Alyssa Mcmurtry
17 January 2024•Update: 17 January 2024
OVIEDO, Spain
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a speech from Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday that Israel’s attacks on Palestine are putting the multilateral order at risk.
“The current course of events won’t help the Palestinian or Israeli people,” he said.
“What is at stake is the security of global supply chains, trade, prosperity, the stability of the entire Middle East and the continuity of the multilateral order,” Sanchez said regarding the conflict, demanding an immediate cease-fire and a definitive two-state solution.
While acknowledging Israel’s right to defend itself from terror attacks, Spain's Socialist Party leader emphasized that 24,000 people have died in 100 days, hundreds of thousands face a humanitarian capacity and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are “on the verge of losing their homes and their hope.”
He said the survival of the “rules-based order” is being put at risk “by those who promote fragmentation, intimidation and the use of force to impose their will,” speaking about the situation in Ukraine, Syria and Gaza.
“The future stability of the world is being decided in Ukraine and Gaza as we speak, so we cannot get this wrong like we’ve got it wrong in other places,” Sanchez told world leaders in Davos. “We must be coherent and uphold the same principles and values whenever there is a breach. We have to push for dialogue, the rule of law and peace.”
He also spent time urging the world’s elite to listen to fears around artificial intelligence and technological development, which he said could drive inequality further.
“We must pay more attention to the concerns of our workers, our youth, and our elders, and less attention to the empty promise of some Silicon Valley gurus who are more interested in gaining followers or climbing the Forbes list than in the true progress of humanity,” he said.
Speaking after the newly-elected libertarian President of Argentina, Javier Milei, Sanchez defended the need for the private sector and government to cooperate on the most pressing issues.
“Do not buy into the old neoliberal postulates that portray the state as a purely extractive entity that does not generate value, or that the only responsibility of companies is to increase the profit of shareholders. These ideas have been proven wrong, you know it,” he said.
