Spain and Israel: an uncomfortable past

Following his landslide victory in the Spanish general election last week, the world is looking to Mariano Rajoy to stabilize his country’s teetering economy. But while he has promised “no miracles” on the economic front, we can expect Rajoy, a keen Atlanticist, to make bold changes in Spanish foreign policy. Under José Luís Zapatero, the departing socialist president, Spain underwent a diplomatic realignment, beginning with the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq in 2004. This shift away from the US and its sphere of influence will almost certainly be reversed by the new government, a move which will be particularly welcome in Israel.

Israel has enjoyed a longer period of diplomatic relations with both Egypt and Jordan, than it has with Spain. Throughout his time in office, Zapatero did little to improve his nation’s reputation as the least Israel-friendly EU state. Donning the keffiyeh scarf on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Zapatero continued a long-standing tradition of Spanish support for the Arab nations and suspicion, if not hostility, towards the Jewish state. Spain only formally recognised Israel in 1986, and Zapatero has drawn criticism for his lack of restraint when attacking Israeli policy. Yet, in his final days in office, it would appear that Zapatero had a change of heart, which paves the way for his successor to thaw relations with Israel.

In a speech to the UN in September, Zapatero’s foreign minister, Trinidad Jiménez, unexpectedly announced that her government recognised Israel as “the embodiment of the project to create a homeland for the Jewish people.” In other words, Spain now regards a two-state option for both Palestinians and Israelis as the only viable route towards peace, a view that the even most moderate Arab and Palestinian commentators now accept. Jiménez’s speech represented a significant dose of pragmatism for Spanish foreign policy, a move which the new government will be keen to continue. It also begged the question: why did Zapatero take so long to come to terms with Israel’s existence?

The answer lies partly in Spain’s relationship with the Jewish people. Since their expulsion in 1492, the Jewish population in Spain has remained miniscule, although casual anti-Semitism has always been widespread, often the result of ancient stereotypes. In recent years, however, such prejudice has come to the fore. In 2010, there were 400 reported anti-Semitic incidents in Spain, this in a country with an estimated Jewish community of under 40,000, compared to approximately 280,000 in the UK. Spain's  history of anti-Americanism only adds to these attitudes. In 2008, The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project revealed that 46 per cent of Spaniards held negative opinions of Jews (compared to 9 per cent in the UK), by far the highest in Europe. Similarly, in 2010 a survey conducted by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs found that 58.4 per cent of Spaniards believe that “the Jews are powerful because they control the economy and the mass media.”

In this area, President Zapatero was negligent. That is all the more disappointing given that the country’s socialist government made a strong commitment to the eradication of other forms of discrimination. Spain was, for instance, the third country in the world to legalise same-sex partnerships and adoption. Zapatero’s 50 per cent quota of female cabinet members made headlines all over the world, and his appointment of a heavily pregnant politician with no military background as defence minister seemed both to proclaim his progressive credentials and to rile the country’s military top-brass.

One could go further, arguing that Zapatero not only failed to tackle negative perceptions of Israel and Jews in general, but actually exacerbated them. Like many on the left, he repeatedly championed the Palestinian cause, an undiplomatic approach, although not anti-Semitic. Where Zapatero erred is in failing to make clear the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, a nuance which many in Spain struggle to grasp. As the leader of a nation where external news coverage is patchy, this was all the more irresponsible. The widespread inability to distinguish the two concepts stems from a lack of rigorous debate on international affairs in the Spanish media, particularly on state television. Spain’s written press does offer good international news coverage, but their price and rather dry approach means that quality newspapers remain the preserve of Spain's elite. It is no coincidence that Spain has one of the lowest levels of newspaper readership in the EU.

In an article for the European Forum on anti-Semitism, Alejandro Baer of Madrid’s Complutense University has argued that this alarming picture boils down to “earlier images of Jews, anti-Americanism and the representation of the Arab-Israeli conflict.” I would agree with this, but also add one more key factor: the legacy of General Franco. Spain’s dictator, cold-shouldered by Europe and the US during his rule, enjoyed an excellent relationship with the Arab world. His fear and suspicion of American capitalism (and by extension, Israel) was only eclipsed by his hatred of communism and, bizarrely, freemasonry. Franco’s support for Arab voting blocs in the UN opened Spain up to valuable allies at a time when they were in short supply. He never recognised the existence of the Jewish state and Spain only formally established diplomatic relations with Israel long after Franco’s death.

It was President Felipe González who finally ended decades of hostility. That he was modern Spain’s first democratically-elected socialist leader is an irony which seems to be lost on the many of those on the left today, Zapatero included. Whether they like it or not, a large proportion of the Spanish left are a product of the censorship and insularity of the Franco era.

The Spanish right, however, has since managed to shed the image of its anti-democratic past, embracing a pragmatic, centrist position. Mariano Rajoy’s election victory owes much to the re-branding of the Popular Party. In this sector of society at least, Israel, the US and the Jewish people no longer represent a threat. Unfortunately, this realignment may have pushed the country’s socialists to embrace a different worldview, one formerly espoused by—irony of ironies—General Franco.

Perhaps Zapatero finally grasped this, grudgingly accepting Israel’s place in the world. He had certainly abandoned his idealism in other spheres. His initial reluctance to adopt economic austerity measures was put aside when faced with the harsh reality of Spain’s credit crisis. His much-lauded “alliance of civilisations” idea on foreign policy (a well-meaning counterbalance to Huntington’s “clash of civilisations”) proved to be totally inconsequential and was quietly dropped. It would appear that as Zapatero’s government faced defeat in the general elections, he belatedly came to terms with reality: one positive point in a very disappointing legacy.