This is a sensitive time of the year for Spanish fascists. Their two biggest heroes both died on the 20th of November. José Antonio Primo de Rivera (say “José Antonio” in any discussion about modern Spain and everyone will know who you are talking about), the founder of the Spanish Falange, was executed by firing squad on November 20th 1936 after having been found guilty of insurrection and conspiracy against the Republic. Francisco Franco Bahamonde died of old age on the 20th of November, 1975 after having ruled Spain with unsurpassed brutality and cunning since 1939.
Archive for the 'Spain' Category
Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony the bulk of which has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975. The Saharaui people have sought independence in a long struggle against the Moroccan authorities. In recent days there have been fresh outbreaks of violence by the Moroccan security forces against Saharauis in El Aaiún, the territory’s capital and this has led to protests by Saharaui exiles in Spain. Lluís Bassets is a senior journalist at El País and this is what he has to say about the situation today:
The Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has the reputation of being one of the finest universities in Spain. It is financed by the state and it certainly has an original policy regarding the hiring of teaching staff. From February to June this year it allowed Juan Antonio Aguilar and Jesús Palacios to teach a course in its Faculty of Political Science and Sociology.
Continue reading ‘Neo-Fascists Teaching In Top Spanish University’
The present government of Spain, a socialist government, in name at least, has:
increased by 34% the percentage of their income tax that citizens may give to the Catholic church,
abandoned proposals to reform the religious freedom law and hence leave the Catholic church to enjoy privileges denied to other religions,
There’s a long interview with Felipe González, the former socialist prime minister of Spain, in El País today. In it he speaks of an opportunity he spurned to carry out a targeted assassination of the leadership of the Basque terrorist group ETA.
Continue reading ‘Felipe González And Targeted Assassinations’
The Casa Sefarad-Israel is a state-sponsored body in Spain which aims to increase awareness in that country of its Sephardic heritage and Jewish culture in general and to improve ties between Spain and Israel. It has just released the results of a survey it commissioned on attitudes towards Jews in Spain.
Continue reading ‘New Research on Attitudes To Jews in Spain’
The Basque terrorist group ETA announced a ceasefire at the beginning of September and, as I described here, the response from the Spanish government was to tell the nationalist gunslingers where they could shove it.
El País is a leading liberal and progressive newspaper in the Spanish, Roman Catholic and Democratic Kingdom of Spain. It has long campaigned to put an end to Jewish self-determination and today’s contribution to that campaign comes in the form of an op-ed from M. Á. Bastenier, one of its most senior journalists.
Continue reading ‘The Latest From The Spanish, Roman Catholic And Democratic Kingdom Of Spain’
I don’t think many will contradict me if I say that the verb “resist” is usually transitive. That means, for example, that it doesn’t make sense for me to praise “Mike’s resistance” unless I am sure that my interlocutor knows about Mike’s attempts to stop his landlord from evicting him.
Emilio Menéndez del Valle represents Spain’s ruling PSOE party in the European Parliament and was formerly his country’s ambassador to Jordan and Italy. He has an op-ed in today’s El Páis about the Israel-Palestine negotiations in which he doesn’t hold back on the power of the Jewish lobby in US politics and goes so far as to say that America’s foreign policy in the Middle East has been kidnapped by Jewish power. Another brave socialist speaks out about Jewish power. Well done, Emilio.
1.
Hamas announces a ceasefire and calls for dialogue and negotiation to resolve the conflict with state of Israel. The government of Israel responds like this:
Every so often and apropos of nothing in particular El País feels obliged to vomit up a gut full of hatred for Israel. Today’s edition runs an editorial titled “The Israeli Quasi-theocracy”.
Yesterday’s El País ran an op-ed piece by Juan Carlos Sanz about the fallout from the flotilla. It begins by quoting an (unnamed) eye witness on the Mavi Marmara who claimed that the Israeli commandos shouted “One Minute! One Minute!” as they opened fire.
7. Conclusion
There are far more similarities than differences in the two papers coverage of the crisis. Both see Israel as entirely at fault, whether through malevolence or incompetence, and both would probably like the crisis to get worse and for the Israelis to get their comeuppance from Washington, but neither can quite bring itself to believe this might be possible. Both share a view of the Palestinians as generally passive, with Israel bearing practically the whole responsibility for the absence of a Palestinian state, almost as if it was something it possessed and perversely refused to hand over, as if the only obstacle to the creation of a state was Israel’s refusal to allow it. Their view of the conflict is an Israel-obsessed one and it sees the Palestinians as having, at best, a partial political subjectivity, waiting for others, principally Israel but also the Americans, to do the right thing and vindicate their rights for them. They both see Israel, in both its existence and its actions as the sole motor of history in the conflict and have a very thin view of the history of the conflict. Despite their evident sympathy for the Palestinians neither paper treats them with the seriousness it treats the Israelis.
Continue reading ‘Biden’s Visit in The Guardian and El País V’
