Spanish Far-Left Leader’s 2025 ‘Wishes’ Spotlight ‘Genocide’ Against Palestinians Before Mentioning Own Country
Algemeiner Staff
Ione Belarra, secretary general of the Spanish far-left party Podemos, has accused Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza. Photo: Reuters/David Canales
The leader of an influential far-left Spanish political party who recently served as a government minister this week discussed her “wishes” for the new year, calling for an end to so-called “genocide” against the Palestinians and the return of “stolen lands” to them before making any mention of her home country of Spain.
“My wishes for 2025: that the genocide against the Palestinian people ends, that the stolen lands are returned and that the guilty are brought to justice. Also, that the people of my country have a decent roof over their heads without having to spend their salaries and their lives trying to do so. A hug to all of you,” Ione Belarra posted on X/Twitter on Tuesday.
Belarra, who served as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s social rights minister between 2021 and 2023 but is no longer in the governing coalition, is now secretary general of the Spanish hard-left party Podemos (“We Can”).
The Spanish politician’s message for the new year was in line with her seemingly obsessive focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and fierce criticism of the Jewish state since Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7.
Last month, for example, Belarra accused Israel of “genocide” in Syria following the recent collapse of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“Israel is taking advantage of the instability in Syria to advance its colonial and genocidal plan, bombing several areas, including Damascus,” Belarra posted on X/Twitter. “Virtually no Western media outlets are reporting on it. International inaction in the face of genocide endangers humanity as a whole.”
Belarra appeared to be referencing recent limited Israeli military operations to eliminate much of Syria’s strategic weapons arsenal and secure the buffer zone along Israel’s northeastern border amid uncertainty about the future of Syria. There has been no evidence to indicate Israel’s military activities have resulted in mass casualties or are meant to achieve anything beyond short-term border security with a neighboring country that just underwent a regime change following a years-long civil war.
Such a focus on Israel is not new for Belarra, however.
Less than three weeks after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, Belarra posted a video on X/Twitter calling on European Union (EU) nations to sever diplomatic ties with Israel and comparing Jerusalem’s defensive war against Hamas with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She also demanded stiff economic sanctions against the Jewish state and the prosecution of its leaders for “war crimes.”
More recently, Belarra and her Podemos party threatened to withhold its crucial support for next year’s budget unless the government breaks diplomatic relations with Israel among other actions.
Sanchez’s socialist-led government, which relies on a coalition of smaller parties to approve legislation, needs the votes of the four Podemos lawmakers in the lower house for the budget to pass.
However, Sanchez also requires support from some center-right parties that will have their own conditions to back the budget, creating a tough balancing act for the Spanish premier.
In October, Belarra said in a video message that her party would only support next year’s budget if the government “immediately breaks off diplomatic and trade relations with the genocidal state of Israel.” Her second condition was for Madrid to “tackle the housing crisis by lowering rents by 40 percent by law, banning the purchase of houses by anyone who’s not going to live in them, and dismantling squadron commandos,” a reference to private companies that mediate in squatting situations to evict occupants.
Belarra added in a tweet: “Breaking relations with Israel and lowering rent prices by law is the minimum that can be demanded of a self-proclaimed progressive government. We need all your support to twist the [government’s] arm.”
Senior Podemos official Javier Sánchez Serna echoed the same point at the time, saying, “Pedro Sánchez’s government has been veering to the right for months and it’s going to get worse if someone doesn’t stand up. If the [government] wants to pass the 2025 budget, it will have to meet the two conditions proposed by Podemos: break relations with Israel and intervene in housing.”
Despite Belarra and Podemos’s criticisms of the government, Spain under Sanchez has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel.
In October, Sanchez urged other members of the EU to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sanchez’s demand came three days after the Spanish premier urged other countries to stop supplying weapons to the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Spain launched a diplomatic campaign to curb Israel’s military response. At the same time, several Spanish ministers in the country’s left-wing coalition government issued pro-Hamas statements and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with Belarra falsely accusing Israel of “genocide.”
More recently, Spanish officials said they would not allow ships carrying arms for Israel to stop at its ports. The US Federal Maritime Commission recently opened an investigation into whether Spain, a NATO ally, has been denying port entry to cargo vessels reportedly transporting US weapons to Israel.
Spain stopped its own defense companies from shipping arms to Israel in October 2023.
In May, Spain officially recognized a Palestinian state, claiming the move was accelerated by the Israel-Hamas war and would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials described the decision as a “reward for terrorism.”
Spain, like many other countries around the world, experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents targeting the Jewish community following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
Two weeks after the onslaught, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) warned of “the greatest escalation of antisemitism in Spain in recent times.” A statement from the FCJE on the upsurge in antisemitism highlighted the statements of Belarra, who at the time was Spain’s social rights minister and had already accused Israel of “genocide.”
“The demonstrations against Israel, the burning of Israeli flags, the proclamations calling Israel a murderer, genocidal, and the author of a planned ethnic cleansing, as Minister Ione Belarra has reiterated on several occasions, have inflamed [the situation],” the FCJE observed.
After attending a pro-Hamas demonstration in Madrid exactly two weeks after the Hamas atrocities, before Israel launched its ground campaign in Gaza, Belarra tweeted, “Dignity has filled the streets of Madrid, [which] today urged the end of the genocide that Israel is planning against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Freedom for Palestine.”
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