A petition signed by over 12,000 individuals requesting Portugal to recognize the State of Palestine was delivered to Parliament today, where it is expected to be debated when possible, according to one of the petitioners.
The document, proposed by 163 figures from various social, political, and cultural fields, was handed over by a group of petitioners including former presidential candidate António Sampaio da Nóvoa and consultant and ex-journalist José Vítor Milheiros, to the Vice-President of the Assembly of the Republic, Teresa Morais.
Sampaio da Nóvoa left Parliament without speaking to journalists, leaving the former journalist from Público, Vítor Malheiros, to reaffirm the petition’s contents.
“We want Portugal to recognize the State of Palestine, joining 149 countries worldwide, which already represents more than the majority of the UN that acknowledges it, and that Portugal commits to the decisions of the International Criminal Court [ICC] concerning Palestine,” said Vítor Malheiros.
Furthermore, he continued, regarding the enforcement of arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Portugal is demanded not to allow the transit of military materials that could be used by Israel in Palestine, as a means to halt the ongoing genocide.
Portugal is among 15 European Union (EU) countries that do not recognize the State of Palestine, a subject that divides EU member states, which nonetheless support the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Vítor Milheiros also emphasized other issues in Palestine raised in the petition, particularly the hostage situation by Hamas, describing it as “equally unacceptable.”
“However, nothing that Israel is doing contributes to solving this problem, nothing aids in freeing the hostages, and on the contrary, it only increases violence and makes the problem even more challenging to solve. Israel does not seem interested in resolving the issue, not even resolving the hostage situation,” he argued.
“This aggression, these massacres of Palestinian civilians do not increase the likelihood of hostages being released. This is unacceptable. It is a political issue, but above all, a moral issue. The first step is to trust the State of Palestine and then apply pressure in all possible forums to find a negotiated solution for peace,” Vítor Milheiros added.
For the communication consultant, the petition, politically involving figures from nearly all political spectrums, the war in Gaza is “not a left or right issue, it is not by any means a partisan issue, it is a fundamental issue of defending rights and defending life.”
Regarding the same document, on the 18th of this month, lawyer Ricardo Sá Fernandes accused the government of pursuing “cowardly diplomacy.”
“At this moment, what is urgently needed is to stop the extermination of the Palestinian people, to halt the ethnic cleansing occurring [in Gaza]. This is done by Palestinians, Jews, Israelis, Christians, by all people who believe in peace and have a sense of humanity which is currently missing in the world,” stated Ricardo Sá Fernandes, one of the petition’s promoters to the Assembly of the Republic concerning the recognition of the State of Palestine.
The Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths and 251 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
The Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip has already caused over 55,000 deaths, according to local authorities controlled by Hamas, the destruction of nearly all infrastructure in the territory, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
