Spain has witnessed a notable rise in antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel.
By Ben Cohen, Algemeiner
The head of the Spanish Jewish community warned of “the greatest escalation of antisemitism in Spain in recent times” during a meeting on Monday with the country’s prime minister.
Jews in Spain were confronting “a very worrying moment,” Isaac Benzaquén — president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) — told Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Along with European neighbors, Spain has witnessed a notable rise in antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel unleashed a new war between the Jewish state and the Gaza-based terrorist organization.
However, while government ministers elsewhere in Europe have generally been supportive of Israel’s right to self-defense, several ministers in Spain’s left-wing coalition government, including Sánchez himself, have called for an immediate ceasefire, with one member of the cabinet from the far left Podemos alliance falsely accusing Israel of “genocide.”
The incidents recorded over the last fortnight include antisemitic graffiti daubed outside the home of a Jewish family in Madrid, as well as a rock lobbed through the window of a Jewish couple’s home. Pro-Palestinian slogans have also been scrawled on synagogues in Madrid and the Catalan city of Girona. In the most prominent incident, a pro-Hamas mob attacked the Or Zeruah Synagogue in Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the coast of North Africa, last Wednesday.
A statement from the FCJE on the upsurge in antisemitism highlighted the statements of Ione Belarra, Spain’s social rights minister, who accused Israel of “genocide.”
“The demonstrations against Israel, the burning of Israeli flags, the proclamations calling Israel a murderer, genocidal, and the author of a planned ethnic cleansing, as Minister Ione Belarra has reiterated on several occasions, have inflamed [the situation],” the FCJE observed.
After attending a pro-Hamas demonstration in Madrid last Saturday, Belarra tweeted: “Dignity has filled the streets of Madrid, [which] today urged the end of the genocide that Israel is planning against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Freedom for Palestine.”
Two other far left members of the cabinet — Equality Minister Irene Montero and Consumer Affairs Minister Alberto Garzón — echoed Bellara’s views, with Garzón claiming that “what the Israeli government is doing is pure cruelty.”
The statements elicited an angry response from the Israeli Embassy in Madrid. “It is deeply worrying that certain elements within the Spanish government have chosen to align themselves with this kind of ISIS-style terrorism,” a statement from the embassy declared.
In a telephone conversation on Sunday with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, Sánchez called for what he described as a “humanitarian ceasefire,” expressing his “deep concern for the protection of all civilians and the need for sufficient and sustained humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza.”
While Netanyahu is planning to meet in person with EU leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, no meeting with Sánchez is on the agenda.
Over the weekend, Sánchez participated in a “peace summit” of Arab leaders in Cairo which failed to produce a unified statement on the escalating war.
“It is necessary to avoid a regional escalation of the conflict. We must address a definitive solution to reach peace, based on the two states-solution, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and safety,” the Spanish leader said following the parley.
Spain’s Jewish community is one of the smallest in Europe. According to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (IJPR), the “core community” numbers 12,900, with up to 22,000 eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return