Australia/Israel Review

Last summer I visited the achingly beautiful Spanish city of Toledo. In the main square I marvelled at the beautiful architecture and saw a palace with a series of balconies that reminded me of the balustrade that the popes use to address the crowds at the Vatican. I asked the guide why there were so many. She replied that the multiple balconies were built expressly for the great and good of the city to observe the auto-da-fe (act of faith) executions in comfort, without the smoke, noise and smell of being amongst the rabble. The most horrific of these public executions happened in late February 1501, some 9 years after the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain – 38 baptised “New Christian” men accused of secretly practising Judaism, and 67 Jewish women from the area, were executed.

Forty-two years later, in Germany, Martin Luther wrote On the Jews and their lies, where he stated: 

“When you lay your eyes on or think of a Jew, you must say to yourself: Alas, that mouth which I there behold has cursed, execrated and maligned every Saturday my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has redeemed me with his precious blood; in addition, it prayed and pleaded before God that I, my wife and children might be stabbed to death and perish miserably.”

I bring this up, because in the modern Western mind it’s hard to fathom the hatred that led to the construction of the equivalent of stadium business boxes to watch public burnings of Jews and Conversos. It feels as distant from us as gladiatorial combat, bear baiting and the ducking stool. 

But search the message boards or social media platforms frequented by the Spanish Left, using the word Zionist, and you will find that Luther’s hatred is alive and well there: Cancerous, Satanic, the most evil people to have walked the Earth, look at their eyes: they are murderous demons. 

In Spain, it seems that the ghost of Grand Inquisitor Torquemada is stalking the corridors of power, with a new victim in his sights: the Zionist, and more specifically, the entirety of the State of Israel. 

Torquemada has found a successor in Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister, who since October 7 has banned the sale of arms to Israel, repeatedly pushed for the cancellation of the EU-Israel association agreement, unilaterally recognised a Palestinian state, was the first European leader to openly call Israel a genocidal state and has now permanently withdrawn his country’s Ambassador to Israel. Oh, almost forgot, he also suggested using nuclear weapons on Israel. 

It’s not just him. Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz proudly announced, with the Spanish flag fluttering behind her for good measure, that “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Spanish Minister of Youth Sira Rego openly celebrated the Palestinian “resistance” mere hours after the October 7 mass terror attack. 

The Spanish Government’s hatred even trickled down to the state broadcaster, which threatened to not only abstain from taking part in the Eurovision song contest, but also to refuse to broadcast it, if Israel was not banned from participating.

And yet Spanish society as a whole is largely supportive of its Jewish communities and much less anti-Zionist than the Government. This is evidenced by the high numbers of Israeli tourists visiting, flourishing Jewish community growth in Spain, and by the entirely unscientific fact that the Spanish public awarded 12 points to Israel last year in the Eurovision song contest. 

Given this disconnect between public and government, why is the Spanish Government so obsessed with Israel? 

Let’s take a look first at the wafer-thin coalition that keeps PM Sanchez in power. The Third Sanchez Government consists of the Socialist Party and the harder left Sumar Platform. The Government relies on external support from various parties, including the Catalan separatist parties, Basque parties, the Galician Nationalist Bloc and the Canarian Coalition.

The general consensus, even in large sections of the Spanish media, and certainly amongst the commentariat, is that Sanchez is obsessively pursuing the Zionist/Israel issue as a matter of political expediency. 

Sure, as a Socialist, Sanchez’s anti-Zionism fits a pan-European socialist narrative of ideological opposition to Israel and sympathy with the Palestinian cause. Yet his apparent obsession with Israel also unites his harder-left coalition partners and keeps them all together. Above all, it exists to distract attention from the serious problems within his party, his family and the massive corruption issues Spain is facing. In short, his daily elevator pitch to his coalition partners is simple: we may not agree on much, but we can all agree that Israel and Zionism unite us, so let’s just keep talking about that. 

This in itself is not unusual amongst the Left. Disparate radical groups have found common cause, or to use the trendy parlance, points of intersectionality, on the issue of Zionism. You will see extinction rebellion flags beside queer flags beside Samidoun flags beside Black Lives Matter flags beside communist flags, at pro-Palestinian protests across Europe. 

What makes Spain unique is that these same voices are today in government.

And this is what makes the Spanish Prime Minister so dangerous. He uses hatred of “Zionists” and the Jewish State as red meat to feed the worst impulses of his coalition, as a means of controlling a narrative, and as a means to stay in power. 

The ruling Spanish Left’s attitude to Israel starts and stops with the insistence that it must cease to exist. Anyone who engages with Israel or “Zionists” is lambasted as a traitor. It’s a horrible glue for sure, but it seems to work for Sanchez. 

But the Government is not the Spanish people, just as any current coalition government anywhere does not represent the entire spectrum of society. Thankfully, many parts of Spain are governed at municipal level by parties that are not part of the Government. For instance, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, President of the Madrid municipality, is very supportive of Israel and the Jewish communities in and around the Spanish capital. 

Eventually, this Spanish Government will run out of road. This may be cold comfort right now in the face of a Spanish left-wing ruling coalition that sustains its existence around a Lutheranesque hatred of Zionism. However, right now, Spanish and European Jews, the vast majority of whom are Zionists, will take any comfort we can get.