Tens of thousands of people flooded Spanish cities on Wednesday to demonstrate against Israel, with some of the more riotous protests to arrests.
The crowds demanded an end to all diplomatic relations with Israel and for the arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be respected. The mass action took place despite the announcement of a Gaza peace deal, a ceasefire, and the release of many Palestinian prisoners last week.
Participants of the demonstrations in Barcelona threw fire bombs and stones at companies accused of collaborating with Israel. Footage on social media shows Burger King, Starbucks, and McDonald's outlets with the windows smashed, and Spanish media reported that local firefighters were called to put out multiple fires. Overall, an estimated 15,000 took part in the Barcelona protest, which ended with participants making a bonfire outside the Israeli consulate.
According to the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalonian police), a "large group of people" tried to tear down the protective barriers to the consulate and threw stones at the police line. Several groups also tried to block Israeli members of the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team from leaving the arena, where they had been playing against Baxi Manresa.
According to local authorities, 15 people were arrested for public disorder, 11 of whom were minors.
Madrid saw around 11,000 demonstrators marching under the slogan 'Stop for Palestine'. According to Spanish media, the protest in the capital was mostly peaceful, but featured chants calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy and "decolonization of Palestine." Leaders of the far-left Podemos were present, including party leader Ione Belarra, who tweeted: "Without true peace or justice in Palestine, there will be no peace in the streets."
Multiple other cities across Spain mobilized, with thousands of protesters in Pamplona, 400 in Girona, several hundred in Asturias, and a thousand in Valencia.
"The Mossos have beaten us"
Valencia and Barcelona police were accused of using violence to disperse protesters, with eyewitnesses telling El Salto of rubber bullets and pepper spray.
"The Mossos have beaten us, they have thrown us to the ground and they have thrown pepper spray at us," a spokeswoman said over the loudspeakers in Barcelona.
Additionally, two two-hour strikes - from 10 am to 12 pm and from 5 pm to 7 pm - were organized by some of the country's major trade unions including CCOO, and UGT. Other trade unions such as CGT and Solidaridad Obrera called for a 24 hour general strike.
Several media outlets and TV channels such as Canal Sur and El Salto joined the strike by either cutting broadcasting or by only posting content about Palestine.
The general secretary of the CGT, Miguel Fadrique, told crowds that the persecution against Palestinians did not begin on 7 October 2023. "From then on, the genocide became much more brutal and violent, and also mediatic, but the occupation and persecution have been going on for decades," he said.
He called for a blockade of diplomatic and commercial relations with Israel, "even with the ceasefire underway."
Spain's stance on Israel
Angél Mas, president of pro-Israel and anti-antisemitism organization ACOM, told The Jerusalem Post that the situation in Spain is "very strange" due to the fact that "a lot of the violence we see in the street and a lot of the radical positions we see is actually somehow promoted and protected from the government itself."
Mas added that a lot of blame has been placed on left-wing parties, but that in "in reality, all this is driven by the Prime Minister and the socialist government."
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has taken a strikingly hardline stance on Israel since the beginning of the war with Hamas in October 2023.
He has, in recent months, called for Israel to be excluded from all international competitions "until the savagery ends." Last week, he approved an arms embargo on Israel that would completely prevent the sale of weapons to Israel and the purchase of Israeli weapons by Spain.
Last month, Netanyahu accused Sanchez of making a “blatant genocidal threat” after the latter lamented Spain’s lack of “nuclear weapons” to defend against Israel during his announcement of sanctions against the Jewish State.
Sanchez said “Spain, as you know, doesn’t have nuclear bombs, nor aircraft carriers, nor large oil reserves. We alone can’t stop the Israeli offensive, but that doesn’t mean we won’t stop trying, because there are causes worth fighting for even if it’s not in our sole power to win them.”
Mas told the Post that Sanchez has been using the war in Gaza as a "smokescreen."
"He creates these smoke screens and he's using very dangerous strategies such as state-supported street violence or aggressive demonstrations," Mas explained, stressing that "the ones over the last few days are not the first ones."
Mas believes such moves will backfire. "He doesn't mind isolating the country; his effort to expel Israel from Eurovision for instance, actually is resulting in Spain being the one that is being excluded. The effort to get Israel excluded from a number of international sporting events like the Vuelta, the result is that probably the Vuelta is going to have problems in the future. The recent passing of regulation preventing acquiring Israeli defense equipment is actually isolating Spain, not the other way around, not isolating Israel. Israel has enough markets. Spain was heavily reliant on Israel's technology and a number of fronts for its defense and intelligence services. "
Speaking of the unions that organized yesterday's protests, Mas said they are "very marginal in terms of membership and their reputation and credibility because everybody knows that they're highly corrupt." Nevertheless, the fact that they declared the first general strike in decades in Spain is significant, especially after the peace agreement and the boycott against Israel had both already been signed.
"Clearly this has nothing to do with support for civil or non-combatant Palestinians," Mas said.
"This is all about basically distorting reality, demonizing, criminalizing Israel and basically distracting the public opinion."