spain 2001-2

 

Islamic groups in the North African autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla manifested extreme antisemitic behavior during the year 2001, especially after the September 11 events, including attacks on Jewish targets. Some neo-fascist groups in Spain celebrated the September 11 attacks and joined Islamic and pro-Palestinian groups in demonstrations against the US and Israel.

 

the jewish community

The Jewish population of Spain numbers 14,000 out of a total population of 39.1 million. The main Jewish centers are Madrid (3,500) and Barcelona (3,500). Smaller communities are located in other cities and towns, notably Málaga, as well as Ceuta and Melilla in Spanish North Africa.

The Federación de Comunidades Israelitas de España (Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain) represents Jewish interests to the government. There are Jewish day schools in Barcelona, Madrid and Málaga. A cultural journal, Raíces (Roots) appears regularly. The Segovia-Israel Association of Cultural Relations studies the influence of Jewish culture in Spain.

 

political parties and extra-parliamentary groups

Political Parties

The leading radical right-wing party is Democracia Nacional (National Democracy –DN), which emulates Jean-Marie Le Pen’s French Front National. It emerged in 1995 after the dissolution of CEDADE and the Juntas Españolas of Juan Peligro. In addition to activists from those defunct groups, its leaders include members of Accion Radical, Nacion Joven, Vanguardia Nacional Revolucionaria and Bases Autonomas. The DN’s ideology is openly xenophobic, rejecting separatism from Spain, as well as the existing party system and the European Union.

DN leader Francisco Perez Corrales is the visible head of España 2000, which DN formed with three other far right parties – Partido Nacional de los Trabajadores (National Workers Party – PNT), Movimiento Social Republicano and Vertice Social Español – to run in the March 2000 elections. The alliance won only 0.04 percent of the vote (see also ASW 2000/1).

Small traditionalist fascist parties such as Falange Española de las Jons, Falange Española Independiente (FEI) and Falange Española Autentica are concerned mainly with their own survival, with each polling well under 0.1 percent of the vote in the 2000 elections. Falange Española de las Jons experienced some growth due to the absorption of groups such as Nacion Joven, Resistencia Nacional de la Juventud and Patria Libre. Confederacion de ex combatientes is an umbrella organization linking associations of veterans who yearn for Spain’s fascist past.

 

Extra-parliamentary Groups

The neo-fascist Alternativa Europea, Resistencia and Red Vértice constitute the Movimiento Social Republicano (Social Republican Movement – MSR), founded in mid- 2000. Led by Juan Antonio Llopart and Juan Antonio Aguilar, the MSR has been actively pro-Palestinian, participating in demonstrations together with non-governmental organizations and Islamic groups after the September 11 attacks and the military operation in Afghanistan. At these events, supporters bore placards saying, “Palestine will overcome” and “Against the [US] Terrorist War: Neither war nor NATO. No to intervention.”

In addition, the MSR joined the xenophobic protests of residents of Almeria against the establishment of a Moroccan consulate there and attended rallies organized by racist groups such as Blood & Honour. Within the MSR, Resistencia is the most outspokenly pro-Palestinian group and it clearly demonstrated support for the September 11 attacks.

Rex is a cultural association created to rehabilitate the Belgian Waffen-SS general Leon Degrelle, the spiritual mentor of the Spanish neo-Nazi movement who died in Spain in 1994. The association publishes a magazine edited by the lawyer and academic José Luis Jerez Riesco, who was a close collaborator of Degrelle.

Jerez Riesco, a well-known right wing activist, was formerly connected to the neo-Nazi Fuerza Nueva and CEDADE (see ASW 1994 and subsequent reports). An article published in November 2001 by the magazine Interviu, entitled “The ‘Conversion’ to Islam of Spanish Far Rightists,” claimed that Jerez Riesco worked as the judicial consultant of the Spanish Union of Islamic Communities (UCIDE), one of the two major associations of Muslims in Spain. In June 2001 he spoke at a colloquium in a Parisian mosque on Islam in Europe. On the program he was listed as Jose Luis-Manzur Jerez Riesco, the “Manzur” indicating he had converted to Islam. His relationship to French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy was revealed when he wrote the foreword to the Spanish version of The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics.

It should be noted in connection with far right support of Islamic/Arab actions that an Internet report of September 2001 of the Solidarity Committee with the Arab Cause denounced Nazi/fascist infiltration of the Palestinian support movement. The committee reiterated that not everything was acceptable in the struggle and that it was intolerable that just demands of the Palestinians were being manipulated to revive and justify Nazi/fascist and anti-Jewish positions.

 

Islamist Groups

The Islamic association Badr engages in religious instruction of Muslim children in Melilla, an autonomous city in North Africa, and is considered close to Islamic fundamentalism. The association was formed in the early 1990s by Mustafa Aberchan, leader of the Coalition for Melilla (CpM) and former president of the autonomous city (1999–2000). Allegations of its involvement in attacks in 2001 against a Christian church, a synagogue and the Jewish cemetery (see below) were denied by Abdelkader Mohamed Ali, spokesman of Badr and former representative of the Spanish party Izquierda Unida in the European Parliament. Ali labeled the attack on the Jewish cemetery “repugnant” and “a barbarian act inappropriate for a Muslim.”

In June 2001 police arrested an Algerian national, Mohamed Bensakhria, allegedly a close collaborator of Usama bin Ladin. Another Algerian arrested in Spain, Mohamed Belazziz, had been selected to take part in a suicide bombing in Paris against the US embassy and cultural center.

Following the September 11 attacks, Spanish police dissolved several cells of the Grupo Salafista para la Predicación y el Combate (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat), a splinter group of the Algerian terrorist GIA (see ASW 1997/8).

In November, police in Madrid and Granada arrested eleven Muslims, mostly of Spanish nationality. The operation was aimed at dismantling a terrorist infrastructure presumably linked to al-Qa‘ida. A Spaniard of Syrian origin, Imaz Edin Barakat Yarbas (Abu Dada), head of the group, appeared to be the representative of bin Ladin’s organization in Spain. According to the Interior Ministry, they engaged in recruiting young Islamic radicals and sending them to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. They also collected money to finance the mujahedin movements, often with stolen credit cards, and provided forged identity cards, support and infrastructure to fellow members.

The police increased their surveillance over certain radical Islamic groups after they received evidence that one of the suicide pilots was in Spain a few days before the 11 September attack. Until then, the Spanish police and intelligence services had been convinced that Islamic terrorists used Spain only as a safe resting place or as a bridge to the rest of Europe, but investigations have revealed that Spain has been a “logistical center for Europe,” where Islamic extremists obtain sophisticated equipment, organize clandestine meetings and plan attacks.

 

ANTISEMITIC AND RACIST ACTIVITIES

The Aftermath of 11 September

The governmental crisis committee formed in Spain in the wake of the September 11 attacks, ordered increased surveillance over “sensitive” places (embassies, military bases and airports) and declared a state of maximum alert in the country and in the autonomous North African cities of Ceuta and Melilla.

In Ceuta Muslim youths celebrated the attacks by burning the US flag, displaying the Palestinian one and shouting anti-Jewish slogans. On 14 September, Molotov cocktails were thrown at a Catholic church and the window of a Jewish shop was smashed. Antisemitic slogans were scrawled on a Jewish shop on 15–16 September and children threw stones and eggs at a synagogue during the Jewish New Year (18 Sept.). The Spanish government sent reinforcements to Ceuta, partly to protect the Jewish community during the New Year celebrations.

The local government played down the seriousness of the attacks. According to official sources, radical Muslims in Ceuta, allegedly connected to the drug trafficking Mafia, were creating a climate of agitation in the city in order to distract security forces from the clandestine traffic of hashish.

In Melilla the Jewish cemetery was desecrated on 23 September. When the president of the Jewish community and some journalists arrived to inspect the damage, a group of Arab youths shouted “Jewish pigs” and pro-bin-Ladin slogans. Municipal workers who came to clean graffiti from the wall of the cemetery were stoned and had to receive police protection. In addition, rocks and bottles were thrown at the synagogue and “Death to the Jews” was scrawled on the walls. Pro-bin Ladin slogans also appeared on a Catholic church. Twelve Arab boys, allegedly supporters of Badr, were detained for these offenses and later released.

            A spokesman for the Islamic Commission of Melilla branded the Moroccan ulemas (religious scholars) who pronounced a fatwa (religious edict) against supporting a US attack on Afghanistan as “fundamentalist.” He advised Melilla’s imams not to announce the fatwa in the city’s mosques because it might be understood as “justifying terrorism.” One Melilla imam urged his faithful to defend Afghanistan and to dissociate themselves from “skeptics” – “Christians, Jews, Hindus and idolaters” – whom he denounced. The representative of the Melilla government sent a translation of this sermon to the Spanish attorney general in order to determine whether it constituted a crime.

On the Spanish mainland, leaders of the Islamic community condemned the September 11 attacks but doubted they were the work of Usama bin Ladin or of Muslims. On 21 September, the imam of Valencia told worshipers: “All the evidence shows that the Jews are guilty.”

 

Insults and Propaganda

Antisemitic remarks by the world president of the Internet company Terra Lycos, Joaquin Agut, were reported by the journalist Jesus Cacho in the magazine Epoca (no. 836). According to Cacho, at a dinner in honor of a former director of the Terra company, Agut maintained: “I have done business with Jews all my life and they have always tried to deceive me.” He went on to say: “If someone has any problem with Jews he should tell me, I have some cousins in Sicily who will take care of them.” He also made some disparaging references to the Holocaust.

Representatives of the Spanish Jewish community demanded a public explanation from Agut and an investigation by Cesar Alierta, president of Telefónica, which owns 35 percent of Terra Lycos. The American Jewish Congress (AJC) and B’nai B’rith International also sent letters of protest. In mid-March, Alierta published a communiqué in the media categorically denying that the alleged remarks had been made. The AJC decided to accept his statement, in a communiqué published in New York on 28 March.

            Antisemitic cartoons were published in the leading Spanish newspaper El Pais. On 23 May Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was shown standing beside a muse holding a moustache. The caption read: “Cleo, muse of history putting Hitler’s moustache on Ariel Sharon.” On May 24 another cartoon depicted a caricature of an ultra-Orthodox Jew holding a flag, a holy book and a rifle. The caption read: “We are the chosen people of weapons factories.”

In June 2001 Muslims in Melilla participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration. They chanted antisemitic slogans and carried placards reading, “Jews, dregs of humanity,” “[Jews] You are going to die,” Hebrews, you kill four thousand people a day,” and “Hebrews are pigs.” Israeli flags were burned, swastikas were displayed, and the youngest demonstrators (some only aged only five or six) offered their “chests against Zionist bullets.” NATO, the European Union, the UN and the US were described as “friends of the Zionist invaders and enemies of the Muslims.” The Islamic association Badr allegedly declared its support for the demonstration.

Dismissal of workers in May from the Potasa factory in Barcelona provoked antisemitic accusations from workers. The factory was bought by the Israeli Dead Sea Works in 1999. Workers burned down the house of a manager, drew swastikas on the walls and wrote: “We are not Palestinians: go back to Israel.” Employers and employees held meetings to reduce tensions..

 

Internet

Shortly after 11 September 2001, the Florida-based server Stormfront of the American White Supremacist Don Black struck the Spanish neo-Nazi Nuevorden (www.nuevorden.org) off its client list, explaining in Spanish:

 

We have watched with deep anger and disgust the unfeigned joy with which many “patriots” from Spain and from other countries have welcomed the attack against our own country, which has so far given you the opportunity to put information on line through this site. Thousands of my fellow countrymen have been killed by Arabs, who also invade your country and threaten the entire West. However, we see that many National Socialists like you do whatever is possible to justify what is unjustifiable.

 

The message concluded with “Good luck and bye. On this our day of mourning, we apologize for not welcoming you any more at this site which has up to now been yours as well. GOD BLESS AMERICA.” A US flag fluttered under the message. This declaration manifests serious differences between US white supremacists and some of their European brethren.

After a few weeks, Nuevorden reappeared on the Internet from a new server in the US, which appears to be closer to them ideologically. Nuevorden’s first editorial, entitled “Serving Liberty,” complained that in Spain “it is virtually impossible to express our opinions … except in repressive trials [reference is to the trial of right-wing extremist Pedro Varela, owner of the Europe bookshop – see ASW 2000/1].” They noted that throughout Europe “incredible” laws, which prohibit any deviation “from the dogmas of capitalist democracy,” have been passed.

The rector’s office and many students at Carlos III University received racist electronic mail messages which reproached them for their support of immigrant communities. One of the letters was signed by the “Spanish National Socialist Party” and another offered more information about Spanish neo-Nazis through the Nuevorden website. The secretary of education said blocking incoming electronic mail with Nazi content at the university would be too problematic. Voicing his concern about the multiplicity of racist outbreaks in Madrid universities, he announced that he was planning to propose the creation of a study program to “raise student awareness to the enriching qualities of immigration.”

 

Other Racist Incidents

According to a survey on Spanish attitudes to immigration, conducted by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas in March 2001, 42 percent of citizens thought there were too many immigrants in Spain and 32 percent considered immigration the principal social problem in Spain, ahead of unemployment, drugs and terrorism. It should be pointed out that immigrants constitute only 2 percent of the population in Spain, five times less than in France or Germany.

Several minors were arrested in March in Alquerias (Murcia) for alleged participation in violent and xenophobic incidents after a demonstration in which residents of the town demanded increased security measures against a wave of robberies in the region. After the demonstration, the youngsters set fire to an abandoned warehouse where immigrants were once housed overnight, and then proceeded to attack two immigrants, a Bulgarian woman and an Ecuatorian man, with baseball bats and chains.

The extreme right-wing PNT (see above), whose heaquarters are in Murcia, asked the government of Murcia for permission to carry out a “first major anti-immigration march” on 1 April in Torre Pacheco. Permission was refused because the authorities feared an outbreak of xenophobic incidents in the region, where foreigners make up a large part of the population. The PNT announcement of the march on the Internet received the support of other far right groups.

 

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST and the nazi era

In May, Jewish institutions and organizations in Madrid, together with the Israeli embassy, led a candle lighting ceremony in memory of the Holocaust. The main commemorative ceremony took place in the Asamblea de Madrid, (regional parliament), for the second consecutive year.

            The government of Aragon plans to request that documents found in the old international border station of Canfranc in the Pyrenees be transferred to the state archives. These documents, discovered by a French citizen born of Spanish emigrant parents, prove that Franco’s Spain concealed the entry from Switzerland of more than 86 tons of Nazi gold, stolen from European banks and from concentration camp prisoners, of which 12 tons remained in Spain during World War II. Surviving witnesses in Canfranc recall that gold ingots entered Spain through Canfranc, under the eye of the Guardia Civil (civil guard).

The German government will compensate almost 200 (non-Jewish) Spanish forced laborers from the Nazi era with sums of up to 5,000 marks.

 

responses to racism and antisemitism

The Association against Intolerance has detected an increasing “Islamophobia” and “identification of all that is Arabic with terrorism,” especially in schools and among youth. The association warned that “stigmatization” of the Islamic community would provoke an increase of violence. Two cars belonging to Muslims were burned and a mosque was attacked in the city of Marbella.

The Jewish electronic bulletin Gueshernews (www.guesherweb.com) in its issue of September/October 2001 noted “two apparently contradictory attitudes” in Spanish public opinion: on the one hand, demonization of the Muslim and on the other, demonization of Israel (or the Jews in general in some cases). Both were equally worrying – in fact they were faces of the same coin. Antisemitism, disguised as support for the Palestinian cause, had proved once again its capacity to justify absolute atrocities through the use of dialectical acrobatics. The anti-Muslim trend was nourished by a profound xenophobic sentiment. “We condemn [these attitudes] not only from an ethical point of view but also from a pragmatic one: when a minority suffers defamation and discrimination, [other minorities] are in danger as well.”

The Assembly of the Autonomous City of Melilla held a minute’s silence following the September 11 attacks and some Muslim associations spoke out against Muslim youth that had supported them. A few days later, during the celebration of the 504th anniversary of the Spanish foundation of the city, an Interdenominational Committee of Melilla was created. Consisting of representatives of the four principal religious communities, Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu, its purpose is to work for peaceful coexistence and understanding among religions.

            King Juan Carlos of Spain told European Jewish representatives in June that he regretted the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492 and welcomed their presence in contemporary Spain.