The Government has already consulted the President of the Republic regarding recognition of the State of Palestine and will begin consulting with parties represented in parliament next week, starting with Chega, Iniciativa Liberal and LIVRE

Foreign minister Paulo Rangel has told Lusa that the meetings are part of preparatory meetings not only for this issue, but also for the State Budget and other legislation.

“Since July 31, it has been clear that Portugal has initiated this process” of recognising the state of Palestine in September, during the United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States of America”, he said.

Regarding the possibility of sanctioning “violent (Israeli) settlers” occupying Palestinian territory in the West Bank, Rangel intimated that “there is a lot of room for progress”.

“We are in favor of sanctions, not total sanctions—since consensus is difficult—but some sanctions (against Israel). These would be important signs of pressure on the Israeli government to stop the offensive currently underway in Gaza, whether it is obstacles to the arrival of humanitarian aid or the plan for new settlements in the West Bank, which is extremely worrying,” he said.

Worrying too is the fact that the US administration has refused to issue visas for the Palestinian delegation attending the UN General Assembly in September. For now, the European Union has ‘urged’ the US to reconsider, “taking into account international law and how the UN was constructed”.

Meantime, global antipathy towards Israel continues to build. Portugal however has said it is under no obligation to extend any kind of ‘state support’ to the three Portuguese (one of them a member of parliament) taking part in a humanitarian flotilla, aiming to reach Gaza with ‘supplies’ in the middle of September.

“The initiative is certainly commendable,” Paulo Rangel acknowledges. “The situation of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is truly terrible and I understand that everyone, in their own way, wants to do what they can, but this is an initiative of civil society”, he said. If there are problems along the way, Portuguese consular protection for the three nationals “is guaranteed”, he added.