The Foreign Minister of IsraelGideon Saar, he blamed this Sunday to the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchezto “encourage” the “proportive crowds” and cause the cancellation of the Back to Spain. In a statement released on social networks, Saar thus adds a new criticism of the many that the members of the Israeli executive have dedicated to the Spanish president. This verbal attack arrives in the same week that Sanchez has promoted a series of sanctions that intend to restrict the flow of weapons to Israel for its constant siege to the population of Gaza, where civil deaths are counted by tens of thousands.
“A few days ago, the president of the Spanish Government regretted not having an atomic bomb to ‘stop Israel,” the Foreign Minister has protested. “Today [el domingo], has encouraged protesters To go out to the streets, ”says Saar, causing“ the proportine crowd heard the incitement messages and exploded the cycling race. ”“ Sánchez and his government: shame for Spain! ”, The statement concludes.
The head of Israeli diplomacy referred to a few words pronounced by the president of the Government last Monday when announcing A pack of nine measures to press Israel to stop the siege over Gaza: “Spain, as you know, does not have nuclear pumps, nor has it aircraft carriers or large oil reserves,” said Sánchez. “We can not stop the Israeli offensive. But that does not mean that we are not going to stop trying. Because there are causes for which it is worth fighting, even if it is not in our only hands to win them.”
That declaration of Sanchez already caused that Israeli prime minister, Benjamín Netanyahu, accused the Spanish president of launching “genocidal threats” to Israel. This week, with the announcement of the nine concrete actions, Sánchez has taken a step further in its opposition policy to the Israeli siege over Gaza.
Part of the international community perceives its actions as a leadership within the European Union against Netanyahu’s policy on the strip. Also this week, the president of the Community Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, has proposed to cancel the commercial treaty of the twenty -seven with Israel, a step that has received the majority support of the Eurocamara.
Saar’s profile
The current Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, 58, was previously head of education and interior. He has traveled a good part of his extensive political career in Likud, the same political party as Netanyahu, and has done so in the shadow of the prime minister. In 2019, when he tried to rival him for training leadership, he failed.
The following year, Saar left the game, regretting that Likud would have become “a tool for the personal interest of who is in charge [de la formación]including issues related to his criminal trial, ”he said in reference to the case of corruption that still weighs on Prime Minister. Saar concluded that in the formation there was“ a cult of personality ”of Netanyahu.
The veteran politician then created the Nueva Esperanza training, where he exercised as a leader. Many then saw him as a new reference of the Israeli right capable of ending the Netanyahu dynasty. But the proposal never fulfilled expectations.
During the time in which Saar and the other three parliamentarians of New Hope have been in the opposition, during the war in Gaza, they have criticized the performance of the Netanyahu government hard. Sharren Haskel, a deputy who was a member of that group and is currently the number two De Saar outdoors, he said in August last year that the Netanyahu Executive was “one of the worst that could have been in this difficult time in the history of the country.”
However, in November 2024 Netanyahu offered Saar to lead the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, step further in the reunion between them. Last month, Likud approved in an internal vote the union with new hope. That step meant Saar’s return to Netanyahu’s formation five years after he left her. “It’s okay to go home,” said the current Foreign Minister.
Spain, between eyebrow and eyebrow
The members of the Israeli government, the most right -wing in the history of that country, have these days Spain between eyebrow and eyebrow. The Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, announced Thursday that he had ordered the suspension of the preparations that had to lead to Israel’s participation in the next edition of the Mobile World Congress (MWC)that will be held in Barcelona in March 2026. In the statement, the minister added that he had instructed the rest of the government to join the measure, in what could be the withdrawal of Israeli companies – a leading country in the technology industry – of the International Congress.
Although everything seems to indicate that Karhi’s proposal has not been well received by the rest of the executive members and that Israel will be in the MWC, the reasons with which the head of Communications presented the measure yes that seem these days to be part of a consensus in the Israeli government.
Karhi justified his proposal as an answer to “antiisraelis measures” that the Spanish government had announced on Monday. The minister mentioned an alleged “systematic support for Hamas“, his intention to recognize “a Palestinian state in the heart of Israel [en referencia a los Territorios Palestinos Ocupados]”And” The false accusation of ‘genocide “against the Israeli authorities.
In Israel, many understand as a “support to Hamas” everything that limits Israeli military capacity. In that sense, some of the provisions announced Monday by Sánchez are directed. Although Spain has never been an outstanding supplier of weapons to Israel, the new prohibition for arms trafficking towards that country through Spanish skies or waters can have a great impact, since much of Israeli imports of weapons pass through the Strait of Gibraltar and stop in the ports of Algeciras, Valencia and Barcelona.
Another sour episode in relations between the two countries arrived in May 2024, when Madrid took the step of recognizing the state of Palestine. That announced Spain into the 141st country of the world to do so, and promoted a new group of executives who adopted that measure after the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza. Although experts claim that the decision has no impact on the course of the invasion, yes the symbolic weight of recognition. Since then, and to express its disagreement, Israel has no ambassador to Spain.
Saar, Israeli Foreign Minister, wrote on Monday one of the most fierce criticisms that Sánchez has recently received from there. Hours after the Spanish president announced the sanctions against Israel, two Palestinian and armed men – the next day, it would be known that Hamas – got on a public bus in Jerusalem and opened fire. The incident became the worst attack in that city since the late 2023, with six fatalities. One of them, Yaakov PintoSpanish originally from Melilla.
“At the same time that the president of the Government of Spain, Sánchez, attacked Israel, Palestinian terrorists attacked and murdered six Israeli, including Yaakov Pinto,” Saar said in a statement on Monday on his social networks. “Sánchez and his twisted ministers justified the massacre of October 7,” added the Foreign Minister without specifying what he was referring to or based on what he held his statements. “They have long opted to align with Hamas and against Israel.” Among the publications that the Foreign Minister shared that day, there was also one by Alberto Núñez Feijoo: “Hamas terrorists have applauded today an attack and Sánchez,” He has written The leader of the PP.
