Spain’s premier suggests EU should reconsider relations with Israel

OVIEDO, Spain

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in an interview that the EU should reconsider its relationship with Israel if the country is found to be violating international law and binding UN resolutions.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Thursday, he said there are clear doubts about whether Tel Aviv is breaking those laws and resolutions.

In the EU, Ireland and Spain have asked for an assessment of the issue, and once it is prepared they hope for serious debate in the EU Commission.

Throughout the interview, Sanchez was highly critical of the “terrible war in Gaza” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy to achieve security through war and not diplomacy.

“At the beginning, we all felt that solidarity with the country attacked ... but this unbalanced response and horrible situation in Gaza … is putting Netanyahu in a difficult and isolated situation internationally,” he said.

He noted that Spain has been outspoken on the need for a cease-fire and the recognition of the Palestine state for months, and a growing number of EU countries are beginning to adopt the same view.

“The international community as a whole must recognize the full UN membership of Palestine in the UN system and bilaterally,” he said. “This moment has to be different from the others we witnessed over the past seven decades.”

Sanchez condemned Israel’s recent attack on aid workers of the World Central Kitchen, calling it “not acceptable” and said the conditions for aid workers in Gaza “extremely dangerous.”

He slammed Israel’s recent bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus as “not acceptable" and something that needs clarification. “We need to avoid an escalation of a conflict in the region,” he said.

The Spanish premier also agreed with a statement by the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell that countries concerned with the death toll in Gaza, which has crossed 33,000, should “provide less arms” to Israel, highlighting that Spain has stopped selling weapons since the war broke out.

He said that despite Israeli opposition to a two-state solution, the international community must come together to recognize both states as independent. Sanchez also shared his view that control over Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem should be given to an empowered Palestinian Authority.

Sanchez was in Doha as part of his second Middle East tour since the war broke out, and visited the leaders of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to discuss ways to restore peace to the region.

Spain has been promoting an international peace conference that would solidify the two-state solution, a plan that has been backed by EU states, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the premier said.