Symmonds: Recognition of Palestine to end ‘inconsistency’

arbados on Friday indicated it intends to recognise Palestine as a state while maintaining this country’s relationship with long-time ally Israel, Minister of Foreign Affairs Kerrie Symmonds announced on Friday.

In a briefing at the ministry’s Culloden Road headquarters, Symmonds said talks on the recognition of the Palestinian state started just a month before the Israeli-Hamas war began last October.

“Barbados has always maintained at the United Nations that there should be a two-state solution that goes back again as far back as 1967 or thereabouts,” the foreign minister said. “But ironically, despite having said to the world that we would like to see a two-state solution, Barbados itself has never recognised the state of Palestine. Therefore, there is an incongruity and inconsistency because how can we say we want a two-state solution if we do not recognise Palestine as a state?”

Symmonds said a paper outlining the measure is now before the Cabinet in a bid to correct an “error that we have made through the years”.

The announcement came a month after local pro-Palestinian campaign group, the Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine (CAAP), urged government to reexamine relations with Israel and recognise Palestine as a state. It also came a day after the United States effectively blocked the United Nations from recognising a Palestinian state by casting a veto in the Security Council to deny Palestinians full membership of the world body. In February, Israeli lawmakers backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of any “unilateral” recognition of a Palestinian state amid growing calls for the revival of Palestinian statehood talks.

Symmonds said the foreign ministry has formally reached out to the Palestinian Authority to signal Barbados’ intent on formal recognition, disclosing that “we had these discussions with Palestine in September of last year prior to this eruption of the difficulties between Israel and Hamas and Gaza, so it preceded that event”.

He stressed that the acknowledgment of Palestine as a state has no bearing on the relationship Barbados has with Israel.

“Since August 29 of 1967, Barbados has had a formal recognition of the State of Israel, and the relationship between the two countries has been an exceptionally good one. We have benefitted tremendously through technical cooperation with the State of Israel in a number of fields, not the least of which is our efforts at food security and agriculture, and also assisting us with the increasing drought challenges and water-related challenges that we have had,” Symmonds said.

Addressing the impact of the ongoing warn between Israel and Hamas, the minister noted that each time there was a conflict in the Middle East, consumers felt the pinch of oil supply issues.

“Our economy is still, unfortunately, very closely linked to the oil and gas industry and even if you are not sourcing directly from that part of the world your petroleum product, the reality is that every time there is a crisis in that part of the world, the global response to the petroleum sector internationally sees higher prices, which has a tremendous knock-on effect for consumers,” he said.

Symmonds added that as the current conflict broadened to include neighbouring states, Barbadians must exercise caution and be wise in their spending choices from resulting global inflation.

The decision to recognise Palestine as a state is expected to be welcomed by CAAP whose secretary Lalu Hanuman said last month that it was “utterly appalling and disgraceful” that Barbados had yet to take that position.

“Our Prime Minister has been making statements about televised genocide. We fully support and endorse those statements, but more needs to be done. Talk is cheap. Action is what we want. We want immediate recognition for Palestine,” he said at the time.

The US on Thursday vetoed a draft resolution that recommended that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership” of the UN. Britain and Switzerland abstained, while the remaining 12 council members voted yes.

While the UK has maintained a firm position of non-recognition of Palestinian statehood, the US has a long-standing policy that any such recognition must come through direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel rather than through the UN’s unilateral recognition.

Declared a state by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in November 1988, UN General Assembly Resolution 43/177 acknowledged the Palestinian Declaration of Independence and replaced the PLO designation with “Palestine” in the UN system. The PLO claimed sovereignty over the internationally recognised territories of Gaza and the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem.

Accepted as a UN non-member observer state in 2012,the State of Palestine has so far been recognised by 140 of the UN’s 193 member states.

Nine months after attaining independence, Barbados established diplomatic relations with Israel. The two countries are represented by resident honorary consuls while Barbados’ High Commissioner to London is accredited as the non-resident ambassador to Israel. Israel’s representation of Barbados is through its New York embassy to the Caribbean.

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb