperialist nations. Many of these Jews shared the white supremacist presumptions that were common in these countries. Some of them were Islamophobic.

The United States is the arms supplier and the paymaster of Israel. But one day the USA will be weary of doing this and getting nothing in return. There are signs it is already happening. In the Democratic Party, many people are sickened by the vicious and grossly disproportionate use of force by the Israel Defence Force. Some are appalled at the deliberate starvation of civilians. The Biden Administration is having a tricky time appeasing those who want human rights on one hand and the Zionist wing of the party on the other who will defend any massacre so long as it is committed by Zionists. In time, the Democrats will come over to the side of justice for Palestine, but it will take decades.

The Republican Party in the USA is entirely Zionist. Its supporters are often white supremacists and Islamophobes. The educationally subnormal people who make up half the Republican voters are usually viciously anti-Palestinian. Most of them are staggeringly ignorant. Many are Christian fundamentalists. Anti-Arab bigotry is the order of the day for them. Many of these Christian fundamentalists are too ignorant to know that some Palestinians are Christian and were Christian long before the ancestors of these white Americans converted to the faith in Europe.

Zionists control most media outlets in the US. It is an indisputable fact. This distorts much of what the American public hears and sees. There is no Zionist plot to take over the world and there never was. But there is a Zionist movement to give Israel good press.

Hollywood has rightly produced some films on the Holocaust. No American is unaware of the plight of the European Jews in the 1940s. Few Americans know about the plight of the Palestinians. Why is there no Hollywood film about that? Why is there no Hollywood film about some men with small arms gallantly battling for freedom and human rights against a military superpower: Palestine versus Israel?

Americans who protested to save Palestine were kicked out of university or sacked from their jobs. No free speech is allowed for them. Those who advocated for the murder of Palestinian children are promoted.

There are some morally courageous Israelis who raised their voices against the slaughter of Palestinians. They were blackguarded, assaulted, fired and even imprisoned. There were others who were worried about the government’s totally excessive use of force but not for moral reasons. They thought it jeopardised the relationship with the USA.

Israel replies to any well-founded and temperate accusation with standardised, tedious and usually utterly bogus accusations of anti-Semitism. The Jewish supremacists then call any denunciation of Israel’s enormous scale racist violence racism. Anyone who speaks up for international law or humanitarian law will be besmirched as a racist by Israel – the most racist state on earth.

No one should be mistreated for his or her ethnicity, faith or citizenship. That should be axiomatic. Unfortunately, some critics of Israel are anti-Semitic. Only some Palestinians have engaged in vile religiously and racially bigoted slurs against Jews.

The International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of Binyamin Netanyahu and his defence minister as well as two Hamas commanders. The ICC repeatedly warned the Israelis that non-adherence to international and humanitarian law could result in being indicted. Heedless of this warning the Zionists persisted in massive scale and gross violations of these laws on a daily basis. The ICC amassed incontrovertible evidence of the felonies committed by the Israeli PM and his defence minister. There are 140 countries they cannot travel to for fear of arrest.

Many Western countries rightly denounce Russia’s illegal war of unprovoked aggression in Ukraine. With regard to Palestine, there is some debate about who started it. It depends on how far back you go. If justice means anything it means non-selectivity. It is right to denounce Russia for its many war crimes in Ukraine. It is also right to denounce Israel for doing the same in Palestine. Moscow skilfully exploits this hypocrisy. Double standards by the US and other governments led to the Global South scorning the sententious language used by the United States in its preachments on human rights.

US politicians such as Nikki Haley have incited the Israelis to continue their indiscriminate bombardment of Palestinian cities. Nikki Haley is a leading light in the Republican Party. Thereby this woman becomes guilty of incitement to genocide.

Israel boasts of its state-of-the-art military technology. It claims it can do surgical strikes. Therefore, all the deaths it inflicts on civilians are on purpose. Israel has murdered over 100 foreign journalists, numerous aid workers and many Palestinian doctors. Aid cannot be distributed fairly among Palestinians. The Palestinian Police who guarded the food were deliberately targeted by Israel. Palestinians fought each other for survival. Fit young men were mostly able to grab food leaving women, children and the elderly to starvation.

Israel is armed to the teeth. It is a nuclear power! Palestine is defenceless. It is like watching a heavy-weight boxing champion torturing a baby to death.

The situation in Gaza is a scar on the conscience of the world. No one with any human decency can be unmoved by the plight of Palestinian children bleeding on a hospital floor because there are not enough doctors, nurses or bandages to treat them. It is a sick sadistic slaughter.

The United States’ abetment of such crimes is what led to 9/11. In US law an abettor is treated the same as a principal in a crime. The British Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron defended continuing to sell arms to Israel notwithstanding incontrovertible proof of the many massacres perpetrated by Israel. At the next Nuremberg, Cameron will be in the dock for his crimes against humanity.

Civilians should never be targeted whether they be Israeli or Palestinian. No one should be tortured. Prisoners of war must always be treated humanely. I want peace between Israel and Palestine. That can only happen when Israel withdraws from stolen land and pays abutment to its victims and Arab nations pay it to Jews who were kicked out after 1948. Until then Palestinians shall always fight for freedom against a cruel and utterly dishonourable foe. Glory to the heroes of the Palestinian resistance. Free, free Palestine!

The author is a white British Christian.