N-VA minister Demir backs recognition of Palestine within divided party
Despite divisions within her party, Zuhal Demir of N-VA is in favour of recognising a Palestinian state, she said in an interview with De Standaard.
Prime minister and party colleague Bart De Wever is convening the core cabinet on Wednesday to open the debate on the position Belgium will adopt on recognition of Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September.
“This recognition can bring peace,” Demir told De Standaard. “It should not be recognition of Hamas, but of a people and that people’s right to exist.”
Within her own party, opinions are divided. “As a Kurdish person, but also as a Flemish nationalist, I believe it is crucial that a people has the right to self-determination,” she said. “Over the past decades, the Palestinians have been driven from their land. Their territory has been continuously taken away from them.”
At the end of July, N-VA leader Valerie Van Peel said it was not the right time to recognise Palestine, despite urgent calls from Vooruit, CD&V and Les Engagés, partners with N-VA in the federal coalition.
"As a Kurdish person, but also as a Flemish nationalist, I believe it is crucial that a people has the right to self-determination"
“You have to start negotiations to get two states recognised,” Van Peel told VTM Nieuws. “Then you are in a negotiation phase in which Arab countries also recognise Israel, but unfortunately we are not there today.”
For Demir, however, the time to act is now, in the run-up to the UN General Assembly in New York next month.
French president Emmanuel Macron announced in July that he would officially recognise Palestine there, and Demir says Belgium must do the same.
The federal and regional parliaments have discussed the situation in Gaza and possible recognition over the past two weeks.
Meanwhile, there is growing consensus within the federal government on an entry ban for two extremist Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. According to N-VA, the decision has been taken, but francophone liberal party MR denies this.
N-VA parliamentary leader Axel Ronse told VRT’s De Ochtend on Friday that a ban had been agreed. However, Foreign minister Maxime Prévot of Les Engagés previously told the Foreign Affairs Committee that no decision had been taken.
"It should not be recognition of Hamas, but of a people and that people’s right to exist"
According to coalition partner MR, nothing has been decided and the ban is part of the government negotiations on Belgium’s position on Gaza. Admitting now that a decision has been made would mean no further concessions can be made on the issue.
More clarity is expected on Wednesday, when the core cabinet will discuss Gaza, including the possible recognition of Palestine and the conditions under which that could happen.
Next month, France will become the first G7 country and the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to officially recognise Palestine, joining 147 UN member states that have already done so.
#FlandersNewsService | Zuhal Demir in parliament © PHOTO BELGIAN FREELANCE
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