Under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish government was the first European country to recognize a nonexistent “Palestine” as a state, while Sánchez himself has called Israel guilty of committing genocide. Now one of his ministers has gone further in calling for the disappearance of the Jewish state and its replacement by a “state of Palestine.” More on this latest outrage can be found here: “Israeli Diplomat Accuses Spanish Minister of Antisemitism Over ‘From the River to the Sea’ Call,” by Ailin Vilches Arguello, Algemeiner, September 25, 2026:
Israel’s acting ambassador to Spain, Dana Erlich, has accused Spanish Youth and Children’s Minister Sira Rego of antisemitism after she called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea” in Madrid, in yet another high-profile instance of antisemitic and hostile rhetoric by Spanish government officials.
Speaking at a conference featuring Palestinian Ambassador to Spain Fadi Elhusseini, Rego called for “a free Palestine from the river to the sea” and even accused the Israeli government of committing “genocide” in its defensive war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” is a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
During the event, Rego also called for Spain to cut diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, urged the European Union to suspend its association agreement with the Jewish state, and demanded that Madrid honor the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ambassador Erlich sharply condemned Rego’s anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, warning that such statements from a senior government official could further embolden violence and harassment toward Jews and Israelis across Spain amid an already hostile social climate.
“Spain is not antisemitic — but this minister is,” the Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
From Prime Minister Sánchez on down, the Spanish government exhibits extreme animus toward the tiny Jewish state. It has routinely described Israel as guilty of “war crimes” and “genocide.” The culture minister Ernest Urtasun has called for a cultural boycott of Israeli artists and institutions, including preventing Israelis from participating in the Eurovision Song Contest, and in literary festivals in Spain. He is determined to exclude not just Israelis, but also to prevent the participation of companies linked to Israel in Spanish cultural activities.
Still worse is Spanish Youth and Children’s Minister Sira Rego, who has been accused by Israel’s ambassador to Spain, Dana Erlich, of antisemitism after she called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea” and added her voice to the chorus of Spanish officials who accuse Israel of “genocide.”
Calling for a state of Palestine “from the river to the sea” is unambiguous. It is a call for the Jewish state to be destroyed, its Jewish inhabitants expelled or killed, and for it to be replaced by a 23rd Arab state. When Minister Rego made this remark, neither Prime Minister Sánchez nor any other Spanish official tried to distance themselves from Rego’s claim. Israel’s Embassy in Madrid was right to denounce Rego’s statement as “hate speech” that “further normalizes anti-Israel hostility in Spanish public discourse.”
Meanwhile, now that Sánchez has chosen to “regularize’ at least 500,000 illegal migrants, who are overwhelmingly Muslims from North Africa, we can expect many more such migrants to flow into Spain to take advantage of this policy. And how many, do you think, will become a colossal financial burden on the state, as they take advantage of the many welfare benefits the Spanish state has on offer?
Finally, all those Spanish officials, from Pedro Sánchez on down, who have been so intent on maligning the Jewish state and calling for it to disappear (that is what “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free” means) apparently are blissfully unaware that in the eyes of Muslim Arabs, the takeover of Israel is first on their to-do list, but just after Israel, it is Spain — once possessed by the Muslims and therefore to be possessed again — that must be reconquered. Muslim hearts yearn both to take over Israel and to again possess Al-Andalus al-Islamiyyah — Islamic Spain—regnum olim, regnum in futurum.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
If Mohammedans reconquer al Andaluz, nothing of importance will be lost
Edmund Carey says
If Spain once again falls under Muslim control it will be cold comfort to be able to say to them: “So, how do YOU like it?” But a few people will say it.
People like Sira Rego consider their calls for the destruction of Israel to be righteousness itself because they are convinced that Israel is the last instance in history of the “unspeakable crime” of White people dominating and stealing from differently-tinted non-Westerns. Which they think is what pretty much the whole of human history has been about. They think they are paying reparation for that crime by lining up with what they see as its last remaining victims. They have never picked up a history book.
In 1947 every one of the Zionist settlers in Palestine was living on land they had bought legally from an Arab or Turkish landowner who was willing to sell it to them. Also in 1947 the majority of the Arabs there (they didn’t call themselves Palestinians at the time) were as recent immigrants to the region as most of the Jews were.
It is indeed hard to find reliable information on the subject – there is so much written about it that misrepresents. Ian Bickerton’s “A History of the Arab Israeli Conflict” is a bit biased toward the Palestinian view, but it is responsible historical writing nevertheless. Alan Dowty’s “Israel/Palestine” does a good job of always taking account of both positions on the details and is always responsible. I would like to recommend Joshua Muravchik’s “Making David into Goliath” for an informative account of why Israel has come to be so hated when it was cheered (in the West) during the Six Day War. And I strongly recommend “The War of Return” by Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz, for a detailed account of how the Palestinian refugee situation ballooned into the grotesque sideshow that it is now in spite of international efforts to resolve it.
The facts are out there.
Wellington says
Reading the headline of this article by Hugh Fitzgerald in a slightly different way made me think that perhaps Spain could and should actually create a “Minister for Antisemitism” and thus do away with any games or pretenses like proffering a distinction between Zionism and antisemitism.
Why not just be completely honest, no? Cut to the quick and all that. And talk about about a double entendre per the headline, no?
gravenimage says
Israeli Diplomat in Spain Calls Out Spanish Minister for Antisemitism
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Good for her. But will anyone there listen?