Denmark and France to Join European Nations Voting on Palestinian State
Error: Contact form not found.
by JNS.org
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – A vote by the European Parliament on the recognition of a Palestinian state has been postponed from this week to mid-December. The Danish government, meanwhile, announced that its parliament will vote on a similar resolution in early January. Next week, the French parliament will vote on unilateral Palestinian state recognition.
The European Parliament will debate the Palestine state issue on Wednesday, but the actual vote will not take place until Dec. 15-18. The resolution is supported by the Socialists and Democrats Group and the Unified European Left Party.
In Denmark, the Palestinian statehood motion has been introduced by the Socialist People’s Party, the Red-Green Alliance, and the Greenland-based Inuit Ataqatigiit party. The Danish parliament will first debate the resolution on Dec. 11.
“The [Danish] parliament directs the government to recognize Palestine as an independent and sovereign state within pre-1967 borders and, by extension, provide the state of Palestine with full diplomatic rights,” the draft text of the resolution says, according to the EUobserver.
Another Nordic country, Sweden, officially recognized “Palestine” at the end of October, and other more symbolic votes on the issue took place in the parliaments of Britain, Ireland and Spain.
“We all have the same goal of creating peace in the Middle East. In Denmark, we also support a two-state solution, but we have chosen another direction and we stand by that. But it is important to say that every country makes its own decisions on this question but we all agree on the same goal: creating peace in the Middle East,” said Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the upcoming vote in the French parliament, calling it a “grave mistake” and questioning the Palestinians’ commitment to compromise with the Jews in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The State of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, the only state that we have, and the Palestinians demanding a state do not want to recognize the right to have a state for the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said, The Jerusalem Post reported.
