TEHRAN - Feeling that Israel is being badly isolated, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz made a strong criticism of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez over recognizing Palestine as a sovereign and independent state, claiming he is a “partner to incitement” of Jewish “genocide”.

Contrary to claims by Katz, a member of the right-wing Likud Party, Sanchez said the recognition is intended to establish peace.

“The recognition of the state of Palestine is not only a matter of historical justice, but we are all aiming at establishing peace,” the Spanish prime minister said while speaking at the Moncloa Palace.

The remarks by Katz openly show that Israel does not want Palestinians to have a state of their own in their motherland.

For decades, extremists in Israel and their die-hard supporters in the West, particularly in the United States Congress, have been launching blistering attacks against any scholar or official who has opposed Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians or continuous stealing of the remaining Palestinian lands. They have accused them of being anti-Semitic.

The recent student protests to Israel’s cruel war in Gaza in American and European universities have also been branded as anti-Semitic while students, some of them Jews, have been calling for an immediate end to the carnage in the blockaded Gaza enclave.

But this time Katz is promoting the term “genocide” as anti-Semitism has largely lost color. 

Truly, it is the current extremist Israeli regime that is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip to the extent that some activists in Israel are demanding the United States to stop delivering arms to Israel that is committing “genocide” in Gaza.

Katz and other extremists have been misleadingly portraying the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as an existential threat but describe the attack on Gaza, which has so far led to the death of about 36,000, maiming or injury of about 80,000, demolishing or destruction of half of Gaza homes, the starvation of 2.3 million people and many other horrendous acts, as an act of “self-defense”.

If Israel had abided by the UN Security Council resolutions that oblige Israel to return to the 1948 lands the Oct. 7 attack would not have taken place. If a durable solution is not found for this bleeding wound the world should wait for more atrocities in the future.

The bitter reality is that Israel has rebuffed every chance to resolve the decades-long conflict in the region.  14 years ago, the late Saudi Prince Saud al-Faisal said Israel was the world's "spoilt child" and got away with violations of international law and war crimes without punishment.

"Not reaching solutions is (the result of) the special treatment Israel gets," he said at a news conference with the then Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Riyadh.

Mustafa Fetouri, an independent award-winning journalist and author, also says Israel has grown up as the spoiled boy of the world by the United States.

“By being nurtured, coddled, hugged and financed by the US, Israel has grown up just like a badly behaved child and over-spoiled kid who knows what is right and what is wrong, but insists on doing the very wrong thing and always repeating it, counting on ‘mother America’s’ help,” Fetouri wrote in Middle East Monitor on December 7, 2023.

On May 6 when Hamas agreed to a Qatari-Egyptian mediated ceasefire deal, Israel, Washington’s spoiled child, rejected it and embarked on attacking Rafah.

Now, feeling largely isolated because of the ruling by the International Criminal Court (ICJ) obliging Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah”, the request by International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his war minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity coupled with an international outrage against the Sunday night attack on a makeshift tent in Rafah that marked another chapter in the history of Israel’s mad war in Gaza have prompted Foreign Minister Katz to make unfounded, misleading and deceitful accusations against the Spanish prime minister.

It seems that the statement by Sanchez that “the state of Palestine must be viable, with the West Bank and Gaza connected by a corridor and with East Jerusalem as its capital” has largely angered Katz and other Zionists who want the entire Palestine for themselves.

The Spanish recognition of Palestine as an independent and sovereign along with Ireland and Norway on Tuesday, which also be followed by Slovenia on Thursday, is part of a chain of events that are taking place one by one and pushing Israel and its main allies - the US and Britain - to a corner.

Deceitful and misleading remarks will not work for long years.