Podemos fails in its attempt to discriminate against the Jews in Madrid

Popular Party, Socialist Party and Ciudadanos (liberal party) have rejected in the Autonomous Parliament of Madrid debating an initiative of the political party Podemos (extreme left) that required, among other things, that the Parliament excluded the companies and citizens of the Jewish state from its commercial and social relations.
Madrid, 21 December 2018

Action and Communication on the Middle East, ACOM, celebrates that PP, PSOE and Cs have rejected an anti-Semite initiative of Podemos in the Autonomous Parliament of Madrid to make Madrid a Space Free of «Israeli Apartheid» (ELAI). All the political forces have united against Podemos in an act of democratic responsibility that we must celebrate. Podemos presented last week a non-legislative motion in which, among other things, it joins the campaign of the BDS-ELAI movement to make Madrid, the capital of Spain and centre of Spain’s social, political and economical relations, a ghetto that excludes the citizens of the Jewish state and every one that supports them, in particular the Spaniards, preventing any type of commercial relation of the Administration with Israeli companies or persons.

The initiative also included the explicit support for the BDS-ELAI, a clearly anti-Semite movement. In ACOM we believe that any support for it is a flagrant gesture of incitement of hatred against Jews, as the Spanish courts are reflecting after the association has resorted to the legal path to stop the City Councils who have adopted similar agreements instigated by formations like Podemos, Compromis and others of nationalist nature. The legal response includes four rulings of the Higher Courts of Justice that show and punish the unconstitutional nature of BDS-ELAI. It is worth pointing out that some of their institutional representatives, instigators of this boycott, are immersed in criminal cases accused of committing hate crimes.

Extract of the motion of Podemos

«For all of this we present the following NON-LEGISLATIVE MOTION The Autonomous Parliament of Madrid urges the Government of the Autonomous Region of Madrid to:
1. Declare the Autonomous Region of Madrid as:
a. Area or space of solidarity and defence of the rights of the Palestinian people and denounce the continuous and flagrant violations by Israel of humanitarian international law and of the international law of human rights, including the violation of the right to self-determination of the peoples, the annexation of territories by force, the crime of colonisation and the crime of Apartheid against the Palestinian people
b. Area or space free of war crimes and of crimes against humanity, including the crime of Apartheid so in this framework the Government of the Autonomous Region of Madrid joins the campaign Space Free of Israeli Apartheid (ELAI). It commits to communicate it among its citizens and companies making use of the seal «Space Free of Israeli Apartheid» that it will receive from the Solidary Network against the Occupation of Palestine.
c. Also, the Autonomous Region of Madrid declares its support for the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and agrees to promote the cooperation with the movement by all legal and peaceful means.»

ACOM is worried that if this type of initiatives are approved in Madrid other institutions might copy them, spreading this serious affront to human rights. Also, the fact that Podemos uses a platform such as Madrid to urge the Government, as expressed in the proposal, to embrace their xenophobic ambitions.

​In its commitment with the defence of democracy ACOM works in all areas of the public institutions to prevent the political representatives from promoting the danger of this type of proposals, and it will continue unmasking all the actions carried out by the BDS movement in its false solidarity with the Palestinian people. They curtail the freedoms of the Jews in Spain by constantly harassing the only Jewish state in the world and the only democracy in the Middle East.