The formal recognition of Palestine as a state by Norway, Ireland and Spain will enter into force on 28 May 2024, but was announced yesterday.

For his part, Israeli political commentator Ben Caspit said the European countries’ announcement was just the beginning.

During the eight months that this weak Netanyahu spent in power with his right-wing government, Hamas’s dream has became more realistic.

A port in Gaza, became a reality, and the expansion of Palestinian rights was accepted at the United Nations, and their standing in the United Nations was strengthened, including a sweeping vote to statehood, he told a local radio.

The unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state comes as Israel continues its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip in which it has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, in order to wipe out the cornerstone of the population.

Lord Balfour was a former British Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary of the country. He also wrote the Balfour Declaration, which led to the formation of Israel three decades later.

Lord Arthur James Balfour, born on July 25, 1848, in Wittingehame, Scotland, was the first earl of Balfour. He was the eldest son of James Maitland Balfour, a wealthy Scottish businessman, and the nephew to Robert Cecil, the third marquess of Salisbury.

Lord Arthur James Balfour was raised in a highly intellectual and aristocratic environment.

The Sykes–Picot Agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the UK and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire.

The agreement led to the division of Turkish-held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine into various French- and British-administered areas.

Negotiations were begun in November 1915, and the final agreement took its name from the chief negotiators from Britain and France, Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot.

Sergey Dimitriyevich Sazonov was also present to represent Russia, the third member of the Triple Entente.

The Origins of the World War I Agreement That Carved Up the Middle East

The secret treaty, known as the Sykes–Picot Agreement, was named after its lead negotiators, the aristocrats Sir Mark Sykes of England and François Georges-Picot of France.

Its terms were set out in a letter from British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey to Paul Cambon, France’s ambassador to Great Britain, on May 16, 1916.

The color-coded partition map and text provided that Britain (“B”) would receive control over the red area, known today as Jordan, southern Iraq and Haifa in Israel.

France (“A”) would obtain the blue area, which covers modern-day Syria, Lebanon, northern Iraq, Mosul and southeastern Turkey, including Kurdistan.

And the brown area of Palestine, excluding Haifa and Acre, would become subject to international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other allies, and the representatives of [Sayyid Hussein bin Ali, sharif of Mecca].

Besides carving the region into British and French “spheres of influence,” the arrangement specified various commercial relations and other understandings between them for the Arab lands.

Middle East Monitor / ABC Flash Point News 2024.