OPINION:
In 1492, as every American knows, three vessels captained by Christopher Columbus sailed west from Spain in search of a new route to Asia. Columbus inadvertently “discovered” the American continent.
Just a couple of days before Columbus headed to the Americas, thousands of citizens of Spain also left Spain. But instead of sailing on a voyage of discovery, they were being evicted from their homes and forced into permanent exile.
On March 31, 1492, the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, having just triumphed over the Muslim occupants of the Iberian Peninsula, decreed that Spain was to be Jew-free by July 31. All Jews in Spain, then the world’s largest Jewish community, were either to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain forever.
Until the Holocaust some 450 years later, the expulsion from Spain, with its accompanying Inquisition, was the most traumatic event in European Jewish history. Hundreds of thousands of Jews, many whose families had lived in Spain for centuries, were compelled to hastily dispose of their property and sail to unfamiliar destinations. They were unceremoniously deprived of their homes, their property and their security because of their religious beliefs.
Spanish history in this regard is hardly glorious. But it is an essential component of the heritage of Spain from which that nation cannot escape. Nonetheless, in recent weeks we have been witness to willful forgetfulness of this sorry history by Spain’s current leaders.
As Israel struggles to free itself from a ring of terrorism by Islamist militants, Spain has taken the lead in disparaging the Jewish homeland, accusing it of “indiscriminate killing,” an accusation that has echoes in historical antisemitism. Just months after a barbaric Palestinian attack on Israel, joining Norway and Ireland, seemingly as a means of emphasizing disdain for Israel and its existential struggle, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has accused Israel of war crimes and has chosen to have Spain recognize a nonexistent Palestinian state.
It is truly anomalous to see the nation, which for centuries has, by reason of its expulsion of its Jews, epitomized the critical need for Jews to have their own national homeland, become a leader in undermining the efforts of Israel to protect itself. The expulsion from Spain at the whim of its royal leaders that caused so many Jews to be chased out of the place they had every right to consider their home serves as a quintessential example of the reason why Jews need their own nation from which they cannot be expelled.
Despite centuries of relentless persecution and repeated expulsions from an assortment of nations, Jews have steadily returned to their traditional home in the Middle East. Finally, in the mid-20th century, Jews succeeded in creating Israel. With the blessing of the Western world and the United Nations, fully cognizant of the horrors that had been repeatedly inflicted on Jews, including the expulsion from Spain, the Jewish homeland was restored.
The reason propounded by Mr. Sanchez when he announced that he was going to recognize a Palestinian state is a true howler, albeit a tragic one. Without cracking a smile, Mr. Sanchez asserted that his decision “reflects our absolute rejection of Hamas, a terrorist organization who is against the two-state solution.”
In other words, in the wake of Hamas’ reprehensible attack on Israeli civilians, a full-throated recognition of the Palestinian cause, which prompted that attack, is an indication that Spain opposes terrorism.
Tell any child who has just misbehaved that you are giving them a reward and watch whether it serves as an incentive for them to behave better. The answer is self-evident.
Spain’s recent action has not only been shockingly destructive of Israel’s efforts to protect itself but has also been an action of unmitigated hypocrisy.
Mr. Sanchez must have forgotten that Catalonia, a large swath of northeastern Spain, has been seeking independence for generations. Despite the unique historic, linguistic and cultural attributes of Catalonians, Spain has been unalterably opposed to allowing Catalonia to separate itself from the nation. It has rejected every effort by Catalonian separatists to self-determination, imprisoning their leaders and dismissing repeated referendums for independence. Any support for Catalonian independence from external sources has been deemed unacceptable interference in Spain’s internal affairs.
The irony is inescapable. Spain, which has categorically refused any move toward Catalonian independence, has become a cheerleader for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. This support has been announced at a time of spiraling violence being perpetrated by Palestinians against Israel, with the likelihood that a Palestinian state could quickly be taken over by radical Islamists and become a step toward the destruction of the Jewish homeland.
It might have been expected that a nation that perpetrated a historic wrong against the Jewish people would do everything in its power to seek to support the homeland of that people or, at least, refrain from providing comfort to their enemies.
Oblivious to his nation’s tragic history, to its own current intransigence against Catalonian independence and to moral imperatives to help a nation created by the descendants of those against whom his nation so flagrantly discriminated, Mr. Sanchez has elected to coddle terrorists and to return to the path of antisemitism couched not in terms of traditional religious heresy, but in terms of its new formulation as anti-Zionism.
Shame on Mr. Sanchez and his nation.
• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. He is the author of “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” published by HUC Press.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.