Hear
JERUSALEM.- The diplomatic crisis between Israel and Spain continues to escalate. The Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz announced this Friday that he decided “cut the connection between the diplomatic representation of Spain in Israel and the Palestinians”, In response to the initiative of the government of Pedro Sanchez of recognize the Palestinian state and even comment considered “anti-Semitic” by the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz.
“After Spain’s recognition of a Palestinian State and the anti-Semitic call of the Vice President of the Spanish Government […]I have decided to cut the connection between the diplomatic representation of Spain in Israel and the Palestinians and prohibit the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from providing services to Palestinians in Judea and Samaria“, that is, the West Bank, Katz wrote in Spanish on the X network.
Asked by the AFP agency about how this measure would be put into practice, the Israeli Foreign Ministry did not respond at the moment.
On its website, the consulate general of Spain in Jerusalem indicates that its demarcation covers said city, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The embassy is located in Tel Aviv.
In his text, also in Hebrew and English, Minister Katz He strongly attacked the message published on Wednesday by Yolanda Díazsecond vice president of the Spanish government, Minister of Labor and leader of the radical left platform Sumar, a party that makes up the government coalition headed by the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).
In a video message published on his X network account, Díaz defended the Spanish government’s decision to recognize Palestine as a State on May 28, and closed the comment with the phrase “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.”
This slogan refers to the borders of Palestine under British mandate, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. According to its detractors, especially the state of Israel, the phrase, used among others by the terrorist group Hamas and Iran, It is an incitement to the destruction of Israel.
Minister Katz called the slogan used by Minister Díaz a “so-called anti-Semitic”, whom he attacked by making a reference to the history of Spain and the seven centuries of Muslim rule in part of the Iberian Peninsula (711-1492).
“If this ignorant and hateful person wants to understand what radical Islam really wants, let him learn about 700 years of Islamic rule in Al Andalus – today’s Spain,” noted the minister, who copied the accounts on the X network to the socialist president Pedro Sánchez and the leader of the conservative opposition in a copy of his message, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
“The ‘brilliant’ management of Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz provokes the gratitude of Hamas, the Taliban and implies the second diplomatic conflict of the week, now with Israel. More respect for the Palestinians and Israelis who suffer and more respect for the image of Spain,” Núñez Feijóo reacted in X. The other crisis to which the leader of the Popular Party (PP) alluded is the one that Sánchez opened to withdraw its ambassador in Argentina after the president Javier Milei He called his wife “corrupt” at a far-right party event Vox in Madrid last weekend.
On Wednesday, Sánchez announced that His government will recognize Palestine as a State on May 28, in a diplomatic movement coordinated with Norway and Ireland. After the announcement of this recognition, Israel called its ambassadors in the three countries for consultations.
This Friday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, Jose Manuel Albaresanticipated that the Spanish government will protest before the Israeli for the decision to prevent the consulate in Jerusalem from serving the Palestinians of the West Bank, although he did not give details of the scope of that response.
In an interview on RAC1, Albares also referred to Israel’s criticism of Yolanda Díaz, stating that “There are no anti-Semites in the government of Spain” but rather it is “a tolerant, plural, diverse government that does not accept any hate speech, including anti-Semitism.”
“Jewish Spaniards are a fundamental part of the Spanish population and of course anti-Semitic attitudes not only have no place but from the Spanish government we fight them,” he noted.
Yolanda Díaz also responded to the Israeli government that “is not anti-Semitic” and does not follow the “politics of hate”, by emphasizing that she is a supporter of the two-state formula in the Middle East and that is what he was referring to with the use of the motto “from the river to the sea.”
“I do not share the politics of hate and if it is necessary for me to say it, I am not anti-Semitic. I think it is obvious (…) but with everything I refer to the fact that we have always had the same position, the recognition of two states that share from the river to the sea, that share the economy, the rights and above all the future.” , he said in a statement to the media.
The vice president has also pointed out that the recognition of Palestine as a State, which will be formalized on the 28th, is something “historic” and that “it brings a little hope to the people who are being murdered” by “violence” and “a brokenness.” of very serious international legality.
AFP and DPA Agencies
THE NATION
