Israeli-Spanish relations are going through a rough patch after some ministers on the Spanish Left criticized the Middle Eastern nation’s actions in the Gaza Strip, with one terming it “genocide,” while calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
In a video statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) last Monday, Ione Belarra, minister of social rights and secretary general of the far-left Podemos party, spoke of Israel’s “violations of international criminal law” and that such war crimes “cannot go unpunished.”
In addition, Belarra demanded that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) use Spain’s current EU Council presidency as an opportunity to suspend diplomatic relations with Israel and impose economic sanctions.
The next day, Minister for Equality Irene Montero reiterated that call while urging the international community not to remain “indifferent and complicit in the ethnic cleansing and terror planned by the State of Israel.”
In a Wednesday post on X, she called out the U.S. for its “complicity.”
During a visit to Israel that same day, U.S. President Joe Biden pledged that Washington would provide $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, while he would ask Congress for “unprecedented aid,” expected to be included in a massive $100 billion package, to bolster Israel in its efforts to eradicate Hamas, currently hunkered down in the Gaza Strip.
Israel reacted furiously to the Spanish ministers’ incendiary comments. In a statement issued by the Israeli embassy in Spain on Monday evening, Israel said it was very worrying that certain ministers from the Spanish government—Belarra and Montero were not named—had chosen to align themselves with Hamas terrorism, which it likened to that of ISIS.
On Monday, Belarra posted in response: “Denouncing this genocide is not ‘aligning with Hamas,’ it is a democratic obligation. Silence, complicity with terror.”
In a bid to ease tensions, the government in Madrid made known its official position as it denounced Israel’s accusations as “unfounded insinuations.”
It stated that while Madrid strongly condemned Hamas’ attacks on Israel, it also called for the protection of civilians in Gaza. It adding that any political party’s representative was free to express his positions “in a democracy such as Spain’s.”
On Wednesday, October 18th, Israel’s deputy ambassador to Spain, Dan Poraz, made it personal.
He slammed the Podemos figurehead for having blamed Israel for Tuesday’s attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip—contrary to the Spanish ministry of foreign affairs’ demand for a full investigation, and which Jerusalem attributes to a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.
“The unbearable double standard of the cynicism of those who choose to believe the version [of events] of a global terrorist organization instead of that of a liberal democracy,” Poraz posted, with a picture featuring both the minister and the former leader of her party, Pablo Iglesias.
Speaking to reporters in Strasbourg that same day, the Spanish minister for foreign affairs, José Manuel Albares (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), claimed the issue was resolved.
“What we have to do is not contribute to escalations, on the contrary, we all have to be very responsible because we can all contribute to de-escalation also within our own societies,” he said. “We have to be very careful in what we say, how we say it, and when we say it.”
Albares’ comments came after he announced an increase in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip with a package worth €1 million ($1.06 million) and that Madrid was prepared to send more.
“The aid must reach the civilian population of Gaza, and Spain is ready and willing to participate” in humanitarian efforts, Albares said, adding that more packages “will come, because everything points to the need for more [aid].”
