Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned Spain’s chargé d’affaires, Francisca Pedrós, to protest comments by Spanish Minister of Youth and Children Sira Abed Rego, the ministry said.
The ministry said Rego had declared that the Spanish public supports a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea,” a slogan the ministry said implies the “erasure of the State of Israel.”
The Foreign Ministry accused the government led by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of pursuing a “systematic anti-Israel policy.”
It also criticized Rego for previously declining to condemn the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, and noted that she was barred from entering Israel in September 2025.
“The Spanish government has lost its moral compass,” the Foreign Ministry said, accusing Madrid of turning Israel into “a punching bag for its foreign policy.”
The ministry accused Spain of supporting a vision that “entails the destruction of the State of Israel” while criticizing Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and Hamas.
«Del río al mar» es un eslogan de odio que significa un llamamiento a la destrucción del Estado de Israel y a la expulsión de su población judía.
— Israel en España 🇮🇱 (@IsraelinSpain) September 24, 2026
Es intolerable e ilegítimo que una ministra en España niegue el derecho de un Estado soberano a existir.
Es indigna de representar… pic.twitter.com/zN9HAWYxUP
Last week, Spain’s main Jewish organization circulated a manifesto signed by more than 350 cultural figures opposing the exclusion of an Argentine-Jewish novelist from a literary festival in Granada following her opposition to boycotts of Israel.
The organizers of the CULTUR ALH de Granada festival, who canceled a scheduled Sept. 26 discussion featuring novelist Ariana Harwicz, need to “transparently explain their decision, acknowledge the harm caused and offer Harwicz appropriate public redress, while also recognizing the damage done to public debate,” the manifesto reads.
Harwicz, who gained international recognition with her debut novel, “Mátate, amor” (“Die, My Love”), said her exclusion was antisemitic.
“They’re canceling me for being Jewish, to turn me into a pariah,” El País quoted Harwicz as saying. Her 2012 novel, which explores motherhood, desire and psychological turmoil, was longlisted for the 2018 International Booker Prize and adapted into a 2025 film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson.
Earlier this month, a Spanish pro-Israel group accused Sánchez of driving antisemitic narratives “top-down” into the fabric of society, and predicted a “fast shift” in policies if the government changes.
“It would be a grave mistake to identify Spain and the Spanish people with his positions, to demonize the country, or to consider it a lost cause,” the head of the Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM—Acción y Comunicación sobre Oriente Medio) group said at the J50 Forum in Jerusalem.
Of the E.U.'s large economies, Spain under Sánchez has adopted the most hostile position toward Israel. Sánchez called it “a genocidal state” in 2025, shortly before Madrid recognized Palestinian statehood. Spain has imposed a blanket embargo on defense sales to Israel and is one of several E.U. member states that have banned products made or marketed by Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
Amid mass displays of hatred for Israel—including the unfurling of a huge banner that read “Destroy Israel” at the 2025 and 2026 Fermin festivals in Pamplona—Spain saw a 14% increase in antisemitic incidents in 2025 over 2024, the umbrella group of Spanish Jewish communities said.
The report, published by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) and the Movement Against Intolerance, recorded 221 antisemitic incidents in 2025, compared with 193 in 2024.
