Keeping at arms' length

This week, Pedro Sánchez issued a royal decree permanently banning exports to and imports from Israel of all military equipment. The move came as UN leaders, Sánchez among them, convened in New York, to discuss once again the idea of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Though it may still be rejected by a vote by MPs, which has to be held within 30 days, the embargo's so-called permanence is misleading. When future Spanish governments want to start trading with Israel again, prompted either by domestic motives or a desire to bolster the nation's defence, it can be revoked. The decree also allows for one-off derogations if they are in Spain's interest, provided that they pass a parliamentary vote.

Spain imports more Israeli-manufactured military hardware than it exports to the country. The embargo thus seems more sacrificial than punitive. That said, its impact might be felt more in Tel Aviv now that Germany, Israel's second biggest supplier of military equipment after the US, stopped sending arms to the country in August, in reaction to what it described as Benjamin Netanyahu's “unclear” policy aims in the Gaza Strip.

The arms embargo is fully in line with the Spanish government's anti-Israel stance. Along with Ireland and Norway, Spain infuriated Netanyahu last May by recognising Palestine as a state. Ahead of this week's UN summit, the UK, Australia, Portugal, Belgium, France and Canada followed suit. But the wisdom of making symbolic overtures towards a terrorist organisation is questionable.

Giorgia Meloni's tentative promise is more attuned to the conflict's political realities. The Italian prime minister has agreed to recognise Palestinian statehood on two conditions: that Hamas free the hostages taken during its rampage on 7 October, 2023, and that it have no part in any future Palestinian administration.

In her new book, Matar el Narvi (Killing the Nerve), Catalan travel writer Anna Pazos recounts the year she spent in Israel between 2014 and 2015. Pazos observes that, for many of its propagators, the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” merely feeds “the fantasy of Israel's imminent disappearance or the even more far-fetched scenario of the Palestinian Authority overcoming corruption and inefficiency to constitute a functional state”. That also applies to the present-day situation, in which the rabid anti-semitism and bloodlust of Gaza's terrorist administration constitute the internal barrier to effective statehood.

The discussions about a two-state solution held in New York this week appear hopelessly abstract. Netanhayu has rejected it, and Hamas does not want to exist alongside Israel. It wants to destroy it.

Until Palestinians are liberated from this fanatical regime, the readiness for negotiation that Western nations hope to foster by recognition of Palestinian statehood will remain a fantasy, regardless of Israel's stance.