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hello, i'm chris williamson and you're watching palestine declassified. we're the only weekly tv show that's dedicated to investigating and exposing the israeli regime's global war against solidarity with the illegally occupied people of palestine. in this week's show we'll be exposing the activities and an israeli lobby group operating in spain calling itself action and communication on the middle east, which is usually refer to by its initials acom. on its linkedin page, a.com describes itself as in organization that aims to reinforce the political relationship between spain and israel by working with governments, political parties, the media and civil society, but latif abuchakra has been peering behind acom's benine veneer where she discovered rather different and sinister reality, as she'll explain in this report. the former social rights minister in spain, eoni balada is one of the few european politicians who has been vocal. from the outset in

criticizing israel's genocidal campaign in ghazza. while she was still a minister in the spanish government, she took to the streets in the aftermath of 7th of october, of denouncing israel's planned genocide in razza, and calling for sanctions as well as a ban on arms cells to the zionist regime. barara was quickly held for her heroism, but she also came under attack from zionist lobby groups in spain acom, which stands for action and communication on the middle east. is an ultra right-wing islamophobic israel lobby group which engages in lawfare and deformation tactics against supporters of palestine. the lobby group reported balara to the spanish prosecutor's office for incitement to hatred, claiming that she had abused her position and had exceeded her of right to freedom of expression. acom has a long history of trying to shut down free speech on israel. in response to a boycott campaign which calls for apartide free spaces, which has shops and local authorities

in spain boycotting the zionist regime. acom has taken dozens of legal cases to try to stop the boycott. one of their cases even reached the spanish supreme court which declared the boycot discriminatory. while balada's views are popular in spain, she lost her job in the spanish government following a reshuffle in late november 2023. although it's likely that her dismissal was influenced by other factors. the spanish prime minister. minister pedro sanchez has himself been much more vocal than other european leaders in support of palestine. sanchez declared last november that spain would soon recognize a palestinian state. sanchez also raised his concerns about the numbers of palestinian children being killed and said that he seriously doubted whether israel was complying with international humanitarian law. the israel lobby's influence in spain has been less powerful than in many european countries and poling indicates that support

for palestine is strong in spain. early last year, for example, the mayor of barcelona, ada colao, wrote to benjamin netanyahu to announce that the city was suspending relations with israel due to its systematic violation of palestinian human rights. even the european union foreign affairs chief joseph borell, who had a long career in spanish politics and who once volunteered on an israeli kibut recently criticized. israel's allies for continuing to supply the zionist regime with weapons. despite this broader support for palestine and spain, vela has been unique in the strength of her criticism of israel and has been at the forefront of highlighting the genocidal character of the zinist onslaught on razza. joining me in the studio as usual is our resident expert david miller, davidson academic and a former professor at bristol university and is now a non-resident senior research fellow. at the center for islam and

global affairs at istanbul zaham university. he's also a co-director of the lobby and watch dog spinwatch and is a leading british scholarly critic of israel. our guest today is timothy appleton who joins us via skype. madrid. tim is author and political campaigner with a phd in philosophy. he's currently linguistics lecturer at madrid's camilo jose fella university. welcome to the show. tim, as we saw in our report there ioni barara has been an outspoken advocate for palestine, hasn't she? i wonder if you could just say a word or two about how that's been received by the spanish public and indeed the political establishment for that matter. and thanks for uh. um uh the invitation to speak, chris, um, good evening, yes, the um uh, the reception she's had by the spanish political establishment has not been especially warm, um, although that's probably to do with the relationship between the political parties in spain, um, which is quite a a cantanchous

relationship in general, but on the substance the issue, um, she's not really speaking um, too far out of turn, because there's a lot of consensus. for palestine amongst ordinary spanish people. um, there was a poll done by yuugav at the end of 2023 with found that essentially spain was the the most pro palestinian country in western europe um in terms of public opinion. so this is a country where you pay a relatively low political price for speaking out for palestine, i would say. i wonder what you would say then the sort of distinguishes spain from from other european. in uh countries that particularly in relation to you public opinion and and indeed to government policy? so as we just heard there, yes, i mean public opinion is very strongly in favor of palestines and critical of zionism, but that's been the case in many other foreign policy issues, i mean i remember when i first went to spain there was

a there was a referendum about whether they should leave nato and of course that the kind of anti-militarism has been very strong war movement against in relation to iraq was very strong, and of course we've seen cities like... barcelona and others declare that they're going to boycott uh israel, so there's been a strong pro- palestine sentiment in spain for some considerable time, and of course the spanish have is one the only countries, one of the only two countries in europe which has actually decided to stop sending arms to israel, italy of course is the other one, other countries, the netherlands and belgium have done little things like stopped f25 parts going or there's a part part part of a uh the netherlands which is b which is said there will be no uh relations, whereas countries like germany have supply, continue to supply significant proportions of the the the ordinance and the weaponry which is being used to kill children uh everyday in gaza, so there's a sense really that southern europe is more progressive than northern europe and

in particular spain and public opinion they're very strongly in favor of the palestinians and that's why bara is a is a popular figure there and has has been perhaps the most uh radical of... all european politicians, even more radical in some politicians in places like ireland, which have been a bit critical, and that's that's part of the explanation. no, certainly set the standard i think for for other politicians to to follow, but tim, i mean, why do you think oni barara was dismissed from a ministerial position then in the spanish government? well, it's not exactly related to her position on on palestine, but it's not unrelated either, um, she's able to speak. out so frankly and so tsly now on on palestine, let's say representing more of a uh humane position perhaps precisely because she's distancing herself from the rest of the factions in the the left coalition government uh which they've actually exiteted now in the

parliamentary uh configuration as well as obviously her losing her job in the ministry um but uh the rest of the spanish left sort of talks a good game on palestine but it seems slightly... slow when it comes to taking action, mean they said they were going to, as was mentioned there, they said that they were going to stop arm sales immediately after in the after the current phase of the crisis began in october um, but it just turned out that in november they were still, they were still sending arms to israel, um, they that was accident, but uh, you can, you can interpret that any way you like, really, no, indeed, well, david, i mean, in view of spain's criticism of the, design. this regime then i mean how do you see the um spain's excuse me relationship with israel actually evolving? well mean you've got to remember that under the fascist regime of francisco franco up until 1978 that there was no relationship with with israel and um then

after after the fall of franco and the the introduction of of democracy in spain then what happened was there was a a long campaign by by israel to... try and uh create relations and that was eventually in 1984, the relations were established under felipe gonzalez, the socialist leader, kind of like tony blair, i suppose you would say maybe. more left wing and uh and so there was a kind of increase in in their relationships, but then of course more recently we've seen the cooling of the relationships, now we have the uh israelies have withdrawn their ambassador from spain, they're still diplomatic relations, they haven't totally broken off diplomatin relations, but they're much cooler now and and you know as this progresses i imagine they will get even cooler, but perhaps we'll look forward to spain being the first country in europe to to totally break off diplomatic relations with israel. uh and not before time, no indeed, and and that would certainly be a an example to follow, i

think, but tim, i mean, what's the broader political landscape landscape like in spain regarding support for for palestine, and and what actions if any have been taken by other spanish politicians and officials? well, we had um, quite a good test of that this week, because podemos, the party that iona belara leads, brought a bill to parliament um proposing to break off relations with israel and to to completely stop um sales you know without exception um and all of the left parties voted for it in fact um so you know they are kind of um pinning their colors to the mast as it were um the um it didn't pass because the right-wing parties in in the spanish parliament voted against it the p which is their equivalent of the conservative party and vox which is a sort of um extreme

right uh rump party, they they cynically voted against it, but even they have been forced to kind of speak out in favor of israeli restrained um so that shows that even the spanish right is probably an outlier uh within the the right-wing um political movements in the rest of the continent um that's there's historical reasons for that as as as was pointed out um and also so i think perhaps spain's sort of liminal position within europe means that it traditionally it's tried to maintain reasonable diplomatic relations with various other parts of the world, the arab world, um, almost as a diplomatic imperative really, so i think that's been a factor here as well, so david, i mean speaking up on your previous answer there, i mean what's shapes then spain's sort of diplomatic relations with with this? and how would you say that's actually changed under prime minister sanchez? well, i think it's important to to to endorse that point

that's just been made about the the liminal position of spain that it's kind of in between worlds in some kind of sense, because if you remember what what happened with the americans attempts to create this uh yemeny task force operation protect prosperity it was called of course and and what happened with that was that the us navy first of all said that that uh we did have enough ships to do this. but then spain and france and italy all withdrew from that and you you ended up with just america and the uk shells bombing yemen and and the other countries withdrawing so this part of the same kind of uh process now uh with the the sanchez government the the movement has been very much against israel and away from friendly relationshipships with israel as i said the they continue to have diplomatic relationships but the tendency is all the other way and you know really would be a great breakthrough for a country like spain to to finally break diplomatic relations.

yes, yes indeed. well, we're just going to watch our second report now about the response of spain's leading politicians to the genocide in galsa, particularly the former social rights minister, oni barara, and then we'll come back to the discussion. support for palestine among the spanish public remains comparatively stronger than in other major european nations. spain only established diplomatic relations with israel in 1986 after facing a concerted diplomatic campaign by israel's ministry of foreign affairs. the process was overseen by stalwarts of the spanish socialist workers party, which is the major party in spain's current coalition government and is one of spain's two largest parties. however, under the leadership of prime minister pedro sanchez, spain now has troubled diplomatic relations. with israel over its genocidal campaign in gaza. sanchez has been supported

by the king of spain felipe the si. king felipe is normally considered to be a conservative figure. however, he is called for a permanent cease fire in gaza and for maximum humanitarian access. in addition to supporting sanchez in his desire for spain to recognize a palestinian state. this is in star contrast to other major. european powers like germany and the united kingdom, which have not only provided diplomatic cover for israel, but have also been supplying the zinanis regime with weapons. one of the reasons. for spain's more pro-palestinian stance is the lack of power of israel lobby groups in the country. most of spain's major pro israel organizations are only around three decades old. one such group, the federation of jewish communities in spain was only established in 1993 and it does not quite enjoy the same kind of public influence

as its british counterpart, the board of deputies of british jews, which was established in the 1700. nevertheless, the israel lobby in spain has been successful using law-fair tactics to harass and shut down pro-palestine activities, taking individual politicians and local authorities to court under spain's anti-discrimination laws. once it's group, acom or action and communication in the middle east, states that its objective is to reinforce relations between spain and israel, and that one way it does this is: through legal action. acom openly incites hatred of muslims. on its youtube channel, it shared a speech by far right politician alberto taradas, talking about so-called islamism and spreading zinus mantra about a clash of civilizations between east and west. the group also spreads israeli war propaganda. it shared debunked and

baseless claims about ambulances in gaza being used to transport. fighters and provided justification for israel's targeting of medical facilities like al-shifa hospital. moreover, acom lists as its friends or the notorious israel lobby groups like the adl and ap in the united states as well as bycom in the united kingdom, which have been at the forefront of efforts to silence criticism of the zionist war machine. whilst ziness lobby groups in spain are on the margins, the threat they pose. remains active. david, um, acom's support for islamophobic rhetoric, and it's not unique to spain, is it? it certainly isn't. i mean, this is why we say that the zianists are key part of the spread of islamophobia in the west, not the only part, the main part of course is is the forces of the state, the police, the intelligence

services, but the zionist movement has a specific component of islamiphobia to add when it was zionist of course. invented the concept of islamic terrorism, the idea of the islamist, all these concepts came from zionist intellectuals, and of course the zionis themselves have pushed uh islamophobia through islamophobic think tanks, for example in the uk and in the us, and to some extent also uh it's the case in spain through some the the new conservative and islamophobic think tanks that are there, now in spain of course there is an islamophobic party, the vox party was referred to a minute ago as a rump party and and uh this acom group is very quite close to to to volks, that's an indication really the kind of tradition of islamophobia which flows through the zines mov, which we also see in the spanish zinic movement, well tim, how significant do you think king felipe's support has been in advancing, a more pro- palestine stance in spain? yes, he he's quite a - meldy monarch,

isn't he philip vi, i mean from a british perspective uh. quite surprising to see a monarch, a constitutional monarch calling for the recognition of the state of palestine, um, but i think really again it that would take me back to the sort of broad consensus in spain about the necessity of of doing things like that, so it's not a particularly controversial thing to to say or, it's not unusual for him to make political uh comments, i don't whether there is also an element of connection between the spanish crown and uh royal families in in arab. countries or anything like that, i mean spain's former king juan carlos just uh emigrated to the united arab emirates um retired and emigrated so um i don't whether that's you know representative of more a more personalist strategy in their foreign relations generally you know historically. david i mean what connections then are there

between a.com and and other pro israel groups uh israel lobby groups around the world and and what influence do you think uh they have on global discourse about israel? well, mean the the designs coordinate with each other, big shock, they they all work together, they coordinate via tel aviv, they have common whatsapp groups to push particular narratives and you saw on the the film there, the the acom attack, legal attack on on sammi doon, palestinian solidarity organization, which of course is just an aniteration in spain of a strat. which is adopted all through the world, in the us, in the uk, they attack pro- palestine organizations, so there are those kind of connections, acom advertises it its own website that it's connected to bycom, the the... organization which is the main pr agency for israel in in the uk and of course to the adl spy agency in in the us to the american jewish committee and various other the the lobby groups so it's not it's not

surprised they work together and coordinate directly with the ministry of foreign affairs uh um in israel so a global level what what impact does that have? well it has an impact in the sense that that they they are all pushing the same messages they have they have war what they call war rooms where they coordinate these messages right? and that that's the method by which they do this, these are not individual organizations in spain or the uk, this is a transnational zionist movement as as, i've been saying for a long time, yeah, well tim, i mean, what techniques then are are deployed by pro israel lobby groups in spain to manipulate public opinion and and policy decisions about palestine, well they've brought lawsuits against activists um for quote unquote. glorifying terrorism uh in public demonstrations uh in the speaches in public demonstrations um they threaten to take legal action against public institutions like the

university of granada for publicly declaring their support for palestine their institutional support for palestine um they petition um against um unra and they petition the spanish government to. prohibit pro-palestine demonstrations, so basically it's as was mentioned before, it's law fair um mix and where that doesn't work, it's plain intimidation really, if you were generous you'd call it campaigning, but it's very aggressive campaigning to the point of intimidation really, which i think is all they've got less got left because they've lost the rest of the argument, you know, yeah, well david, i mean, how does the um, the impact of uh, of pro israel groups in spain then um you know differ uh from other european countries? well you can see from what we've been saying so far that they're weaker than than in other countries they they haven't captured a key uh uh processes of the

state and like they have in germany in the uk france to some some extent are the tactics the same though do you think well the the tactics are are different in the sense that they they're not so embedded with the powerful right right so the they so you see in the the spanish elites various different um statements you know it's not just 'yoni balara, it's also the king and it's the prime minister who are able to make very critical statements about about see far, yes compared to other european leaders, but they have so they have concentrated more at the local level, they've they've gone after uh um cities and who have declared boycots, sure in the cases that tom tims just been talking about you legal action and they've been very successful in some of their legal actions uh with the collaboration of of judges who are evidently biased towards israel, but it's a lower level than in other european countries'. is where where the designers have been able to capture uh policy making and and key elements of those societies right? well uh finally and briefly tim because we've only

got about a minute left, mean do you think it's likely that spain will actually recognize a palestinian state then? um well suppose it's a bit like the samuel becket play waiting for god you know one assumes it will happen but one's not sure i think of all the... european countries if you had to put money a country to do it um imminently it would be it would be spain but it's always inhibited uh by its relationship with the eu, spain is intimidated by the eu and wants to do it at an eu level i think rather than just unilaterally, but if that doesn't work then maybe they'll maybe they'll do it, you never know, you never know your luck, well indeed yes we never know look, but let's hope we are lucky um but i'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there as the... clocks beaten us again, so thanks for watching and and thank you to our guest timothy appleton and of course our resident expert professor david miller. palestine declassified, we'll be back of course next week with more forensic

investigations and analysis. in the meantime, you can follow the show on facebook, twitter and telegram, where we post regular clips and updates. you can also help us to counteract the disinformation pedalled by the corporate media about palestine and the resistance to zinis brutality by showing today's program on your social media platforms. so until next time, this is... williams was saying, bye for now. information about palestine abounds on social networks, many times without context. they do

not allow us to go deeper and understand. stand all the dimensions of a catastrophe that is dragging on for centuries. daniel hardway, chilean mayor of palestinian origin opens a window to palestine. to understand in depth the present cause of the palestinian people, exploring its history and future prospects. do not miss a window to palestine. let me start with the us economy. um. "we

have very strong outlook, the us ec for the united states, uh, i think he has this right, uh, israel is kind of permanent, permanently anchored um, aircraft carrier uh, and its purposes to uh ensure that us foreign policies in the in the middle east uh, are carried out." fall uh in the palestinian uh economic activity of something like uh 80%.

prist of headlines in this hour, as the us, israelity genocide in gaza continues with 155 day, the death toll nears 31,000, mostly women and children. "the military wing of hamas says its main priority in a potential prisoner swap deal with israel is a complete end to the aggression on the gaza strip. also on the headlines in another weekend of worldwide protest, people have taken to the streets in a show of solidarity with palestinians in the war ravage gaza strip.