how many more resolutions have to be violated, how many more children have to be annihilated? this is not a war, it is systematic genocide, but whatever they try, palestine will never die, palestine, 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 referred to by its initials acom. on its linkedin page, a.com describes itself as an independent 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 a.com'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 ioni balara is one of the few european politicians who has been vocal from the outset in criticizing israel's genocidal campaign in ghaza. while she was still a minister in the spanish. government she took to the streets in the aftermath of 7th of october, denouncing israel's planned genocide in razza and of calling for sanctions as well as a ban on arms cells to the zionist regime. balara was quickly held for her heroism, but she also came under attack from zinanis 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 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 seen 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, 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 polling 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 boral 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 forest. in 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 zionist onslot. joining me in the studio as usual is our resident expert david miller, david's an 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's aim university. he's also a co-director of the lobby in watch dog spinwatch and is a leading british scholarly critic of israel. our guest today is timothy appleton who joins us via skype from madrid. tim is author and political campaigner with a phd in philosophy. he's currently linguistics lecture. at madrid's camilo jose fella university. welcome to the show. tim, as we saw in our report there ioni berara 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. thanks for um the invitation to speak chris um good evening. yes, the um uh the reception. 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 cantanchorous relationship in general, but on the substance of the issue um, she's not really speaking um too far out of turn, because there's a lot of consensus uh for palestine amongst ordinary spanish people, um, there was a poll done by ugov at the end of 20. 23 with found that essentially spain was the the most pro-palestinian country in western europe um in terms of public opinion, so this is the country where you pay a relatively low political price for speaking out for palestine, i would say. david, i wonder what you would say then, the

sort of distinguishes spain from from other european countries, particularly in relation to, public opinion and and indeed to government policy, so... just heard there, yes, i mean public opinion is very strongly uh uh in favor of palestines and critical ofzionism, 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, the anti-w 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 first. considerable time, and of course the spanish have is one of 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 is a part part part of a uh the netherlands which

is b which is said there will be no uh relations, we're as 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 every day 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 you even more radical in some politicians and places like ireland which have been a bit critical uh and that's that's part of the explanation, no we do, 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... a 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 exited 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 i mean they said they were going to as was mentioned there they said that they were going to stop arm sales in... 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 and they said that that was accident but uh you can you can interpret that anywhere you like really no indeed well david i mean you know

in view of spain's criticism of the the zionist regime then i mean how do you see the um spain excuse me relationship. israel actually evolving, well, i mean, you've got to remember that uh, under the fascist regime of francisco franco, up until 1978, that there was no relationship with with israel, um then after after the fall of franco and the 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 gonzales the psa the socialist leader um kind of like tony blair i suppose you would say maybe a little bit more left-wing and uh so there was a kind of increase in in the 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,

the still diplomatic relations, they haven't totally broken off their politinent relations, but they're much cooler now, and and as this progresses i imagine it 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 without exception um

and all of the left parties voted for it in fact um so 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 pp 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 come speak out in favor of israeli restraint 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 i think perhaps spain's sort of liminal position within europe means that it traditionally it's tried to... maintain you know reasonable diplomatic relations with various other parts 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 israel 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 be 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 it was cold of course and and what happened with that was that the us navy first of all said that that uh it didn't 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. the uk and other say shells bombing yemen and and the other countries withdrawing so it's 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 relationsships with israel, as i said they they continue to have diplomatic relationships, but it's 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 relations. yes, yes indeed. well... just going to watch our second report now about the response of spain's leading politicians to the genocide in gaza, 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 inserted 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 governments 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 vi. king philippe is normally considered to be a conservative figure. however, he is called for a permanent cease fire in gaza and for maximum humanity. arian 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. 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 1700s. nevertheless, the israel lobby in spain has been successful using lawfare. tactics to harass and shut down pro-palestine activities, taking individual politicians and local authorities to court under spain's anti-discrimination laws. onece its 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 does this is through legal action. akom

openly insights hatred of muslims its youtube. channel, it shared a speech by far right politician alberto taradas, talking about so-called islamism and spreading ziness mantra about a clash of civilizations between east and west. the group also spreads israeli war propaganda. it shared debunt and baseless claims about ambulances in gaza being used to transport hamas fighters and provided justification for israel's targeting of medical facilities like alsif. hospital, moreover, acom lists as its friends or the notorious israel lobby groups like the adl and apac in the united states as well as baicom in the united kingdom, which have been at the forefront of efforts to silence criticism of the zinus war machine. whilst zinus lobby groups in spain are on the margins, the threat they pose remains active.

david uh 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 zionists are a 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 islamophobia to add when it was zionist of course, invented the concept of islamic terrorism, the idea of the islamist, all these concepts came from and of course the scientists themselves have pushed uh islamophobia through islamophobic think tax for example in the uk and in the us and to some extent also uh it's the case in spain through some of 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 this acom group is very quite close to to vox that's an

indication really of the kind of tradition of islamophobia which flows through this which we also see. in the spanish sign 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's he's quite a mouthy monarch, isn't he philip i? i mean, from a british perspective, uh, he's quite surprising to see a monarch, a constitutional monarch calling for the recognition of the state of palestine. um, i, 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's also an element of connection between the spanish crown and uh, you know, royal families in in

arab countries or anything like that. i mean, spain's former king juan carlos just emigrated to the united arab emirates, um, retired and emigrated, so um, i don't know 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 acom and and other pro israel groups, israel lobby groups around the world, and what influence do you think uh, they have on global discourse about israel? well, i 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 in on. the the film there the the acom attack, legal attack on on sami doon, palestinian solidarity organization, which of course is just an aniteration in spain of a strategy

which is adopted all through the world, in the us, in the uk, they tattack pro- palestine organizations, so there are those kind of connections, acom advertises it its own website that it's connected to bycom, the the british organization, which is the main pr agency for israel in in the uk and of course to the adl, spy agency and the us to the american jewish committee and various other of 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 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... or zionist movement as as, i've been saying for a long time. yeah, well, tim, 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, for quote unquote glorifying terrorism uh in public demonstrations uh, in the speeches in public demonstrations, um, they... threaten to take legal action against public institutions like the university of granada uh for for publicly declaring their support for palestine, their institutional support for palestine, um, they petition um against um um anra and they petition the spanish government to prohibit pro palestine demonstrations, so basically it's it as was mentioned before it's lawfair. 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, yeah, well, well david, i mean, how does the um, the impact of uh, of pro israel lobby groups in spain then, differ uh, from other european countries, well, you can see from what we've been saying so far. they're weaker than than in other countries, the they haven't captured key uh uh processes of the state and like we have in germany in the uk in 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 spanish elites various different um statements you know it's not just balara it's also the king and it's the prime minister who are able to make very critical statements about about sees far yeah compared to other european leaders, but they have, so they have concentrated more at the local level, they they've gone after uh um cities and who have declared boycots, sure in the cases that tim's 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 where where the designers have been able to capture policy making and in key elements. the societies, right? well - finally, and briefly tim, because we've only got about a minute left, i mean, do you think it's likely that spain will actually recognize a palestinian state then? um, well, i suppose it's a bit like the samuel beckit play waiting for goddo, you know, one assumes it will happen, but one's not sure. um, i mean, 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 - luck, but let's hope we are uh 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 residence 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 pedaled by the corporate media about palestine and the resistance to zianist brutality, by showing today's program on your social media platforms. so until next time, this is chris williamson saying, bye for now.

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

you headlines for this hour, hamas blames israel for the failure to reach seasfire deal in gaza, saying you will not settle for anything less than a full sessation of israely aggression. pro palestan protesters in amsterdam slam a visit by the israeli president to the dutch capital calling for boycots of the regime and yemenza movement leader says the yemini army will continue its anti-israely operations in support of the palestinians in gaza.