Spain
ACOM
In Spain, Israel’s right to exist and the desire to normalize Jewish life have been consensus positions of both Socialist and Conservative governments in democratic Spain. Before today, the existence of Israel as a State had never been questioned and no politician with electoral support had ever used openly hostile terms towards Israel and “the Zionists.” With the entry into government of the neo-Marxist Podemos party and its Communist associates, this post-war European tradition has been disrupted. The current Executive, a coalition of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party) and Podemos, includes politicians who openly defend the dissolution of the State of Israel and who are close to its most vicious enemies.
Irene Montero, current Minister for Equality, labeled Israel’s Government as “genocidal” in July 2014. Also in July 2014, the Communist politician Alberto Garzón, current Minister for Consumer Affairs, declared that “Israel’s Government and Police Force employ methods characteristic of Nazism.” These are just two examples of Spanish government members resorting to the most despicable antisemitic propaganda: comparing Israel with the Nazis and accusing it of genocide.
Pablo Iglesias, a co-founder of Podemos and former Vice-President of the Government, called Israel “a criminal state” in an interview for the Spanish public broadcasting corporation. He also condemned what he called Israel’s “apartheid policy” against Palestinians. Several senior members of this party have worked for years for HispanTV, the Iranian propaganda tool in Spain. The leader himself conducted two TV shows for this network: Fort Apache and Spoilers. Iglesias thus justified his collaboration with Iran: “Germans had an interest in providing a train for Lenin so that he would destabilize Russia; Iranians have an interest in spreading a leftist discourse in Latin America and Spain because it damages their opponents. Shall we take advantage of it or not?”
Sixty years ago, before the democratic era, antisemitism maintained its classical forms and was clearly a right-wing issue in Spain, as in the rest of Europe. Today, anti-Israel antisemitism of the political left accounts for the overwhelming share of antisemitism, while the Spanish right is almost entirely pro-Israel and guards against antisemitism.
José María Aznar, the founder of the Partido Popular and President of the Spanish Government from 1996 to 2004, promoted and led the Friends of Israel initiative. As for Vox, the second Spanish right-wing party and third parliamentary force, often branded as “far-right” by the media, it must be said that their principal leaders, headed by their President, Santiago Abascal, have repeatedly and explicitly shown their closeness to the Jewish minority as an essential piece of our national identity, as well as openly and frequently expressing their support for Israel.
Inversely, the Socialist left that established our diplomatic relations with Israel has turned progressively cold and ultimately hostile to the Jewish State, as clearly exemplified by the PSOE/Podemos coalition.
While in other parts of Europe the antisemitic spectrum encompasses both the extreme right and the extreme left, sometimes with a decisive electoral weight, in Spain the extreme right is quite marginal and extra parliamentarian. Antisemitism in politics is practiced overwhelmingly by Podemos, a radical leftist organization, born under the Iranian and Chavist aegis. Podemos not only currently governs Spain along with the Socialist Party, but it also forms part of several regional and local coalition governments.
The BDS movement and the extreme left are the same thing in Spain. Criminalizing Israel is a tenet of Podemos and its political fellow travelers. The party’s ties to the Iranian regime would be enough to prevent Podemos from receiving even non-marginal electoral support in many parts of the world. Yet, in Spain, it is not only part of the governing coalition but even is key to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez remaining in office.
Another active source of antisemitism in the Spanish political spectrum is to be found in the separatist parties which also provide critical political support to the current Socialist/Podemos government. For example, the Bildu coalition of Basque parties has the same political aspirations as the Basque terrorist group ETA, which has well-known ties to Palestinian terrorist groups. It is not surprising to find antisemitism there. Hatred of Israel pervades the entire organizational structure of Basque separatism: syndicates and coalitions, like Bildu, enable access to public funding for street gangs, such as the one that attacked supporters of Hapoel Holon, an Israeli basketball team. Galician independentism, embodied by the BNG coalition, has hosted public events for the Palestinian terrorist group, PFLP.
However, as a political phenomenon, the most virulent antisemitism is displayed today by Catalan separatists. ACOM has been denouncing for years the network of associations that simultaneously promote anti-establishment, secessionist, and Islamist activities. Islamist infiltration in Catalonia, whose Muslim population is one of the largest in Europe, has boosted Salafism in the region and turned it into one of Europe’s major hotbeds of jihadism. This mix of local and foreign political factors has already led to an antisemitic fixation in several official initiatives.
While elements of the Catalan independence movement were once close to Israel, they no longer carry much weight, as the June 2022 formal declaration of the Catalan Parliament clearly shows. Controlled by separatists and leftists, the Parliament labeled Israel as an “apartheid state” and denied its right to exist. Such an official onslaught against Israel is unprecedented in contemporary Europe.
This parliamentary declaration is just the tip of the iceberg. Dozens of BDS resolutions have been approved in the area called by separatists “Países Catalanes” (Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands), submitting millions of people to discriminatory measures against the Israelis and anyone supporting them.
Such measures and the hate speech attached to them are implemented and spread through a vast patronage network of publicly funded NGOs. The Observatori DESC, whose mandate is to promote economic and social rights, is an illustrating example of these organizations allegedly defending human rights while actually breeding radical left politicians and separatists.
The Spanish Socialist Party was once a model in the fight against antisemitism, maintaining close ties with Israel. Nowadays, while apparently keeping a friendly stance towards the Jewish communities in Spain, it contributes to spreading institutional BDS. Socialist local governments systematically support motions proposed by Podemos. While the Socialist side of the governing coalition ostensibly endorses the IHRA definition of antisemitism (which Podemos rejects), the Government dismissed its endorsement by Parliament, and more importantly, any practical implementation of this agreement aimed to prevent the financing of what it defines as antisemitic activities. Furthermore, the Government itself declared in Parliament that it had no intention of advancing toward legally binding resolutions against antisemitism.
But the Socialist institutional stance doesn’t end here. The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs employs a perplexing double standard: it hurries to issue urgent press releases condemning Israel anytime construction in the disputed Judean and Samarian territories is announced while keeping silent in the face of issues related to disputed territories far more relevant to Spain, like recent British building development in Gibraltar. We must also keep in mind the government’s hostile bias against Israel at the UN.
The Socialist/Podemos government also continues to fund the Palestinian Authority without conditioning that support on ending antisemitic practices, such as ceasing to incite hatred against Jews in Palestinian schools, ending the glorification of terrorism by the Palestinian media, or dismantling the “pay for slay” scheme of the Palestinian Authority, a funding system rewarding terrorists and their families for murdering Israelis.
On the Spanish extreme left, there are non-governmental movements which support the antisemitic BDS campaign. The so-called “Solidarity Network Against the Occupation of Palestine” (RESCOP, in its Spanish acronym), is an umbrella organization coordinating local, regional, and national groups and institutions to promote boycott campaigns against anything Israeli in Spain. RESCOP, close to Podemos and separatists, like many other NGOs discouraging any contact with Israel, has free access to public subsidies for allegedly humanitarian activities. These funds are granted by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, its Spanish Cooperation Agency (AECID), and regional and local governments. Israeli support and funding of groups and activities openly hostile to Spain would be nothing less than unthinkable, as preposterous as it would be that Israel funded Spanish marginal political players the same way Spanish public grants are used to finance NGOs in Israel.
Discrimination against Israeli companies and individuals by left-wing controlled local political authorities is an unquestionable fact. More than one hundred local administrations, including city councils, provincial councils, and regional parliaments, have joined the international antisemitic BDS campaign, declaring themselves “free from Israeli apartheid.”
A long list of resolutions and public statements forbade and penalized any intent of cooperating with Israel in areas like economy, education, commerce, culture, or security. The boycott campaign has impacted Spanish nationals who publicly support the Jewish State, including members of our country’s Jewish communities. Due to the blatant antisemitism of such endeavors, ACOM has repeatedly petitioned Spanish courts of law to protect Israeli nationals, the Jewish minority in Spain, and naturally, any Spanish citizen just trying to operate normally and freely with Israel.
ACOM and other organizations have successfully had 84 institutional statements overturned. Each court ruling, including by High Courts, highlighted the infringement of the constitutional non-discrimination principle. These victories have determined that BDS actions are illegal in Spain, setting precedents that have persuaded other institutions from attempting BDS initiatives.
We are envisaging a radical legislative change in the foreseeable future, developing advanced laws to prosecute any form of antisemitism. In this regard, ACOM has been pursuing a broad agenda, including the sensibilization of political leaders (from conservatives to moderate leftists) in regional and local administrations and at the highest parliamentary level. We aim to educate legislators and prompt the legal system to delegitimize funding activities promoting hate and discrimination, singling out the sole Jewish state and its citizens. The Madrid regional parliament has already formally embraced the IHRA definition of antisemitism and submitted to the national parliament a historical legislative initiative: preventing entities involved in discriminatory practices from receiving any public funds or subsidies and contracting with public administrations. Through this initiative, Spain could lead the way in the fight against the new antisemitism, in the guise of anti-Zionism and mixed with progressivism and humanitarianism. This would be a decisive step toward raising awareness in Europe, pledging the historic and unavoidable commitment to preventing the monster of antisemitism from growing again on the continent of the Holocaust.
