Maybe without the Medal of Honor, but “there will be a tribute from the Madrid City Council to Israel.” The capital’s mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, is not willing to back down on his idea of ??honoring the Israeli people, although municipal sources confirm that the City Council is reconsidering granting the aforementioned distinction after the frontal rejection conveyed by the Cronistas de la Villa. .
The statement from the aforementioned advisory body does not give rise to interpretation as it considers that the decision agreed upon by the PP and Vox does not meet any of the requirements set out in the regulations to grant this distinction. “No government should be complicit in the genocide in Gaza,” underlines one of the nine reporters in a report sent to the City Council and carried by the Ser channel.
The experts refer to article 17 of the Regulations for Honorary Distinctions, which reads: “The Medal of Honor of the City of Madrid will be awarded on an exceptional basis to distinguish those natural and legal persons, national or foreign, who have stood out for their extraordinary personal and merits. for having provided very relevant services to the city of Madrid”.
In short, values ??that do not fit the specific case of Israel. On the contrary, as the chronicler Ruth Toledano has stated, for whom “granting this distinction would be a way of protecting and being complicit in the breaches of international law and United Nations resolutions by successive Israeli governments and the genocide of the people.” Palestinian in Gaza.
In statements to journalists this Friday from the Cibeles Palace, the mayor acknowledged that he will study the report issued by the Cronistas de la Villa on the granting of the Medal, although he has shown his concern about “anti-Semitism” and recalled that the Medal it is not granted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Thus, he considers that Más Madrid and PSOE are “in a certain way encouraging anti-Semitic positions” and has also referred to the Medal that was awarded to the Ukrainian people for the armed conflict that they continue to suffer. “Why do Más Madrid and the PSOE vote in favor of the Medal for the people of Ukraine, but do not vote in favor of the medal for the people of Israel? Why do they have that double standard, that double criterion?” he asked. Almeida.
Along these lines, he stressed that the people of Israel suffered a terrorist attack in October and it is something that has been “already forgotten.” “Feeling the pain for the death of people in an armed confrontation like the one that is taking place is not incompatible with not assuming equidistant positions, because the pain for the victims is not the equidistance between a terrorist group and a State that is defending itself, The pain for the victims is not the equidistance between those who attack and those who are attacked,” he defended.
Martínez-Almeida believes that the left should now abandon the position it is taking, which “borders on anti-Semitism”, in addition to asking them if they consider “the people of Israel to be of a worse category than the people of Ukraine”, and if the basis of the report of the town’s Chroniclers is that the people of Israel have nothing to do with the city of Madrid, “why in that case do they vote in favor of the people of Ukraine?” he insisted.
The mayor of the capital has explained that the municipal government will study what alternatives to pay homage to Israel are. “But rest assured, of course, that despite the outbreaks of anti-Semitism that we have been seeing in recent weeks and months here in Madrid, unfortunately, as well as internationally, rest assured that the people of Madrid is going to pay the tribute that the people of Israel deserve,” he assured.
