Greece must recognize an Independent Palestinian State

Today is the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, i.e. the Destruction of Palestine in 1948. This year the anniversary coincides with the eight-month war in the Gaza Strip. In a military campaign that began in late 1947, culminated in the 1948 war, approximately 13,000 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, 530 Palestinian villages were destroyed, and 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their ancestral homes and made refugees by Jewish military forces. More than 5,000 Jewish fighters and civilians were also killed. The 750,000 expelled Palestinians were replaced by 750,000 Jewish settlers who occupied Palestinian land.

After more than a year of violence, the newly formed Israel occupied 78% of historic Palestine. The remaining 22%, the West Bank with Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, was captured by Israel 19 years later and remains under Israeli military occupation.

In the midst of the eight-month-old war between Palestinians and Israelis in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian resistance on the ground and the global student movement are putting pressure on Western governments to recognize an independent Palestinian State based on the Two-State Solution. In the European Union, the common foreign policy of not recognizing an independent Palestinian State now seems obsolete: EU member states such as Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta have announced their intention to diplomatically recognize a Palestinian State. A few months before the start of the war in the Gaza Strip (7.10.2024), on Friday 23.7.2023, the Portuguese Parliament had recognized it with its official resolution the Destruction (Nakba) of Palestine by the Israeli forces. However, the Greek governments, which otherwise defends International Law, does not do the same in for Palestine.

Yet, the developments in the war in the Gaza Strip and in Europe make the “common European foreign policy” obsolete, as well as the guardianship and unilateral attitude of Athens towards the Palestinian issue. Greece is called upon by developments to immediately take a clear and honest position defending the rights of the Palestinian people under trial. The Greek government must understand what experienced Israeli officials like Amichai Ayalon have understood in practice, that the only path to peace in the Middle East is International Law and the establishment of an independent Palestinian State on the basis of the Two State Solution as fundamental condition for the peaceful coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis in the immediate future.