Leftist anti-Semitism in Spain
At Little Green Footballs, Charles Johnson reports that Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero showed his "true colors" this week by wearing a 'Palestinian' kaffiyeh while accusing Israel of using "abusive force."But YNet reports that it's not just Zapatero's 'comments' that are anti-Semitic:Zapatero, who took power in a surprise election victory following Islamist train bombings in Madrid in 2004 and immediately pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq, had told the young Socialists: “No one should defend themselves with abusive force which does not protect innocent human beings.”
Spain wants the United Nations Security Council to agree to deploy international troops to stop fighting which has claimed hundreds of lives since Israel launched bombardments nine days ago to stop Hizbollah attacking it with rockets.
Moratinos, who was once the EU’s Middle East peace envoy, angrily denied an accusation at the conference by a former Spanish Jewish community leader that Zapatero’s remarks were anti-Semitic.
Although many experts had foretold of the imminent disappearing of European Jews, nobody expected such a virulent explosion of anti-Semitism in Spain, not even under a Leftist government.My wife and I spent a week in Spain early in 2001, visiting Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba and Grenada. The Spanish Jewish community was expelled in 1492, and those Jews who are there today are mainly North African Jews who crossed in through Gibraltar. We spent a lovely Sabbath there with the Lubavitch emissary in Madrid, who has lived in Madrid for many years at great personal sacrifice (he has to import nearly all his food from abroad). In my wildest dreams, I never thought Spain would sink this low this quickly. It's amazing that the result of the Madrid bombings was Zapatero's election and then this.
The first signal came on Monday, 5 December, when during a dinner with the Benarroch family, Zapatero and wife began claiming what Vidal Quadras, member of the European Parliament, described on the radio as "a tirade of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism".
By the moment the Benarroch couple had left the table to express their regrets, Zapatero was explaining his lack of surprise about the Holocaust: according to the people present, Zapatero claimed to understand the Nazis.
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Although according to Zapatero, Hizbullah and Israel are the same thing, he offers no words of condemnation for the Party of Allah, spending 100 percent of the time explaining, in a rather twisted way, that Israel should let Hizbullah kill Israelis.
Much of the theory belongs to controversial Spanish FM Miguel Angel Moratinos. EU envoy to the Middle East before and sinking in rumours of links to Hamas long before he left, Moratinos arrived to the foreign ministry cleaning the Elcano Institute up, firing the most prestigious experts and bringing in a group of friends of the oppression theory.
Since then, amid support for Castro and Chavez and mysterious support to Bolivia in order to bring Evo Morales to power, the Spanish FM has proved he has nothing to envy in terms of anti-Americanism, but nobody ever expected an explosion of anti-Semitism in Spain this big. It seems once more that the Jews are the canary in the mine, and the United States should take note.
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The commotion caused in the Spanish Jewish community seems to be huge, especially taking in count that after some months of anxiety after his election, some Jews were feeling somewhat safe in Spain. Not anymore.
Some people were trying to alert the international community about what was boiling in Spain, but neither the OSCE nor the EUMC ever listened, preferring contacts with anti-Israeli NGOs based on the idea that anti-Semitism has to do with Arabs. Now the Spanish Jews are to pay the price for the international community's inaction, once more.
If the United States does not want to see the American embassy in Madrid full of Jews fleeing Spain, President Bush will do well in isolating Spain in the international arena while pressing, and asking European members to press, the new Socialist government of Spain. The American Rep's belonging to Moratino's Caucus of Friends of Spain should be reminded its elections time too.
The Sepharad story is clearly over, but nobody expected it would be by accident. If you are thinking about visiting Spain, think it twice. You may not leave easily.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:43 PM
3 Comments:
When has there been a Western nation whose leader was as openly anti-Semitic as Zapatero?
I think we have to go back to the forties, don't we?
Give Prodi some time and we may have another one.
Zapatero is the shame of spain, please don´t forget, Zapatero is not Spain.
He´s a terrible politic for us
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