Barbados to Recognize Palestine as a State While Maintaining Relationship with Israel, Foreign Minister Symmonds Announces

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