Diplomatic clashes are piling up for the coalition government. Without yet closing the crisis with the Argentine president, Javier Milei, the Executive adds a new front with Israel after Pedro Sánchez made his intention official this week –coordinated with Ireland and Norway– to recognize the Palestinian State next Tuesday, May 28. International politics has fully entered into this electoral campaign for the European elections, since Moncloa believes that it has a mobilizing effect among its electorate, both the historic recognition of Palestine and placing Milei as an antagonist due to his incarnation of the extreme right.
But Sánchez is not the only one who wants to profit from this situation. The second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, is fighting her own battle in these elections. On the one hand, she with the political space of Podemos and, on the other, tried to establish a profile within the Cabinet to stop the “useful vote” campaign that the PSOE has undertaken against Sumar. Díaz raised the stakes on his social network account A slogan that has raised blisters because it is used by the terrorist organization Hamas. This has provoked an immediate reaction from Israel, which will prohibit the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from interacting with the Palestinians. Also through Spanish in Jerusalem to provide services to Palestinians in Judea and Samaria. In addition, he described Díaz as an “ignorant and hateful person.”
So far, the response has been rather lukewarm, compared to the measures taken by Spain against the Government of Javier Milei for insults to the wife of President Pedro Sánchez. Netanyahu's government has limited itself to calling his ambassador for consultations and summoning Spain's ambassador there for a reprimand. Containment also seems to guide the actions of the Spanish Executive. The head of Spanish diplomacy announced that the Government will protest to the Israeli over the decision to prevent the Consulate General in Jerusalem from serving Palestinians in the West Bank, without clarifying what the Spanish response will consist of. Furthermore, he insisted that there are no anti-Semites in the Executive. These last words are one more response to the statements of the Israeli Foreign Minister in which he pointed out the leader of Sumar.
At the epicenter of the diplomatic clash is the expression “from the river to the sea.” It is a Palestinian nationalist slogan used by political groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and also jihadist militias such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It refers directly to the area that goes from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, a geographical area that includes the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, but also the entire territory of the State of Israel. These natural borders delimited the territory of the former British Mandate of Palestine, which the United Nations divided in 1947, after the Second World War, to form two States, one Arab and the other Jewish, as established in the original partition plan. The interpretation of the phrase by Palestinian nationalism therefore implies the disappearance of Israel and the creation of a unified Palestinian state in the region. It represents the rejection of the two-state solution, defended by a large part of Western countries, including Spain.
The new front opened by Díaz caused discomfort in the socialist part of the Government and, therefore, the vice president was forced yesterday to qualify her words. In statements to the media after attending a conference organized by UGT in Alcalá de Henares, she insisted that does not share “the politics of hate” and stressed that she is a supporter of the two-state formula in the Middle East and that this is what she was referring to with the use of the motto “from the river to the sea.” Be that as it may – already in the middle of the European election campaign – this new clash between the two coalition partners shows their weakness. Already in the month of February, it generated discomfort in Foreign Affairs the announcement by the leader of Sumar of a trip to Palestine without having agreed and which has not yet taken place.
That is why yesterday Albares reminded him again that foreign policy is set by the president, Pedro Sánchez, and he as minister of the field. A policy that the president took advantage of yesterday. «When the war in Gaza ends, citizens will realize that we have witnessed one of the darkest moments of the 21st century. When this happens I want the Spanish to be satisfied that their Government has been on the right side of history,” he assured. For his part, from the PP, Ayuso criticized that Díaz “calls for the extermination of Israel and nothing happens.”