SPAIN 2008/9

 

Spanish demonstrators were among the most vociferous in Europe in accusing Israel of “genocide” and Nazism in protest against the war on Gaza. The largest demonstration in Europe took place in central Madrid on January 11, with the approval of the government party and the participation of its members. The Generalitat in Barcelona canceled a public candle lighting ceremony planned for Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27, 2009. The Barcelona Tribunal reduced the prison sentence of neo-Nazi Pedro Varela, handed down in 1998 for denial and advocacy of genocide.

     

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

The Jewish population is estimated at 50,000; however, the number of registered Jews does not exceed 14,000. The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE), which represents Jewish interests to the government, consists of thirteen traditional and Orthodox communities, the largest of which are located in Madrid, Barcelona and the Costa del Sol (Malaga). There are Jewish day schools in Barcelona, Madrid and Melilla. A cultural magazine, Raíces (Roots) appears on a quarterly basis and is sold also in South America. The Federation of Jewish Communities operates an Internet radio station, Radio Sefarad - www.radiosefarad.com. The Segovia-Israel Association of Cultural Relations researches the influence of Jewish culture in Spain.

The Superior Spanish Rabbinical Council was established in November 2008, integrating rabbis and members of the Religious Commission of the Federation of Spanish Jewish Communities. The Council now serves as the supreme religious Jewish authority in the solution of religious Jewish affairs.

The FCJE, in its role as representative organ of the Jewish communities with respect to National Institutions, issued a communiqué on the status of medieval Jewish cemeteries found in Spain by chance. Accordingly, each case would be dealt with on an individual basis in cooperation with the Spanish authorities.

Some 600 people gathered at the Plaza de Olavide in Madrid on December 22 to observe the lighting of the three first candles of the Chanukah menorah by the Great Sephardi Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar and the Great Rabbi of Madrid Moshe Bendahan. It was the first time that a menorah had been kindled publicly in Madrid.

A team of geneticists has found that there were mass conversions of Jews and Muslims to Catholicism on the Iberian Peninsula during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Research on the DNA of the population reveals that 20 percent and 11 percent, respectively, have Jewish and Muslim ancestors (JTA, December 8, 2008).

 

political organizations and extra-parliamentary groups

Elections

The national legislative elections held in Spain on March 9, 2008 were again won by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) of President of the Government Rodriguez Zapatero. It gained 43.3 percent of the vote, while the conservative People’s Party (PP) of Mariano Rajoy obtained 38.3 percent. Both parties strengthened their position in both the national and autonomous provincial elections, thanks partly to the collapse of two parties of the extreme left: the United Left (IU) and the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC).

 

The Far Right

The extreme right has had no representation in either the Spanish Congress or the Senate for the last thirty years. The leading organization is National Democracy (DN) which, since 2004 has enjoyed the support of Jean Marie Le Pen, leader of the French National Front.

Prior to the March elections, DN organized an anti-immigrant demonstration, expecting a turnout of 1000, but only 180 came. The main slogans were “Social support for nationals” and “There is a causal relationship between immigration and delinquency.” The march, banned by the government because of its xenophobic and racist objectives, was later permitted by a decision of Madrid’s Superior Tribunal of Justice. A large police force accompanied the demonstrators. There were no incidents.

Movimiento Social Republicano (MSR), associated with former leftist republicans and created in year 2000, comprises the neo-fascist groups Alternativa Europea, Resistencia, and the Red Vértice network (which split from the Falange – see below). Resistencia is the most militant group within the MSR with respect to the Palestinian issue and the September 11 attacks, which it supported unequivocally. The movement praises the extermination of the Jews by the Nazi regime (see also below). In previous general elections, they formed an electoral platform, España 2000, together with Democracia Nacional and other extreme right groups, which was supported by Le Pen (see ASW 2000−2002).

The antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant National Alliance (AN), successor to the ultra-right Alianza por la Unidad Nacional of convicted criminal Ricardo Saenz de Ynestrillas, kept a relatively low profile in 2008 (see ASW 2007).

The small traditionalist fascist parties , principally las tres falanges (Falange Espaniola de las JONS, Falange Espaniola Independiente (FEI) and Falange Espaniola Autentica), continued to participate in elections at the local, regional and national level, but are concerned mainly with their own survival. Membership of the Confederacion de ex-Combatientes, an umbrella organization linking associations that yearn for Spain’s fascist past, is dwindling due to the death of veterans; around November 20, however, remaining veterans commemorate annually the execution in 1936 by Socialist forces of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera (founder of the Falange) and the death of General Francisco Franco (1975).

 

The Far Left

As noted, the United Left (formed by the Communist Party together with some smaller parties), the only extreme left entity with national parliamentarian representation, suffered a major blow in the general elections of 2008 and in the autonomous elections of Catalonia. There are numerous small anti-fascist and anti-establishment far left groups that are openly antisemitic, anti-Israel and pro-Palestine. Although their political enemies are the extreme right parties, they are all united by anti-Israelism, which sometimes crosses the line to antisemitism. During Operation Cast Lead far left groups participated actively, together with Muslim groups, in the demonstrations and vandalistic acts against synagogues and the Israeli embassy (see below).

 

The Muslim Community

The majority of Spain’s Muslim immigrants originated in Morocco, Algeria and Pakistan (over 700,000). Two-thirds of the Pakistanis and one-third of the Moroccans live in Catalonia, whose immigration policy gives preference to North African Muslims and  Pakistanis (over Spanish-speaking immigrants from South America) since they do not know Spanish and are obliged to learn the Catalonian language.

Several Islamist terrorist actions in Catalonia in the last few years have been either aborted by the police or by the terrorists themselves. However, the Catalonian authorities tend to suppress such information and deny there is any threat. For example, it was revealed by the private Group of Strategic Studies (GEES), a leading think tank which analyzes security matters created by Former Prime Minister José Maria Aznar of the People’s Party, that Islamic terrorists had been planning to attack Barcelona’s subway in the rush hour in January 2008. The terrorists, who had conspired in the Tarik Bin Ziyad Mosque, in the distressed Raval neighborhood, had abandoned the plan a few days before they were due to carry it out (Libertad Digital, February 4, 2009). The police, reportedly, had been monitoring them.

 

ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES

The Year 2008

In 2006, after the pro-Israel representative Pedro Gomez-Valades was elected president of the newly established Association of Friendship with Israel (AGAI), in Vigo, Autonomous Community of Galicia, proceedings were begun to expel him from his party, the small ultra-nationalist Nationalist Gallego Bloc (BNG) (see ASW 2007). In April 2008, the mainstream newspaper Faro do Vigo published an article claiming that Gomez-Valades’s expulsion from the party had been confirmed that month because it was suspected he was secretly “judaizing [a phrase employed ironically by the paper and used during the period of the Spanish Inquisition for Jews who converted to Catholicism but were still living secretly as Jews]” in favor of the “Imperialist State of Israel.” Gomez-Valades had refused to give up the presidency of AGAI, which includes representatives of all the main parties in Galicia. The Association strongly condemned the BNG for its “fascist” and “unconstitutional” conduct.

 

Operation Cast Lead

On January 30, 2009, a man wearing military garb attacked the outer wall of the reconstructed Shlomo Ben Adret synagogue in the Cal neighborhood of Barcelona with a baseball bat and then wounded an employee. The perpetrator, who was arrested, is a Spanish member of the extreme right MSR. The MSR signature was also painted on January 8, 2009, on the Chabad−Lubavich Center in the city (Europa Press, January 30, 2009).

Spanish demonstrators were among the most vociferous in Europe in accusing Israel of “genocide” and Nazism in protest against the war on Gaza. The largest demonstrations against Israel took place in Madrid and Barcelona, but there were numerous rallies across Spain, including one called by the Islamic Community of Pamplona, Navarra’s capital city, as well as in Oviedo, Cordoba, Seville and Almeria. There were also demonstrations in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which have large Muslim populations.

               The biggest demonstration in Europe took place on January 11 in central Madrid. Participants included representatives from the governmental PSOE, the far left IU, three leading trade unions, more than forty associations, a group of artists and intellectuals from the No War movement, and the former director of UNESCO, Federico Mayor Zaragoza. The proceedings of the demonstration were reportedly approved by the PSOE after discussion with the rest of the organizers. Initially, the Socialists had rejected the word “genocide,” but gave in to pressure from the extreme left and accepted the term in the banner placed at the head of the demonstration. Israeli flags were burned and slogans such as “Israel assassin” and “This is not a war, it is genocide” were heard. When the official demonstration ended, hundreds of people, mainly Muslims, began an illegal and uncontrolled march towards the Israeli embassy, which they pelted with stones and shoes, breaking 37 glass windows; they also attacked and injured a policeman.

Next day the PP strongly criticized the demonstration and the PSOE. While

Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero condemned the word “genocide” he described Israel’s reaction in Gaza as “disproportionate.”

On January 25, another demonstration organized by the IU, the Spanish non-Jewish Paz Ahora (Peace Now), and the Spanish−Palestinian Jerusalem Association began at the US embassy and ended at the Israeli embassy, with similar slogans and a demand to the Spanish government to cut diplomatic relations with Israel.

On January 10, between 30,000 and 180,000 (depending on the source) anti-war demonstrators in Barcelona, mainly of North African and Middle East origin, demanded a commercial boycott of Israel in Catalonia. Some 300 civil organizations marching under the slogan “Stop the massacre in Gaza” were led by Interior Councilor of the Catalonian government, the Communist Joan Saura. They held antisemitic banners with catchphrases such as “Jew assassins” and “You are worse than Nazis,” as well as Israeli flags with a swastika superimposed, shouted slogans in favor of Hamas, and distributed pamphlets threatening activist journalist Pilar Rahola (see ASW 2007) and other pro-Israel Catalonian intellectuals.

Interior Councilor Jean Saura of the Generalitat in Barcelona, who, as noted, participated in the January 10 demonstration, canceled a public candle lighting ceremony planned for January 27, Holocaust Memorial Day. A City Hall representative explained that it was inappropriate to commemorate the Jewish Holocaust when there was “a Palestinian holocaust going on.” When the Israeli ambassador in Spain protested, the President of the Generalitat José Montilla reprimanded him for denouncing antisemitism in Catalonia. As a result, the Jewish community cancelled the only public event it had planned in commemoration of the Holocaust. Montilla, however, fearing accusations of antisemitism, met with members of the Jewish community and reached a compromise. The ceremony, held in a plaza close to the Generalitat, was led by Saura in the presence of lower ranking community members, as well as other public officials.

 

ATTITUDES TOWARD the HOLOCAUST and the NAZI ERA

Holocaust Denial

The organization SOS Racism Barcelona sent a letter to Catalonia’s district attorney asking him to ban a lecture by British Holocaust denier David Irving scheduled for December 13, 2008, after another tour of Spain that took him to Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona (see ASW 2007). However, the event was permitted to take place.

 

Holocaust Commemoration

 

The official event commemorating the Holocaust and Prevention of Crimes against Humanity took place on January 27, 2008, at Madrid’s Complutense University. Organized by Casa Sepharad−Israel, it was attended by leading figures from the Jewish and Roma communities and members of the Spanish government. Both the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities and the president of the Roma Union deplored the verdict of the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal decriminalizing Holocaust denial in the name of freedom of expression. The event was closed by Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratinos, who reaffirmed the government’s commitment to remember the victims of the Holocaust. A similar event was held the following year.

 

RESPONSES TO ANTISEMITISM AND RACISM

Official and Public Activity

Foreign Affairs Minister Moratinos reaffirmed Spain’s commitment to fight antisemitism at a meeting with representatives of the Latin American Jewish Congress.

Toledo was the venue of the first international seminar, June 20−22, 2008, on “The Holocaust − Historical Aspects.” Organized by Casa Sefarad−Israel, it was attended by French, Spanish and Israeli experts, such as George Benssoussan (France) and Dan Michman (Israel).

Madrid’s Jewish community organized an international seminar on antisemitism in the Círculo de Bellas Artes of the Regional Government of Madrid, on November 25−26. Participants included Spanish academics such as Gonzalo Alvarez Chillida and J.L. Rodriguez Jimenez, Wolfgang Benz, from the Technical University of Berlin and Emanuele Ottolenghi from the Transatlantic Institute, Brussels.

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah organized an inter-religious conference in Madrid, to which representatives of the World Jewish Congress and other Jewish organizations were invited. The event, held in the presence of King Juan Carlos I of Spain, was inaugurated on July 17. The concluding Madrid Declaration called on the UN General Assembly to convene a special session in order to promote understanding between religions, civilizations and cultures.

On October 23, the City Council of Malaga signed over a plot to the Jewish community, formerly inhabited by Jews of medieval times, for the construction of a synagogue, a community center and a Sephardic museum. The complex will constitute a cultural and tourist attraction.

On December 17, Spain was confirmed a member of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. President Zapatero sent a message saying that it was the duty of the state to re-establish the Shoah in Spanish civic consciousness.

Some three thousand persons from all over Spain, including non-Jews, gathered in front of the Israeli embassy on January 18, 2009 to show their support for the state. The event was organized by the Association of Spain−Israel Solidarity under the banner, “In defense of Israel, against lies and terrorism.” There were no incidents although a small group waving Palestinian flags was moved away by the police. A minute’s silence was held for all the victims of the conflict.

 

Legal Activity

On March 6, 2008, the Barcelona Tribunal reduced the prison sentence of Pedro Varela, handed down in 1998, from five years in prison (three years for genocide denial and two for its advocacy) to seven months. Varela is the owner of the Europa bookstore and former president of the dissolved neo-Nazi group CEDADE. The Catalonian judges took into account a verdict of the Constitutional Tribunal from 2007, which determined that denying an act of genocide is not a crime, although the Penal Code (Art. 607.2) punishes the “dissemination by any means, ideas or doctrines that tend to justify” genocide. The Barcelona Tribunal reduced Varela’s two year sentence for advocating genocide to seven months because of the seven year delay in the Constitutional Tribunal’s arrival at a decision (see ASW 2007).

In 2008 the Palestinian Center for Human Rights submitted a petition to the Spanish Supreme Court regarding Israel’s assassination in July 2002 of Hamas military leader Salah Shahede, during which at least 14 civilians were killed. In January 2009, Judge Fernando Abreu decided to prosecute senior Israeli military officers for “crimes against humanity,” based on the principle of Universal Jurisdiction. The Israeli ambassador in Spain claimed the lawsuit had been politically motivated, with the objective of “delegitimiz[ing] the very existence of Israel.”

At least three persons of Algerian origin were arrested in Vitoria by the Basque police in February 2008 for proselytizing and raising funds to support jihad among the Muslim community. Six Pakistani citizens were arrested in Barcelona for an alleged fiscal fraud and terrorist financing, but were freed for lack of evidence.

A court in Madrid, the Audiencia Nacional, will demand the extradition of four men accused of working as guards at the Nazi camps of Flossenbürg, Sachsenhausen and Mathausen. They will be tried for causing the death of (non-Jewish) Spanish citizens at the camps. More than 7.000 republican Spaniards were held as prisoners at the Mathausen camp and over 4.300 of them died, according to El Mundo. The lawsuit was brought by a Brussels-based rights organization, Equipo Nizkor, under Spain´s Universal Jurisdiction principle. All four defendants, among them, John Demjanjuk, were living in the US but had their US citizenship revoked.