Spain Notes, Oct 16: Israel-Gaza tensions
1/ I’ve opened up the latest comment posts for you to read or listen to here, here, here and here.
2/ Another pro-Palestinian march was held in Madrid on Sunday evening. Police estimates were about 10,000 attendees.
3/ As in other countries over the past week, (far-) left-wing politicians joined in. Belarra (Podemos) wants “freedom for Palestine” and an end to “the planned genocide by the Israeli state”. Errejón (Sumar) demanded “Israel stop the ethinc cleansing it is carrying out in Gaza, and stop bombing civilians”.
4/ Podemos also wants Spain to denounce Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court for war crimes. The suggestion was picked up by Arabic media.
5/ Spain’s Equality Minister, Montero (Podemos), got into a Twitter spat with Salvini (Italy, Lega, Transport Minister) over the European position on “unity against Islamic terrorism”. Montero had disagreed with the position expressed by Von der Leyen (EU), “not in our name”.
6/ Von der Leyen also blamed the victims in Gaza on Hamas. Former Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias thought that was outrageous: “We are not thinking through what it means for the President of the European Commission to justify war crimes”, saying her statement was “unprecedented perversity” or “the banality of evil from a civil servant without a soul”.
7/ The EU managed a joint statement over the weekend, though, which condemened the Hamas terror attack, asserted Israel’s right to defend itself but called for restraint and an observance of international humanitarian law.
8/ ABC wrote “nothing will be the same again, for Israelis or Palestinians, or for Muslims in general or probably for European societies, where millions of Jews and Arabs live…”.
9/ El País thinks that there is a “grave risk of escalation”, with insurrection in the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon and then Syria, Iraq and Iran and says Israel must defend itself while sticking to the principles of international humanitarian law.
10/ El Mundo sees a danger for the global economy from the new war, reminding readers that the price of oil rose 300% during the Yom Kippur war in the 1970s. Gold has risen over a hundred dollars since last Saturday.
11/ Zapatero said he supported the amnesty deal for Catalan separatists.
12/ PP leader Feijóo has said this morning that Sánchez’s deals with the separatists are taking Spain “towards a horizon like the one in the Balkans”.
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