The Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, announced this Friday that he has instructed to cut the connection between the Spanish Embassy in Tel Aviv and the Palestinians; as well as prohibiting the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from “providing services to Palestinians.”
Katz has detailed that the reason for this decision is Spain’s recognition of the Palestinian State and the “anti-Semitic call” of the vice president of the Spanish Government, Yolanda Díaz, who closed a speech this week with the pro-Palestinian slogan “from the river to the sea”.
Following the announcement by the Israeli Foreign Minister, his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares, has warned that if confirmed, “we will certainly protest.” In an interview on RAC1, Albares explained that this protest can range from a verbal note to calling the ambassador for consultations. “The goal is for the consulate in Jerusalem to continue having contacts with the Palestinians, and no one is going to scare us,” he added.
Regarding Díaz’s words, the Spanish Foreign Minister has assured that in the Government of Spain “there are no anti-Semites” and that the Executive itself “does not accept any hate speech.”
Just yesterday the Israeli ambassador in Madrid, Rodica Radian-Gordon, who was called for consultations last Wednesday after the announcement by Pedro Sánchez of the recognition of the Palestinian State, said goodbye to Spain and took the opportunity to upload on the social network X against the leader of Sumar for having used this expression in a video, a “Hamas slogan” that, in her opinion, incites the elimination of Israel. “This expression is a clear call for the elimination of Israel, promoting hatred and violence,” denounced the ambassador in X, for whom “anti-Semitic proclamations can have no place in a democratic society.”
With the same arguments, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain (FCJE) yesterday asked Yolanda Díaz for an “immediate rectification” for using “a motto used by the terrorist organization Hamas and which represents the extermination of the Jewish state.”