sagunto

The boycott against Israel annulled in Spanish town member of Network of Jewish Quarters

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-The illegality of the adherence of the city hall to the BDS movement, who also called for boycotting Eurovision 2019, becomes evident.

-The actions taken by the institution were a serious illegal discrimination against Israelis and friends of the Jewish state.

-Sagunto is part of the Network of Jewish Quarters of Spain – Caminos de Sefarad, a route of the Council of Europe and international testimony of the legacy of the Spanish Sephardic culture.

The City Hall of Sagunto, a Valencian city with a population of 64,000 and a historic Jewish cultural legacy, voted on 26 June 2018 in a plenary meeting its adherence to the “Space Free of Israeli Apartheid”, an act that was a serious illegal discrimination, making the Valencian city a “Judenfrei” territory, hostile to any Israeli citizen or company and to any Spanish citizen associated with Israel.

The motion, promoted by the BDS movement in Valencia and presented to the session by the radical left group Esquerra Unida, was passed with the votes of Compromís (close to catalonian separatism), Socialist Party, Iniciativa Porteña and Podemos (hard left). PP (conservative) abstained and Ciudadanos (liberal) voted against.

Thanks to the informative action of ACOM, who immediately contacted the city hall and informed them of the serious nature of said approval and of the legal implications it could incur in, the text was presented again to the plenary session for its partial modification. But the dishonest agreement concocted by the city hall was revealed, pretending to not discriminate Jews for their national origin, but de facto imposing on them a discriminatory boycott. And now Court number 4 of Valencia (decision 399/2019 of 10 October) confirms the statement of ACOM: the agreement violates the Spanish Constitution and Law 7/1985 that regulates the basis of local government, insisting on the clear lack of municipal competence to dictate the annulled agreement.

It is schizophrenic that the city hall of Sagunto made a great effort to recover the Jewish history of the city and at the same time denied, in the most pure totalitarian style, basic rights to the living Jews who today have their safe home in the State of Israel.

The groups that promote the declarations of adherence to ELAI space and the BDS, apart from showing a false solidarity with the Palestinians, deny the two-state solution, are clearly anti-Semitic by not recognising the right to exist of Israel and whitewash, justify, and promote Palestinian terrorism. Also, they do not recognise the ethnic, cultural, and religious plurality of Israel, where more than 20% of the population is Arab and enjoys full rights. It is very important to point out that that Arab-Israeli population would also be discriminated against by agreements like the one approved by the City Hall of Sagunto, today fortunately annulled.

With this decision, and thanks to the informative and legal initiatives of ACOM, there are now 52 discriminatory agreements reversed and legally annulled for seriously violating civil rights and constitutional principles.