Norway | Palestine |
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Palestine has a diplomatic mission in Oslo, while Norway has a representative office in Al-Ram. As of the 22nd of May, 2024, Norway has pledged to recognize the state of Palestine on the 28th of May. [1]
The Labour Party, the ruling party in the 1940s, held a pro-Israel position. For the majority of non-Socialist and Christians Norwegians, the new Jewish state represented the realization of the Prophecies of the Old Testament. [2] Norway was described as the most pro-Israel of the three Nordic countries. [2] However, Labour's support for Israel was not indisputable, as in 1945 the party considered the establishment of a Jewish state to be "not possible and unfair". The party's proposal for the Jewish problem was non-Zionist, assimilating Jews into their respective European countries. [2]
After Knut Frydenlund became foreign minister in 1973, he played a crucial role in promoting Palestinian demands early in his political career. However, in 1974, Norway was among eight states voting against granting the PLO observer status in the United Nations General Assembly.
Norway helped orchestrate the Oslo Accords. For the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.
To communicate better with the PLO headquarters in Tunis, Norway also established an embassy in the Tunisian capital. [3]
In May 2017, a militant who took part in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, where 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed, was commemorated on a women's center by an agency of the Palestinian Authority. The center was built with the aid of the government of Norway and UN Women. [4] Norway's Foreign Minister demanded that Norway's funding for the building be repaid and its logo removed from the building. He said that "Norway will not allow itself to be associated with institutions that take the names of terrorists in this way". [5] [6] [7]
In June 2022, the Norwegian government announced the start of labelling products from settlements following the EU approach. [8]
On 27 October 2023, Norway was one of 121 countries to vote in favor of a General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire to the fighting between Israel and Gaza. [9] In November, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre rejected the Israeli aggression on Gaza and stated that it violated international laws of war, affirming the Palestinians' right to self-defense. [10]
On 16 November 2023, the Norwegian Parliament, the Storting, approved a resolution that calls on the government to be ready to recognise Palestine as an independent state. [11] On 23 December, Støre strongly criticized Israel's warfare. He added that the Gaza Strip is now virtually without any hospital, "This means that more than 2 million people who have an urgent need for medical assistance are in a critical situation, which we cannot accept." And it risks losing any solidarity as a result of the 7 October attack. [12]
Fatah, formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, is a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, is the chairman of Fatah.
The Palestinian Authority, officially known as the Palestinian National Authority or the State of Palestine, is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over West Bank areas "A" and "B" as a consequence of the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority controlled the Gaza Strip prior to the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, when it lost control to Hamas; the PA continues to claim the Gaza Strip, although Hamas exercises de facto control. Since January 2013, the Palestinian Authority has used the name "State of Palestine" on official documents, although the United Nations continues to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the "representative of the Palestinian people".
The Palestine Liberation Organization is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people. Founded in 1964, it initially sought to establish an Arab state over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating the elimination of the State of Israel. However, in 1993, the PLO recognized Israeli sovereignty with the Oslo I Accord, and now only seeks Arab statehood in the Palestinian territories that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.
Palestinians hold a diverse range of views on the peace process with Israel, though the goal that unites them is the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Some Palestinians accept a two-state solution, with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip forming a distinct Palestinian state, whereas other Palestinians insist on a one-state solution with equal rights for all citizens whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews. In this scenario, Palestinian refugees may be allowed to resettle the land they were forced to flee in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. However, widespread anti-Semitic sentiments in Palestinian society and Palestinian militancy have hindered the peace process.
The history of the State of Palestine describes the creation and evolution of the State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the Mandatory period, numerous plans of partition of Palestine were proposed but without the agreement of all parties. In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was voted for. The leaders of the Jewish Agency for Palestine accepted parts of the plan, while Arab leaders refused it. This triggered the 1947–1949 Palestine war and led, in 1948, to the establishment of the state of Israel on a part of Mandate Palestine as the Mandate came to an end.
The Oslo I Accord or Oslo I, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or short Declaration of Principles (DOP), was an attempt in 1993 to set up a framework that would lead to the resolution of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It was the first face-to-face agreement between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has referred to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as "the Occupied Palestinian Territory", and this term was used as the legal definition by the ICJ in its advisory opinion of July 2004. The term occupied Palestinian territory was used by the United Nations and other international organizations between October 1999 and December 2012 to refer to areas controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, but from 2012, when Palestine was admitted as one of its non-member observer states, the United Nations started using exclusively the name State of Palestine. The European Union (EU) also uses the term "occupied Palestinian territory". The government of Israel and its supporters use the label "disputed territories" instead.
Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in the southern Levant region of West Asia. It encompasses two disconnected territories — the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, collectively known as the Palestinian territories — within the larger region of Palestine. The country shares its borders with Israel to north, west and south, Jordan to the east and Egypt to the southwest. It has a combined land area of 6,020 square kilometres (2,320 sq mi) while its population exceeds five million people. Its proclaimed capital is Jerusalem while Ramallah serves as its administrative center and Rafah is currently its largest city. Arabic is the official language. The majority of Palestinians practice Islam while Christianity also has a significant presence.
Jonas Gahr Støre is a Norwegian politician who has served as the 36th and current Prime Minister of Norway since 2021 and has been Leader of the Labour Party since 2014. He served under Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2012 and as Minister of Health and Care Services from 2012 to 2013. He has been a Member of the Storting for Oslo since 2009.
The Arab–Israeli conflict is the phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between various Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century. The roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict have been attributed to the support by Arab League member countries for the Palestinians, a fellow League member, in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict; this in turn has been attributed to the simultaneous rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century, though the two national movements had not clashed until the 1920s.
Espen Barth Eide is a Norwegian politician and political scientist. He is currently serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Jonas Gahr Støre's government, having previously done so under Jens Stoltenberg. He has been a member of the Norwegian Parliament since 2017, representing the Labour Party. He was elected to this seat in the 2017 election, and reelected in the 2021 election. From 2017 to 2021, Eide was the Labour Party's spokesperson for Energy, Climate and Environment. He also served as Minister of Climate and the Environment between 2021 and 2023.
Israel–Norway relations are the bilateral relations between Israel and Norway. Norway was one of the first countries to recognize Israel, doing so on 4 February 1949.
The bilateral relations between the State of Palestine and Russia have a complex history, deeply interwoven with Russian and Soviet relations with the Israeli enterprise, Palestinian nationalism, and Third World national liberation movements. Between 1956 and 1990, Soviet-Palestinian relations were part of the then ongoing Soviet-American confrontation.
China–Palestine relations, also referred to as Sino–Palestinian relations, encompass the long bilateral relationship between China and Palestine dating back from the early years of the Cold War.
Political relations between the State of Palestine and the United States have been complex and strained since the 1960s. While the U.S. does not recognize the State of Palestine, it recognizes the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the legitimate representative entity for the Palestinian people; following the Oslo Accords, it recognized the Palestinian National Authority as the legitimate Palestinian government of the Palestinian territories.
The Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. They marked the start of the Oslo process, a peace process aimed at achieving a peace treaty based on Resolution 242 and Resolution 338 of the United Nations Security Council. The Oslo process began after secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway, resulting in both the recognition of Israel by the PLO and the recognition by Israel of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and as a partner in bilateral negotiations.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization, the largest being Fatah.
The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) is the unicameral legislature of the Palestinian Authority, elected by the Palestinian residents of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It currently comprises 132 members, elected from 16 electoral districts of the Palestinian Authority. The PLC has a quorum requirement of two-thirds, and since 2006 Hamas and Hamas-affiliated members have held 74 of the 132 seats in the PLC. The PLC's activities were suspended in 2007 and remained so as of November 2023, while PLC committees continue working at a low rate and parliamentary panel discussions are still occurring.
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and Maoist organization. It is also frequently referred to as the Democratic Front, or al-Jabha al-Dīmūqrāṭiyya. It is a member organization of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Alliance of Palestinian Forces and the Democratic Alliance List.
Jordan–Palestine relations are strong, historical, bilateral relations.