Pedro Sánchez has withdrawn troops from Iraq for the second time in almost twenty years. His recent trip to Israel as acting president of the European Union with the aim of proclaiming in public what other European leaders do not want or dare not say about Gaza, has just opened a serious diplomatic crisis in some way comparable to what In April 2004, it led to the sudden withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, before the astonished gaze of the United States government.
During the electoral campaign, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had promised to withdraw the troops that José María Aznar had sent to Iraq as a sign of support for the North American military deployment. One day after taking office, under great pressure due to the very strong echo of the recent 11-M attacks, the decision had already been made. The effect on public opinion was tremendous. The new president kept his word. April 18, 2004. The ZP legend was born.
Ten days after being sworn in, with tremendous environmental pressure as a consequence of the PSOE’s pact with the Catalan independentists for the promulgation of an amnesty; with a parliamentary majority taken with tweezers, with the leadership of the Judiciary revolted, with the powerful European People’s Party mobilized in the corridors of Brussels, with a daily demonstration of the extreme right in front of the PSOE headquarters, with 11 of the 17 communities Spanish autonomous regions in the hands of the opposition, with the elites of the State apparatus signing anti-government manifestos, with the King visibly angry in the latest official acts, and subjected to an unprecedented media offensive, Sánchez has read the letter to Beniamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem for the retaliation on Gaza, provoking the wrath of the State of Israel.
The Spanish president and his companion, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, have been accused by the Israeli Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, of “supporting terrorism.” [The liberal De Croo, Belgian prime minister and acting president of the EU as of January, reiterated everything he said yesterday]. Diplomatic crisis in style.
Hamas, an Islamist militia that has carried out bloody terrorist actions, yesterday applauded the “bravery” of the Spanish president in announcing a prompt recognition of the Palestinian State. This recognition is an old promise of the Spanish left, which at some point the Popular Party has approached. As Joaquín Luna recalls today in this newspaper, Mariano Rajoy’s government threatened to recognize the Palestinian State as a possible retaliation for the open sympathy of the Israeli authorities towards the Catalan independence movement. After the proclamation of the independence of Catalonia on October 27, 2017, Israel was the last of the countries with political weight in the world to express its support for the unity of Spain. It took them more than a month to pronounce.
The historical fold is amazing. Spain seems to return many days to 2004. Rodríguez Zapatero and Aznar have returned to the front line of combat (Aznar never left), the question of Catalonia remains central, and it is increasingly evident that today’s knot began to form a long time ago. twenty years. But the world is different. Today’s world is even more dangerous.
Sánchez has seen a thorny clearing in the forest, needing to get out of the obsessive brambles of the amnesty as soon as possible. During his appearance last Monday to announce the new Government, he did everything possible to minimize the issue. He did not even mention the word Catalonia and placed the “reunion agenda” at the eighth point of the new Executive’s priorities. It became clear that he was looking for oxygen and new sources. Politics continues to be a constant fight for the lighting of the stage.
A policy of determination in the face of the Gaza conflict helps to move the focus, widens communication channels with Arab countries and the Global South, and generates discourse in view of the European elections of June 2024, in which the Popular Party will try defeat the amnesty government.
Only Sánchez and a few other leaders can lead that line in Europe. Emmanuel Macron cannot do it, with a latent civil clash in France. Even less Germany, in perpetual debt to the Jewish people. Nor Giorgia Meloni, distant and camouflaged heir of a fascism that in the 1930s approved laws of racial persecution in Italy. Neither do the Eastern European countries. Only Spain, which did not directly participate in World War II and experienced the Holocaust from afar, can stand out in its criticism of the Netanyahu Government. From Brussels, Josep Borrell has already gone in that direction.
It does not seem that Sánchez has consulted his movement with the North American Secretary of State, which supports Israel, but at the same time is interested in appeasement and a reinforced role for the Palestinian National Authority. Pro-Palestinian sympathies are growing in the United States Democratic Party.
Sánchez has put himself at the forefront of a robust current of opinion, the majority in Spain, he invades Sumar’s space these days and redraws the battlefield (the PSOE is not suffering a setback in the polls as a consequence of the amnesty, it is the PP which momentarily grows at the expense of Vox), but Israel remembers, always remembers, and maintains a high level of influence in Morocco, despite Gaza.
