A report by the Center de las per la Pau (Delas Peace Research Center) revealed that Spain continues to sell arms to Israel during the massacre in Gaza. This is a devastating revelation of imperialist militarism and support for genocide by the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Schmal’s government, which denied support for Israel.
In addition, the existence of the fake left-wing Podemos party, which broke away from the PSOE/Sumar government in December last year, will also be exposed. Podemos sarcastically claimed that this would put pressure on the government to oppose the Gaza massacre. However, the delas center’s revelations show that the Spanish state took up arms against Israel in a war in which more than 35,000 Palestinians lost their lives, more than 60,000 were injured, and more than 2 million were displaced. It shows that the center was in power together with PSOE during the period.
According to official data from the foreign trade portal Comex, a Spanish arms company exported 987,000 euros worth of ammunition to Israel in November last year, according to a Deras Center study conducted by researcher Alejandro Pozo.
Exported weapons fall into the category of “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles, cartridges, other ammunition and projectiles, and their parts, including slugs, shot, and wads for cartridges.” In other words, it is a lethal ammunition whose sale was first approved by the PSOE/Podemos administration, which ended in November 2023, and then continued by its successor, the PSOE/Schmal administration.
Both governments have falsely claimed to have halted arms exports to Israel since October 7, when Israel began a massacre in Gaza in response to attacks by Palestinian militias.
Last December, Foreign Minister José Manuel Álvarez said in response to a parliamentary question from the Basque nationalist EH Bildu party about arms sales to Israel: Don’t worry, that won’t happen. ” On January 23, he told Kadena Cell Radio: “Since October 7, 2023, there have been no operations to sell arms to Israel.” On January 29, Alvarez reiterated this before Congress’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
However, official officials revealed that this was a lie. According to Delas researchers, “The Comex portal shows that Spain was the largest exporter as of November 2023.” [weapons] Materials within the European Union to Israel account for 52 percent of the European Union’s total exports. ”
The government responded cynically to this revelation by saying that these were weapons that had been approved for export before October 7th.online newspaper questions eldiario.esthe Secretary of State for Commerce stated that this export “represents a license granted prior to October 7th” and “contains materials for testing or demonstration and in no event for end use.” “It is not something that can be used in a conflict.”
The next day, they contacted the newspaper again, specifying that what had been sent was “medium caliber unexploded ammunition.”
Successive Spanish governments could have revoked these permits, but by failing to do so, they were complicit in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Furthermore, as Deras researcher Pozo said, publicit is impossible to confirm that these export licenses were granted before October 7th.
Export decisions involve the entire government. These are being discussed by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Defense and Dual Use, which includes representatives from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior, the Office of the President, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its deliberations are private and protected by the Official Secrets Act. This law was passed under Fascist General Francisco Franco to prevent surveillance of the population. It cannot be obtained even by request of Congress.
Furthermore, according to the same study, not only exports but also arms imports from Israel continue to be permitted. Since October 7, Spain has acquired products from Israel’s Elbit Systems for 705 million euros. Elbit Systems sells and promotes its products under the slogan “Combat Tested.” Israel’s use of these weapons makes them particularly attractive to the Spanish military.
In a deal signed in November alone, Spain purchased Israeli Spike LR2 missiles for 287.5 million euros.
Clear political conclusions must be drawn from the PSOE-Podemos and PSOE-Sumar governments’ support for Israeli genocide.
The fight against genocide in Gaza is part of a growing imperialist war that includes NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine and a military confrontation with China, which has mobilized the working class against parties like the PSOE, Sumar and Podemos. This can only be achieved through political mobilization. A revolutionary, international movement for socialism must be built within the working class against warring middle-class parties like Podemos and Sumal and against capitalist governments. It can only move forward as a movement that fights to bring the working class to power in Spain and internationally.
Both Soumal and Podemos have intervened cynically to cover their own backs. Smar’s parliamentary spokesperson, former Podemos co-founder Iñigo Errejon, promised to seek answers from parliament. “The arms embargo must be complete and permanent,” he said. “The genocide in Gaza must stop,” he argued in X after news broke that Smar was directly involved in the genocide.
Like Podemos in the previous government, Smar is currently staging empty protests against its government’s policies that obscure its role as part of an imperialist government supporting Israeli genocide and NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine. specializes in.
Mr. Schmal’s spokesman and Culture Minister Ernesto Urtasun said that Mr. Schmal had contacted the Foreign Ministry’s José Manuel Álvarez and said that “something like this will never happen again.” However, Urtasun himself is a well-known warmonger. Before joining the government last year, he displayed his pro-NATO credentials: defend sent weapons and tanks to Ukraine to fight Russia;
Similarly, Pablo Fernández, secretary of the Podemos organization, said the news “reveals the hypocrisy and incoherence of the PSOE,” which claims that the Spanish government “continues to buy weapons from Israel” and “lies. “Tsuki” and “intentionally hiding it.” He added that the government “continues to finance genocide from Israel to Palestine.”
But Podemos, like PSOE, is lying and hiding the facts. Podemos ruled with the PSOE until November 23, as the government continued to send arms to Israel, which are now being used to kill Palestinians. Furthermore, although Podemos nominally opposed the genocide, the Podemos government sent the Spanish frigate Méndez Núñez and the munitions ship Patiño to the battlegroup of the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford.
The US aircraft carrier is deployed to the eastern Mediterranean in support of Israel’s war effort and could bomb Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian forces that might intervene militarily to help Gaza.
Furthermore, arms trade between Spain and Israel flourished under Podemos. From 2020 to 2022, Israel imported 140 million euros worth of weapons, while Spain spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying weapons from Israel that were marked “combat-tested.”
Podemos is currently assisting the PSOE-Sumar government. The out-of-government government is intervening in the massive anti-genocide protests and trying to lure them behind this bloody government. The bill calls on the PSOE and Smar government to “take measures” against Israel, including an arms embargo and sanctions, and to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. But all involved, PSOE and Smar within the government, and Podemos outside, are involved in the genocide.
Furthermore, Podemos refused to use its five members to threaten to overthrow the PSOE-Sumar government, which only has a majority thanks to Podemos.
The decisive task facing Spanish workers and youth is to develop a political rebellion against the PSOE-Sumar government and its allies in the trade union bureaucracy and pseudo-leftist satellites. For this purpose, it is necessary to build a strong international anti-war movement of the working class. It is also necessary to build Trotskyist parties within the working class against reactionary capitalist governments such as the PSOE and the Union of Sumar, i.e. to build up sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Spain and abroad. be.