The Together for Catalonia (Junts per Catalunya) parliamentary group has withdrawn the motion on the conflict between Israel and Palestine that it registered last October 9th, which urged the Catalan chamber to reaffirm its commitment to a peaceful resolution of the dispute, and incorporated the petition to amend "the political, historical and conceptual error and inaccuracy of defining as apartheid the political system that governs any part of the Palestinian or Israeli territories". This motion was to be debated in next week's plenary session, but Junts has decided to withdraw it - as the ACN agency has reported and ElNacional.cat has been able to confirm - this Tuesday at lunchtime, after they themselves presented parliamentary parties' committee with a proposal for an institutional declaration in which it proposed that Parliament "condemn the terrorist attack by Hamas" of last October 7th and recognize "the right of Israel to defend itself against indiscriminate attacks within the limits marked by humanitarian law and international treaties". The text, to which this newspaper has had access, also urges "that humanitarian protection be guaranteed to the civilian population of Gaza".
Thus, from Junts, they explain that they want to explore and prioritize an agreement so that during the next parliamentary plenary, which will begin on Tuesday 24th, an institutional declaration of Parliament on this conflict agreed with the parties with representation can be read in the chamber, a will that was also expressed at the committee meeting by other groups. At present, the parties are negotiating amendments and proposals in order to reach an understanding which, it must be said, looks complex, given the very different positions of the different groups regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The graffiti at the Junts headquarters
These developments took place on Tuesday, hours before the Junts party headquarters was found this morning covered in graffiti in favour of Palestine. Both the president of the party, Laura Borràs, and the general secretary, Jordi Turull, denounced via the social media X the appearance of these messages on the party premises, located in Passatge de Bofill, in Barcelona. The spray painted slogans included "Long live Palestine" and "Junts is complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people". Turull condemned the "hooliganism" of the graffiti that was found this Wednesday at the party's national headquarters, while Borràs argued that "divergent [opinions] can never be an excuse for intolerance or incivility".
Codemnem aquesta bretolada a la nostra seu nacional de @JuntsXCat. Així no. pic.twitter.com/LyHDa3e4Jv
— Jordi Turull i Negre (@jorditurull) October 18, 2023
The content of the withdrawn motion
The motion that Junts withdrew on Tuesday was preceded by a question from the parliamentary group to the Catalan government about Catalonia's relations with Israel and Palestine that was registered three days before the attack by Hamas on Israel. After such question, a motion is registered and is usually debated at the next plenary session. In this text, Junts proposed that Parliament express its "condemnation" of the violation of human rights in either Israel or Palestine, that it reaffirm its commitment to the peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine and that it advocate for the two-state solution. The other point included was a reference to reversing the accusation of apartheid in Israel that the parliamentary committee on foreign action passed last June 2022 with the votes of the Socialists (PSC), Republican Left (ERC), the CUP and the Comuns.
With the conflict having broken out, Junts and Ciudadanos (Cs) separately presented two proposals to the parties committee this Tuesday for the text of an institutional statement on the events that have occurred in Israel and the Gaza Strip. After having seen these two texts, the desire to try to reach an agreement was expressed, in order for a broadly-accepted declaration to be read in the next plenary session. In the Junts text, it is recalled that Parliament "has on several occasions been mostly in favour of the two-State solution as an option for a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine", a plan endorsed by "the United Nations and the majority of the international community". At the same time, it stands in solidarity with "each and every one of the victims" that the attack by Hamas caused and "demands the immediate release of the hostages without preconditions". In addition, the joint statement "warns of the regional consequences that a spiral of violence could have" and defends the "recognition of human rights" around the world and in both territories, again condemning "their complicity" both in Israel and in Palestine
The other text presented is from Cs, which condemns "all forms of terrorism" and ask to "guarantee the safety of the population besieged by the terrorist acts of Hamas and the rights of citizens". The party also expresses its "support" for Israel and for "all civilian casualties in Israel and Palestine." "Parliament extends its solidarity to all civilian victims, and recalls that neither the Palestinian people nor their aspirations are represented by Hamas, a terrorist organization that holds the majority of Palestinians living in Gaza hostage to its terrorist aims", they add from Cs in their statement.