{"id":106522,"date":"2025-07-31T03:29:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T03:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/106522\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T03:29:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T03:29:12","slug":"pressure-piles-on-merz-to-punish-israel-over-gaza-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/106522\/","title":{"rendered":"Pressure piles on Merz to punish Israel over Gaza \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Still, Veldkamp ruled out unilateral recognition of Palestine, saying, \u201cAt this moment, there is no process underway. Recognizing a Palestinian state now will not make much of a difference on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Political gesture\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Italy, another key player, is waiting to see the outcome of the U.N. meeting in September before deciding whether to back recognition. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Hamas remains, then declaring the willingness to immediately recognize Palestine as a state is a political gesture, not an anathema,\u201d said one Italian official, speaking on condition of anonymity. \u201cBut we need to see what opportunities may arise in a week\u2019s time. As things progress with the current situation, or rather the continuation of Israeli military attacks, even the Italian government could change its mind,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Belgium, Foreign Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rtl.be\/actu\/belgique\/politique\/reconnaissance-de-la-palestine-maxime-prevot-fera-une-proposition-au\/2025-07-25\/article\/757743\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Maxime Pr\u00e9vot said that<\/a> any decision on recognition will be postponed until at least early September. The country\u2019s five governing parties remain split on the issue, though opposition groups are intensifying calls for Belgium to align with France\u2019s position.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia have already taken the step to recognize Palestinian statehood, a signal that the EU consensus is fracturing further as pressure mounts for a more coordinated response to the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Inside the Commission, divisions are increasingly public. European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera broke ranks <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-teresa-ribera-slams-brussels-inaction-gaza-crisis-israel-ursula-von-der-leyen-spain\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in a radio interview<\/a> on Wednesday, accusing the Commission of dragging its feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Still, Veldkamp ruled out unilateral recognition of Palestine, saying, \u201cAt this moment, there is no process underway. Recognizing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":106523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[259,111,372,262,8703,156,25821,117,68339,119,99,373,31815,2219,17723,1802,50,4851,2853,1183,125,126,5677,127,128,129,68340,7841,130,376,2856,131,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-106522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-banks","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","11":"tag-defense","12":"tag-emmanuel-macron","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-friedrich-merz","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-horizon-europe","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-israel-hamas-war","20":"tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","21":"tag-italy","22":"tag-keir-starmer","23":"tag-military","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-palestine","26":"tag-parliament","27":"tag-research","28":"tag-rights","29":"tag-sanctions","30":"tag-services","31":"tag-slovenia","32":"tag-spain","33":"tag-sweden","34":"tag-teresa-ribera","35":"tag-the-netherlands","36":"tag-trade","37":"tag-united-kingdom","38":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","39":"tag-war","40":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}