Jonas Gahr Store at a press conference in Oslo, May 22. (Credit: AFP)
At a press conference in Oslo on Wednesday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store followed in the footsteps of his Spanish and Irish counterparts, who officially recognized on the same day Palestine as a state. “The Norwegian Government has decided that Norway will recognize Palestine as a state,” he said.
This resolution, which will enter into force on May 28, sounded like a condemnation to Israel In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz ordered the recall of his ambassadors to these three countries for consultations.
Oslo has good ties with Israel and is a historic mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as it hosted the meetings that led to the 1993 Accords. But since Oct. 7, Norway has not hesitated to take a harder line.
In February, it testified before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem were among the greatest obstacles to peace in the region. Is this a sign pointing to a change in its positioning?
Long-standing support
Recognizing Palestine as a state came at a time when international pressure has been mounting on Israel. On May 11, 143 of the UN’s 193 member states agreed that Palestine met the criteria for full membership of the UN. They passed a resolution calling on the Security Council to reconsider this membership.
A few weeks earlier, Norway had distanced itself from most Western countries on this issue. The country is one of the few Western states that have never stopped funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), following Israeli allegations that a dozen of its employees were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.
“Recognizing a Palestinian statehood is both expected and unexpected,” said Morten Boas, research professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. “There is a broad political consensus in Norway on the importance of recognizing the Palestinian state, as part of a two-state peace solution. But something is surprising about the fact that this recognition is happening now.”
Calling for a solution in line with the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine, the joint decision came in the eighth month of a war that has claimed the lives of over 35,000 Palestinians, while Ramallah did not have direct participation in the US, Egypt and Qatar brokered rounds of talks between Hamas and Israel.
“It seems that the absence of a political process involving the Palestinian Authority (PA) has pushed the Norwegian government to go ahead with the recognition of Palestine as part of the peace effort,” said Jorgen Jensehaugen, researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Although both the Conservative Party and the Populist Party were opposed to recognizing the Palestinian state, the decision has broad popular support in Norway.
“The Palestinian issue is the only foreign policy issue that really mobilizes people in Norway. It’s also a way for the ruling party to talk to the opposition,” said Boas.
In the run-up to the 2025 parliamentary elections, the ruling Labor Party suffers from a lack of support in the polls, while young people, who vote for the left more, have rallied to the Palestinian cause, leading four universities to sever their ties with Israeli institutions linked to the army.
While Hamas hailed the recent decision on Wednesday as a victory for the resistance, Oslo has nevertheless framed the action as “in support of moderate forces,” as its prime minister said. Gahr Store added, “This is an investment in the only solution that can bring lasting peace to the Middle East.”
Norway’s commitment dates back to 1992, when Ahmed Qurei, then director general of the PLO’s Department of Economic Affairs and Planning, called for creating the PA as an interim body to exercise limited Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000 brought the process to a halt.
“By announcing its recognition of the Palestinian state on Wednesday, Norway has in a way compromised part of its chances of once again playing a key role as mediator. This has sent shockwaves through Israel,” said Boas.
International law
In the wake of Norway’s official recognition of Palestine, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he would freeze funding transfers to the PA, in which Norway had been involved since February.
“Since the Oslo Accords, Norway has developed increasingly close ties with Palestine and has invested a great deal of resources, both political and economic, in the Palestinian territories,” said Jensehaugen.
Under the terms of the agreements, Israel shall collect customs duties on behalf of the PA, and then pay them back to the PA. After a seven-month-long stalemate, during which Tel Aviv threatened to withhold revenues from Ramallah following the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli and Palestinian leaders finally agreed that Norway would hold part of the tax money until Israel agreed that they could be released.
On the sidelines of the G7 summit in Stresa, Italy, on Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, “I believe that cutting off Palestinian banks from their Israeli counterparts would create a humanitarian crisis.” This came at a time when an economic crisis had already hit the Palestinian territories for several years.
This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translated by Joelle El Khoury.