[The breakdown of negotiations over a two-state solution, continued Israeli settlement building and the bloody conflict in Gaza all appear to have jolted Europe’s politicians, including Sweden’s new prime minister, Stefan Lofven, who this month pledged to recognize Palestine, the first time a major Western European nation had done so.]
By Stephen Castle and Jodi Rudoren
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| Wearing Palestinian and British flags outside the Parliament buildings in London on Monday.CreditLuke Macgregor/Reuters |
Though the outcome of the 274-to-12 parliamentary vote
was not binding on the British government, the debate was the latest evidence
of how support for Israeli policies, even among staunch allies of Israel,
is giving way to more calibrated positions and in some cases frustrated
expressions of opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance toward
the Palestinians.
Opening the debate, Grahame Morris, the Labour Party
lawmaker who promoted it, said Britain
“To make our recognition of Palestine dependent on Israel’s
agreement would be to grant Israel a veto over Palestinian self-determination,” said Mr.
Morris, who leads a group called Labour Friends of Palestine.
Richard Ottaway, a Conservative lawmaker and chairman of
the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, said that he had “stood by Israel through thick and thin, through the good years and the
bad,” but now realized “in truth, looking back over the past 20 years, that Israel has been slowly drifting away from world public
opinion.”
“Under normal circumstances,” he said, “I would oppose
the motion tonight; but such is my anger over Israel ’s behavior in recent months that I will not oppose the
motion. I have to say to the government of Israel that if they are losing people like me, they will be
losing a lot of people.”
The breakdown of negotiations over a two-state solution,
continued Israeli settlement building and the bloody conflict in Gaza all
appear to have jolted Europe’s politicians, including Sweden’s new prime
minister, Stefan Lofven, who this month pledged to recognize Palestine, the
first time a major Western European nation had done so.
The conflict in Gaza also gave new impetus to efforts to pressure Israel through a campaign to boycott some goods made in West Bank
settlements. And it helped fuel a surge in anti-Semitic episodes across Europe
this year amid concerns that opposition to Israeli policies was allowing
anti-Jewish bias to take root in the European mainstream.
Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for Israel ’s Foreign Ministry, said that moves like the British
resolution and Sweden ’s recent statement “make conflict resolution much more
difficult” by sending Palestinians the message that “they can achieve things”
outside negotiations. Israel , the United States and most of Europe have long insisted that the only path to Palestinian
statehood is through bilateral negotiations.
Mr. Hirschson said “there’s no
legal weight behind” the British resolution and that it “contravenes the policy
of all three” British political parties, including Labour, but acknowledged
that it “sours” relations with a longtime and staunch ally.
“I don’t know how much of it
is about Britain-Israel relations, or various different Israel-Europe
relations, and how much of it is about Britain-Arab relations,” Mr. Hirschson
said in a telephone interview. “Europe is in a way playing to the Arab world. Europe is
in terrible economic condition, and they have to trade with the Arab world.”
Prime Minister David Cameron’s government opposes
recognizing a Palestinian state at this point, and the parliamentary debate and
vote are not likely to change British policy. But the issue is being debated in
a growing number of capitals.
Romain Nadal, the French Foreign Ministry spokesman, said
Monday that France “will have to recognize Palestine ,” but he did not specify when the official recognition
would take place.
The last conflict in Gaza “has been a triggering factor,” Mr. Nadal said. “It made
us realize that we had to change methods.”
The European Union recently condemned Israel’s decision
to expand settlements and on Sunday the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Catherine
Ashton, pledged 450 million euros, or about $568 million, for the
reconstruction of Gaza. The European Union has spent more than €1.3 billion in
the Gaza Strip in the last decade.
'“The problem is that we are drastically losing public
opinion,” Avi Primor, the director of European studies at Tel Aviv University
and a former Israeli ambassador to the European Union, told Israel Radio on
Monday. “This has been going on for many years, and became particularly serious
after the talks failed between us and the Palestinians after nine months of
negotiations under Kerry, and even more so after Operation Protective Edge.”
That referred to failed
efforts by Secretary of State John Kerry to revive the peace process and Israel ’s military operations in Gaza in the summer.
If Sweden does recognize Palestine — and there is no timetable as yet — it will become the
first big nation in the European Union to do so, although some East European
countries did so during the Cold War, before they joined the union.
In 2011 a motion calling for recognition of Palestine won the support of Spanish lawmakers, though the
government has not followed through on that vote.
In that same year the “State of Palestine” applied to
become a member of the United Nations and, although that effort failed, in 2012
it successfully obtained the lesser status of nonmember observer state.
The Palestinians leveraged their new status in April to join 15 international
treaties and conventions, which helped bring about the breakdown of the latest
round of peace talks.
Separately, 134 of 193 United Nations member states have extendeddiplomatic
recognition to the State of Palestine.
Since the Aug. 26 cease-fire
that halted the summer’s hostilities, the Palestinians have stepped up these
diplomatic efforts, pursuing a United Nations Security Council resolution
demanding a deadline for Israel ’s occupation; threatening with renewed intensity to
prosecute Israel in the International Criminal Court; and lobbying for
recognition in European capitals.
In Britain , where elections loom next year, Israel ’s policies have become politically sensitive. In 2011, Britain ’s foreign secretary, William Hague, laid down official
policy saying that Britain reserved the right “to recognize a Palestinian state at
a moment of our choosing and when it can best help bring about peace.”
But over the summer, the leader of Britain ’s opposition Labour Party, Ed Miliband, said that Mr.
Cameron was “wrong not to have opposed Israel ’s incursion into Gaza ” and rebuked him for his “silence on the killing of
innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israel ’s military action.”
And while pro-Palestinian sentiment is clearest within
the Labour Party, frustration with Israeli policy has surfaced in all three
main political parties.
In August, Sayeeda Warsi,
a Conservative Party politician, quit her post as a Foreign Office minister
over the issue, describing government policy on Gaza
Martin Linton, a former Labour Party lawmaker who is
editor of Palestinian Briefing, an online publication, said that the view in
Parliament had shifted significantly in favor of recognition in recent years
and was catching up with public opinion.
Stephen Castle
reported from London , and Jodi
Rudoren from Jerusalem . Maïa de la
Baume contributed reporting from Paris .
