Spain Notes, Oct 17: Spain vs. Israel + Álvaro Prieto media mess
1/ Just minutes after sending you yesterday’s notes, Sumar, the far-left half of the interim coalition government, announced it wants Spain to recognise the Palestinian state unilaterally and that the new coalition government deal to reappoint Sánchez PM would depend on that.
2/ Then Belarra (Sumar, Minister of Social Rights), realising her position was gaining media traction globally among the left and in Arab countries, published her statement in English: “We ask our partner that, as the Government of Spain, we bring Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court for war crimes”.
3/ The Israeli Embassy in Spain decided it was having none of that, and so yesterday evening, Spain joined Colombia on the Israeli government shitlist. A statement blasted the Spanish government for having members “who have chosen to align the themselves with the ISIS-like terrorism [of Hamas]”, and demanded Sánchez denounce his own further-left ministers’ “shameful statements”.
4/ The Spanish Foreign Office blasted back just after dinner, “categorically rejecting” the Israeli telling off and defending its ministers: "Any political leader can freely express positions as a representative of a political party in a full democracy such as Spain". It also reiterated the insistence on the need for Israel to respond to Hamas within the limits of international law.
5/ Vox blasted Sánchez on the matter this morning, siding with Netanyahu: “This government is once more on the side of terrorists. They did it with Bildu in Spain and now they’re doing it with Hamas in Israel”.
6/ Israel also thinks the Pope is wrong on this: “There is no room for unfounded comparisons […] It is inconceivable that an announcement essentially expressing concern for the residents of Gaza is issued at the same time Israel is burying 1,300 murdered citizens”.
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7/ And just before lunch yesterday, Spanish TVE (BBC equivalent) decided to broadcast a “scoop” on a morning TV show called Mañaneros: one of their reporters in Seville had found the dead body of missing Álvaro Prieto squashed between two train carriages. They broadcast the uncut images to the nation, before informing the police or the family.
8/ The show later apologised but by then it was too late, of course.
9/ Train operator Renfe said the train he was found on hadn’t moved since August and was only being moved yesterday for a minor maintenance matter.
10/ Authorities said that while police had searched near the area where his body was found, they were not scheduled to search that particular bit until…yesterday.
11/ After TVE broadcast the images, and police confirmed it was him, other media jumped on board with articles like “Prieto received a 3,500 volt electric shock from the train”, or “How many volts can a human body take?”.
12/ Then last night El Mundo tweeted their front page, with Prieto’s dead body as the main photo.
13/ The latest report this morning is that police have now found images from a petrol station across the road from where he was found that show him jumping on the train and grabbing the overhead wire, leading to his electrocution. Why didn’t they find those images earlier?
14/ All of this leaked out, as always, by police and legal people talking to reporters before anything official has been notified. Who cares about the parents in all of this? Let’s hope that even if one or several media outlets have the images from the petrol station, which seems likely, they decide not to publish the footage of the lad electrocuting himself.