By Ahmet Gencturk
ATHENS (AA) – As Israel’s genocide in Gaza enters a second devastating year, ex-Greek Foreign Minister George Katrougalos asserted that recognition of Palestine as an independent state is now “both a moral and legal obligation” for all.
“It is a matter of re-ensuring the democratic character of international order, because now we have had the UN General Assembly saying many times that the state of Palestine should be recognized,” Katrougalos said in an interview with Anadolu.
“We see what’s happening in Gaza and also in the West Bank. I think it’s the least that an international order that would like to call itself democratic should do.”
Over the past year, Israel has killed or wounded more than 140,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, while destroying vast tracts of the besieged enclave, and keeping millions displaced and constantly on the move under the threat of relentless attacks.
Israeli aggression has simultaneously risen in the occupied West Bank, where its forces have killed or injured more than 6,500 Palestinians since last October.
There has also been a surge in detentions and arrests, with the total number of Palestinians held by the Israeli army in the West Bank now over 10,000. Settler violence against Palestinians has also drastically spiked, along with attempts to seize more and more Palestinian land.
Emphasizing the importance of recognition, Katrougalos pointed out that even “half recognition” enabled the Palestine Authority to take legal international action against Israel.
“Full legal personality recognized by the United Nations would give them even more diplomatic weapons to confront this dire situation,” he said.
- EU’s credibility and interests at stake
The EU’s inability to pursue a credible policy on the longstanding Palestine issue and Israel’s ongoing Gaza assault stems from some member states prioritizing their own national ambitions over the bloc’s interests, according to Katrougalos.
“For the EU to be able to claim autonomy from the US foreign policy and claim to be the third pole, next to the US and China, this trend has to be overcome,” he said.
Katrougalos urged all member states to follow the examples of Spain and Ireland, who he said saved the EU’s honor by their decision to recognize Palestine earlier this year.
“If we want to be believed, especially by the Global South, that we are indeed a union of law, a union of principles, we should not act with double standards. We cannot act in a different way regarding Ukraine and in a different way regarding Gaza,” he said.
“This is clearly contrary to our interests in a geopolitical sense.”
He said growing civil society movements in support of Palestine are pressuring European states to change their policies, citing the case of the UK retracting its objection to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s request for warrants against the Israeli premier and defense minister.
However, most Western states, at varying levels, continue to support Israel or choose to overlook the magnitude of the suffering inflicted on Palestinians, he said.
One of the reasons, he said, is that “most Western leaders do not recognize the big shift in the international order.”
“It is not bipolar or unipolar anymore … Now, we have a clearly multipolar world,” he said.
“The American leadership seems to act in this false idea of the bipolar world, in which Israel is representing the American interests in the area. I think that this would also prove to be against the geopolitical interests of the US.”
Overall, this policy of the West “is a clear blow to multilateralism,” he asserted.
- Israel risks becoming ‘a rogue state’
Responding to a question, Katrougalos, who is also an independent UN expert, acknowledged the risk of Western complicity in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and occupation of Palestinian territories.
“Arms export to Israel should stop as Israel uses them to bomb women and children in Gaza,” he said.
“The products coming from illegal Israeli settlements should be absolutely out of the markets of Europe and other Western states, among other things.”
As for Israel’s future, Katrougalos said he still hopes that the more progressive voices do not let Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the current leadership take the country down such a “reckless” path.
“If Israel continues on the same road, it will become like South Africa during the apartheid time, a rogue state. It is not going to be good for the international order, for the Middle East, for the Palestinians, and not even for the Israeli people,” he warned.