Spain has been upping the war of words against Israel. From the Jerusalem Post:
In his speech on Monday, Pedro Sanchez said “Spain, as you know, doesn’t have nuclear bombs, nor aircraft carriers, nor large oil reserves. We alone can’t stop the Israeli offensive, but that doesn’t mean we won’t stop trying, because there are causes worth fighting for even if it’s not in our sole power to win them.”
Sanchez then introduced nine new measures, including a full arms embargo on Israel and a ban on imports of goods from illegal Israeli settlements.
So if Spain did have nuclear bombs…
There's a long history here, starting with the 1492 expulsion of the Jews. Eliana Silver at the JC – From expulsion to charges of genocide: Spain’s animosity toward Jews endures:
I’m the daughter of a US diplomat, and when my father was posted to the embassy in Madrid the summer before my 13th birthday in 2012, I was thrilled. Back then the city felt different: its walls were alive with graffiti, peace signs and colourful murals. A decade on, those same streets are littered with Intifada pamphlets, and Palestinian flags hang from countless windows.
But antisemitism was already there in 2012. It hadn’t exploded the way it has today, but it lingered beneath and sometimes above the surface.
My secular parents enrolled me in a Catholic boarding school to “improve my Spanish”, without really considering what that would mean for an American child who barely spoke the language… and more importantly, for a Jew.
Up until then, my Jewish identity was pretty simple: spinning dreidels, eating matzo, the occasional synagogue visit. Because my dad’s diplomatic career kept us moving, I hadn’t grown up with much of a Jewish community, and I had very few Jewish friends. I had also never personally experienced antisemitism.
So when I casually mentioned to a new friend at school that I was Jewish, I was completely unprepared for her reaction. She was stunned, genuinely shocked. She had never met a Jew before, let alone had a Jewish friend.
Spain’s Jewish population is small, around 50,000, but nearly 20 per cent of Spaniards are believed to have Jewish ancestry. Yet ignorance and prejudice about Jews runs deep. When classmates learned I was Jewish, their questions drew on centuries of antisemitism – from medieval myths (“Do you have horns?” “Didn’t you kill Jesus?”) to the gutter caricatures of Der Stürmer (‘Do all Jews have big noses?’).”
High school brought a new group of boys whose antisemitism escalated. For three years, they threw Nazi salutes, yelled “Heil Hitler,” scrawled swastikas, and told me to go gas myself – all while denying the Holocaust.
When I tried to explain that members of my family had been killed in the Holocaust, they laughed and called me a liar. Nobody defended me – not friends, not teachers. Once, after I complained to the director, he brought one of the perpetrators into his office with me and told us to “talk it out”. I was stunned. How do you “talk it out” with someone who wants you dead?…
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