Bibi Netanyahu is in the midst of his Grand European Tour in which he is begging, cajoling and wheedling erstwhile allies to vote against the September UN Palestinian statehood bid. He began with two of Israel’s biggest pushovers: Romania and Bulgaria. These are countries that if Israel commanded, “Jump,” they’d respond: “How high?” Romania has even allowed its territory to be used for secret IDF maneuvers (recently an IDF helicopter crashed while on a secret training mission). Bulgaria, though it did send Jews to the ovens, has made up for it over the years by being an important ally.
Poor Bibi, though, he struck out in Bulgaria. Even Arutz 7, the Voice of the Settlers, can’t avoid a bout of pique over the betrayal:
Bulgaria, usually considered an ally of Israel, rebuffed it on Thursday when it would not commit to voting against the planned unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.
AFP reported that Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, who was widely expected to back Israel, remained noncommittal after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The report quoted Borisov as saying during a joint press conference with Netanyahu, “You will see when the vote comes,” when asked how Bulgaria would vote on the bid for a Palestinian state at the UN’s General Assembly in September.
Bulgaria and Romania already recognized the State of Palestine in November 1988 along with other countries of the former Soviet block (see link to en.wikipedia.org). My understanding was that such recognition was irrevocable. So what’s the point of Bibi’s demands? Or can a country revoke recognition of another country?
@ Leonid
‘Haver’, the specialist on these matters, wrote a comment some months ago when Medvedev reiterated the USSR recognition from 1988 of a Palestinian state while on a visit to Palestine. According to Haver and what I’ve read elsewhere such a recognition is irrevocable, and in the case of USSR and Yougoslavia there is the concept of ‘continuator’ state, Russia and Serbia, detaining the rights and obligations of the former state.
Maybe Israel – as in so many other cases – is special 🙂