Promoting trade and prosperity is the only solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict

Antonio López Istúriz, MEP for the Partido Popular, spoke to the microphones of "De Cara al Mundo" in the studios of Onda Madrid as a politician and expert in international politics to explain the consequences that the advance of the policies of countries such as Iran could have on the current situation in the Middle East, marked by the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.  

Mr López Istúriz, have you managed to convince the European Parliament of the risk posed by Iran and its expansionist policy? Because it doesn't seem that Mr Josep Borrell is very much on that wavelength.

Unfortunately, it had to be in the end, but the latest report adopted by the European Parliament at its last session was a huge setback for the completely misguided policy of Mr Borrell and the European Commission's High Representative for Foreign Affairs. This has nothing to do with the attitude of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who has always been very specific about the danger of the Iranian regime. The report is devastating. 

It accuses and condemns Iran not only for the missile attacks against Israel, the first time a direct attack has taken place, but for what we all knew and which had not been publicly put on paper, that Iran has been behind the attacks of 7 October through Hamas, the constant attacks from the north, from southern Lebanon, through Hezbollah, through all its terrorist affiliates, through the Houthis, who are harassing European international ships in the waters of the Red Sea and in hotspots of the planet. 

The report is not lame. On the contrary, it denounces a reality, a reality of a theocratic regime militarised because it is bunkerising itself in front of the Iranian population. This is not a report against the regime or against the Iranian people, who are constantly suffering persecution and torture, a great many political dissidents, women who are dying, some of whom have been awarded the Sakharov prize, as we know, such as Mia Zahairi. 

 We are trying to draw attention to a regime that is totally anti-European, anti-Western, that cannot stand our way of life and that is acting by all means to destabilise the Middle East. 

Did you differentiate between the Iranian people and your regime of ayatollahs? It would be necessary to differentiate between Hamas, which is the group aligned with Iran's interests, and the Palestinian people, because this identification, this kidnapping, is where a large part of the problem lies when it comes to addressing what could be the recognition of a Palestinian state or cause, or providing a solution, effectively, to a people like the Palestinians who need their state, but they need a viable state with viable institutions and structures to be able to live in dignity.

With a certain parallelism with the advance of populism in Europe and in the Western world, on the extreme left and right. In this world it has also happened, after the Oslo Accords, with the Al-Fatah movement, the Palestinian Authority was created in the hands of Al-Fatah, which has really been an ocean of corruption in which the Palestinian people did not trust and trusted in more extreme, populist options, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, that is what has happened, unfortunately.

But with a slight difference. In this part of the world, populist movements are also terrorists. And from Hamas, in the end, all the democratic politicians who wanted a solution to the Palestinian issue, together with Israel and the great powers, are outside Palestine, are living in Arab countries, in exile, or have been assassinated by these terrorist organisations.

This is the problem, and the Palestinian population does not see itself represented at the moment and terrorist organisations such as Hamas falsely assume that representation, and that is what cannot be allowed if we want a solution, which is the solution that the European Union has been advocating for some time, which is that of the two States; it must be a Palestine free of all these influences of terrorist organisations that serve the external interests of the Iranian regime.

It is not solved by European tours, such as the one made by Mr Pedro Sánchez, who we know went around Europe, going to Ireland, a country traditionally linked, logically, for historical reasons, to the issue of the independence of Northern Ireland, to the most extremist movements in Palestine, and then Norway, which I would like to remind all listeners is not a member of the European Union, in other words, it does not sit with the European leaders.

The rest of the 26 member states, including socialist prime ministers, have turned their backs on Sánchez, because what everyone wants is a solution, in the end, for there to be a Palestinian state and an Israeli state, but in conditions in which Palestine is not in the hands of terrorist organisations, it is an overwhelming logic.

There are those who think that it is normal to deploy the Al-Quds brigades of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in countries in the region, as well as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, but also in countries such as Syria and Iraq, which is absolutely unacceptable. 

In the report we call for the outlawing and recognition as a terrorist organisation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Al-Quds brigades, in the face of years of resistance from Mr Borrell and the European High Representative he led. 

 The new Parliament from July and the European institutions will be more forceful with this phenomenon. Europe and the head of the West cannot afford any more talks with regimes like Tehran's, which whenever they have been given a small concession, they have interpreted it, just like Maduro's regime in Venezuela, or Putin's regime in Russia, or Erdogan's regime in Turkey, any confession has been interpreted as weakness, not as the beginning of negotiations, but as weakness. 

Notice that two or three weeks before the 7 October attacks on Israel, the United States had unfrozen funds from the Iranian regime, as a gesture of goodwill on the part of the Biden administration, and look what the result was. That is how they see it, these regimes see it as weakness and we cannot allow that, we have to be much tougher to defend our freedom and democracy. 

Mr López Isturiz, we are particularly concerned about the influence that Iran is gaining, that it is trying to gain in the Sahel, Iran, somewhat hand in hand with Algeria. It has supplied drones to the Polisario Front to try to attack places like Smara in the Sahara. The Sahel is our backyard, in that sense, the report stresses the need to pay much more attention because the destabilisation of the Sahel, where Russia and terrorist groups are moving in a very worrying way, destabilises us. 

We Spaniards, for example, are very distracted by the issue of Ukraine and Russia, and I am very proud that Spanish society continues to support the cause of the Ukrainians, which they know is our cause, the defence of our principles and values, and, therefore, it is not questioned by Spanish society, fortunately, despite the fact that the Spanish government is the one that invests the least in helping the Ukrainians, on a par with New Zealand or Japan in aid to Ukraine, let us remember those famous 10 Leopard tanks that we sent with great fanfare, of which only 6 arrived because 4 were damaged. 

This is the contribution of the Sánchez government to the defence of our freedoms and principles. Russia has a pincer strategy, in the north it is Ukraine, but in the south there is an enormous destabilisation that plays to the benefit of these autocratic countries, where at the moment armed gangs financed by the Russians, such as the Wagner group, the Chinese, the Iranians are currently acting to completely destabilise the whole of North Africa. 

To what end? 

To provoke an enormous migratory and security pressure on Europe on the southern flank, and the Spanish, Italians and Greeks have to react to this, because it is a pincer movement that we Europeans cannot allow. They have taken us out of Africa. The French have been kicked out, and we no longer have any control over the area. This requires the next European institutions and the next parliament to react immediately. 

This is where Morocco's initiative, backed by the United States, for this Atlantic façade is relevant, allowing, among other things, these Sahel countries, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mali, to be able to trade their products across the Atlantic, and to create economic and social relations that can strengthen institutions and prevent terrorist influences, on the one hand, and pro-Iranian and pro-Russian groups, on the other. 

As happened with the creation of the European Union, countries that were killing each other, countries that for centuries were killing each other, France, Spain, England, Germany... in the end we have been sitting here for 80 years now thanks to trade and economic prosperity, which has brought us a welfare state that has no parallel in the whole world. 

The Abraham Accords in the Middle East is a timid attempt, with Arab countries moving closer to Israel, but making trade lines and bringing prosperity is the only way to end political instability. 

This is also a good initiative, and Spain and European countries should also have been in the front line in favour of economic development in African countries, not only by sending humanitarian aid, which in the end we never know in whose hands it ends up, but by creating a space of prosperity and economy that helps these countries and their people not to move, to enjoy not having to be forced to change countries, to emigrate and not be constantly subjected to terrorist groups, armed, financed by autocracies whose ultimate goal is to destabilise the Western world and the principles of democracy and freedom.