During an exchange in Spain’s Congress on Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called Israel a “genocidal state”—an escalation in his already harsh rhetoric about the Jewish State.
Sánchez made his remark, which drew strong condemnations from Israel and Jewish groups, in response to a question about trade with Israel from a lawmaker, Gabriel Rufiá, who is to the left of Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.
“I’ll clarify one thing, Mr. Rufián. We don’t trade with a genocidal state. We don’t. I believe I explained from this platform the other day what we’re talking about, when some statements were made that weren’t true,” Sánchez said.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it condemns and rejects the allegation, and that it will summon Spain’s ambassador to Israel for a dressing down.
Spain is on record as accusing Israel of genocide-related actions since it joined South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Criminal Court, along with Ireland, a fellow EU member state, and other countries. Sánchez, however, had not repeated the allegation in his own voice before Wednesday, Elías Levy Benarroch, editor-in-chief of Enfoque Judío, told JNS.
Levy Benarroch, a former executive at Spain’s leading news agency, EFE, accused Sánchez of being a “chief promoter of an antisemitic narrative” that is taking root in Spain.
Separately, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema also made references to genocide on Wednesday. She did this in a speech in which she pleaded with the Dutch government to exercise more pressure on Israel. Halsema did not make the allegation directly, quoting instead two Holocaust scholars who recently used it against Israel.
“There’s a reason that the director of the NIOD now speaks of genocidal violence,” Halsema said, referencing an interview in NRC with Martijn Eickhoff, director of the Dutch Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, in which he spoke of “genocidal violence.”
Israeli professor Amos Goldberg “has been speaking of genocide for some time,” she added.
Modi Ephraim, Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, stated that he was “deeply dismayed” by Halsema’s statement in the Amsterdam municipal council.
“Her words not only distort the reality of the current conflict but also disregard the suffering of Israeli victims and the context in which this war has unfolded,” he wrote.