The ‘Israeli apartheid’ against the Palestinian people must be roundly condemned, said Sumar leader and acting Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz on Wednesday after being accused of not condemning the attacks against Israel, which she did soon after.
In yet another sign of the tangible differences between the Socialist Party (PSOE/S&D) and Unidas Podemos (EU Left), to which Díaz still belongs, the minister and possibly future vice-president condemned “loud and clear Israeli apartheid and violence against the civilian population wherever it comes from”, Euractiv’s partner EFE reported.
At a conference of The Left party, Díaz made clear her rejection of Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, after Partido Popular (PP/EPP), Spain’s main opposition force in parliament, accused her of not having condemned the attacks against Israel clearly enough.
Although on Wednesday Díaz did not clearly refer to Hamas as a terrorist group, as defined by the EU and the United States, Sumar sources have pointed out that “it is obvious” that it is, because the group is in the EU’s list of terrorist organisations.
On Tuesday, PP sources criticised some voices in the incumbent coalition government for allegedly failing to firmly reject Hamas attacks.
Harsh criticism of Commissioner Varhelyi
Among them, the acting Minister for Social Rights, Ione Belarra (Unidas Podemos), fiercely criticised “the complicit silence in the face of Israel’s attacks against the Palestinian people”, and accused the State of Israel of having spent “decades subjecting the Palestinian people to apartheid”, Onda Cero reported.
Díaz was also very harsh in her criticism of the European Commission on Wednesday, and specifically of Neighbourhood Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi, whose initial proposal to suspend humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, which he later modified, the Spanish minister described as “outrageous”.
The EU, Díaz stressed, should lead international action to promote peace in the region “and not punish an entire people”.
Pedro Sánchez, the only “authorised” voice
On the other hand, and in the face of the harsh criticism expressed on Tuesday by the PP and the far-right Vox party, the third force in Parliament, PSOE reminded Wednesday that it is Pedro Sánchez, the acting prime minister, who sets the foreign policy guidelines in Madrid, and not his ministers.
The PSOE parliament spokesman, Patxi López, stressed that Sánchez and the entire Government have already firmly condemned the terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, the Spanish judiciary announced that it will open an investigation to clarify the death of the young Spanish-Israeli Maya Villalobos Sinvany and the disappearance of the Basque citizen Iván Illarramendi and his wife, a Chilean national, after the attacks in Gaza, EFE reported.
Judge María Tardón has accepted the jurisdiction of the Spanish courts to investigate the disappearances of these three citizens, considering that the events could be classified as an alleged crime of terrorism and that it corresponds to the Spanish jurisdiction to investigate them as there are two victims with Spanish nationality and a first-degree relative of one of them.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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