🇮🇱 Spain Sanctions Israel

Plus: The AG will stand trial, Feijóo likes fruit, and Americans buy gobs of properties.

Madrid | Issue #116

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Genocide, sanctions, and bans

🥊 Spain and Israel Enter Diplomatic Freefall

Spain is done mincing words on Gaza. This week, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the quiet part out loud: Israel is committing genocide. And he said it not once, not hedged, but repeatedly — a line no other EU leader has dared cross (well, almost—but more on that in a second). And he backed it up with nine measures aimed at tightening the screws on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

The most notable measures. A permanent arms embargo (symbolic, given Israeli sales were less than 0.06% of Spanish defense exports); a ban on ships and planes carrying weapons or fuel for Israel from Spanish territory; a halt on imports from illegal settlements; travel bans for suspected war criminals; and more aid for Gaza and the UN’s battered UNRWA. Spain will also limit consular services for Spaniards living in Israeli settlements.

Strong words. “This is not self-defense,” Sánchez declared of Israel’s actions. “This is extermination.” In case anyone missed the point, he framed the measures not just as a moral obligation but a legal one. The polling helps explain his confidence: 82% of Spaniards agree Israel is committing genocide.

The “genocide” thing. Remember when we said above that Sánchez was the only European lead to call Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide”? Well, there were two notable others—European Commission executive vice president Teresa Ribera, and former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. And you know what? They’re both Spanish.

No surprise, Israel went ballistic in response. The foreign minister accused Spain of antisemitism, corruption, and even dragged in the Inquisition. Madrid shot back, calling the charges “false and slanderous.”

Then came the ban. Israel barred Second Deputy PM Yolanda Díaz and Youth Minister Sira Rego (both of far-left Sumar, which has been even more critical of Israel) from entering the country.
Pride. Díaz, never one to waste a headline, said that she was “proud” to be persona non grata, and demanded Sánchez cut all diplomatic ties.
Ban #2. Madrid replied in kind, banning far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from Spain.

The fine print. That flashy ban on weapons shipments to Israel? It doesn’t touch U.S. military flights using the Rota and Morón bases in Andalucía. Under the bilateral defense agreement, Washington doesn’t have to say where its cargo is headed. Translation: U.S. arms for Israel can keep passing through Spain — just without Madrid asking awkward questions. Public outrage, private carveout.

We’re still friends. The U.S. expressed “deep concern” and warned that Spain was restricting NATO operations. “These measures embolden terrorists," a U.S. State Department spokesperson said. However, government sources in Madrid confirmed the bilateral defense agreement remains intact.

Back home, the opposition PP has tied itself in knots. Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo calls Israel’s campaign in Gaza “inadmissible” but won’t say “genocide.” Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida outright rejects the term. Madrid presi Isabel Díaz Ayuso, naturally, says the left is simply “against the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.”

What unites them? Accusing Sánchez of using Gaza to distract from scandals at home.

But distraction or not, Spain now stands out in Europe as the loudest critic of Israel. Sánchez clearly thinks the domestic politics work: most Spaniards are horrified by Gaza, and Brussels’ cautious line leaves him with the moral high ground. Internationally, though, Madrid is burning bridges — with Jerusalem, and quietly with Washington too.

Now the conflict is seeping back into Spain. A flotilla of ships that sailed from Spanish ports toward Gaza (and carries former Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau) has twice been struck by drones in recent days. At Spain’s ongoing Vuelta a España cycling race, pro-Palestine demonstrators protesting the presence of the Israel-Premier Tech team—owned by a close friend of Netanyahu—have forced organizers to cut short several stages. And in Jerusalem, a Spanish student was killed in a terrorist attack this week.

The war has moved into Spain’s daily political life. It no longer feels like a distant happening that Spaniards only see glimpses of on TV.

More news below. 👇👇

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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties

1. ⚖️ Spain’s AG may be going on trial, but he won’t resign

Spain is about to see something it’s never, ever seen before. That is, its Attorney General on trial. On Tuesday, Supreme Court judge Ángel Hurtado ordered Álvaro García Ortiz to stand trial and slapped him with a €150,000 bond 🤑 to cover potential liabilities if he’s found guilty.

The charge? Hurtado says García Ortiz may have broken the law by leaking a confidential email written by the lawyer of Alberto González Amador — yes, that Alberto, the boyfriend of Madrid regional presi Isabel Díaz Ayuso (of the opposition PP).
So? The February 2024 email admitted Amador had “certainly committed two tax crimes” and tried to cut a plea deal with prosecutors. According to Hurtado, García Ortiz leaked that document for the trivial aim of disproving an El Mundo piece that suggested (wrongly) it was prosecutors who had offered the deal.
You’re better than this. The judge wrote the leak of confidential information “puts into question the prestige of the institution” and risks undermining both the Attorney General’s office and the defendant’s right to a fair defense.

How did we get here? Amador, accused of avoiding €350,000 in taxes with fake invoices, was already facing trial. But when his plea offer leaked — landing in Cadena SER’s hands within hours — it shifted the political spotlight from his admitted fraud to the prosecutor’s office itself.

Investigators haven’t found smoking-gun proof García Ortiz personally leaked it, but they did find that Madrid’s chief prosecutor sent him the email that night. García Ortiz later wiped his phone. The judge says that’s enough to prosecute.

You might think an AG made to stand trial would quit. You’d be wrong. Instead, García Ortiz insists he’s staying put. And while the PP is screaming “institutional degradation” like their pants are on fire, PSOE ministers like Félix Bolaños and Pilar Alegría are circling the wagons.

Not the droids you’re looking for. They are saying they have total confidence in the AG, total confidence in the Supreme Court, and everyone should breathe.
Won’t be thrown out. Hurtado himself declined to suspend García Ortiz — citing a “legal vacuum” that means the AG can’t be sidelined like an ordinary prosecutor.

There’s also a constitutional wrinkle. Experts argue that including potential fines in the €150,000 bond violates the presumption of innocence, per a 2023 Constitutional Court ruling. Expect appeals.

The trial itself will take months to set up. The conservative-leaning seven-judge panel includes Supreme Court heavyweights Manuel Marchena, Carmen Lamela, and Ana Ferrer, so it won’t lack for drama.

Maybe there’s a silver lining? Having an Attorney General in the dock could help him understand both sides of the law. Then again… probably not.

2. 🚭 Spain to smokers: take it outside… way, way outside

Got a light? Spain’s government has a new plan to make it so hard to smoke that it might actually become cool and rebellious again (and not just stupid and unhealthy). Marlboro Man? Passé! Let us now praise “Illegal Cig on a Terrace Man.”

Tighten the screws. The Council of Ministers (aka the Cabinet) on Tuesday approved a draft law that would overhaul Spain’s already tough anti-tobacco regime.
Been here before. Spain was once the cool kid of public-health policy—it banned smoking in workplaces in 2005, and pushed it out of bars and restaurants in 2010. Now Health Minister Mónica García of the Sumar lefties wants a fresh crackdown aimed at cigarettes, vapes, and even those candy-flavored disposable e-cigs that you smoke at music festivals. “Every year,” she said. “50,000 people die from smoking.”

So what does Mónica want? What do any of us want? Peace, love, a nice caña… Oh, in terms of the law? Let us count the ways. Fine, there are basically three parts.

Shrinking the smoke space. The bill would make bar/resto terraces, bus stops, train platforms, playgrounds, sports facilities, outdoor concerts, and even work vans smoke-free zones. Also verboten: anywhere within 15m of a school, hospital, or university entrance. Bars and restaurants will have to post clear signage, so you can no longer claim you didn’t see the rule as you spark up with your nice caña.
Think of the children. Up to now, it was only illegal to sell tobacco to minors. Under the new law, it will be illegal for them to consume it at all—cigarettes, vapes, shishas, nicotine pouches…the works. Parents of teen smokers would even face fines. In other words — Dear minors: No smoking, period.
Vapes = cigarettes. E-cigs and other “related products” (shishas, heated-tobacco gadgets, herbal mixes) will be treated exactly like traditional cigarettes. That means no puffing them at festivals, in patios, or in the carpool van. Disposable vapes get banned altogether—both because they hook kids with strawberry flavoring and because they’re “especially damaging” for the environment. Also, because when you smoke them you look like a child with a binky.

Can’t always get what you want. You might read this and say, “So far, so strict.” But it’s not as strict as García originally wanted. Missing from the draft law is the generic, logo-free packaging that already exists in countries like France, as well as higher cigarette taxes. Both ideas died in coalition horse-trading after Spain’s competition authority threw cold water on them.

But don’t expect your neighborhood terrace to go smoke-free overnight. The bill now goes to public consultation, then back through the Council of Ministers, and then to Parliament, where it still needs a majority, etc. Even if it passes intact, there’s a 12-month transition period for things like clearing out the stock of single-use vapes.

So—not that we want to encourage this—but looks like it’s time to smoke ’em if you got ’em.

3. ☹️ 37.5-hour workweek in Spain? Lol, no.

We regret to inform you that your dream of working fewer hours for the same salary is dead—at least for now.

That would be a ‘no.’ On Wednesday, Spain’s Congress voted to kill the government’s plan to reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 37.5 hours.
Not even a peep. 🙊 The bill didn’t even make it to debate. Instead, the center-right PP, the far-right Vox, and Catalan separatists Junts teamed up, passed a motion to reject, and sent the whole thing straight to the shredder.

For Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE, this is inconvenient. But for his junior coalition partner Sumar, and especially for its leader Yolanda Díaz, it is ~~a shitshow~~ devastating.

Coulda been a contender. The shorter workweek was her flagship proposal, her one big chance to be relevant. Now it’s gone, leaving Díaz exposed and furious and lookin’ kinda sad. ☹️

You could tell how personal this was by Díaz’s floor speech. Speaking of the “three right wings with different names”, she accused Junts of betraying their Catalan voters and siding with “the most reactionary sectors of Spanish big business.”

Not happy with Miriam. Díaz told their spokesperson Miriam Nogueras (with whom a Sumar rep had negotiated for months): “With this vote, you do not represent the self-employed, the butcher, but the interests of Mercadona and big business.” At one point Díaz even declared, "In the class struggle, you represent capital, and I and the Government of Spain represent the working people, Catalan and Spanish." ☭

But if Díaz was bitter, her opponents were gleeful. Like, we mean, seriously enjoying Díaz’s (political) death foretold.

The right. The PP mocked the proposal as “science fiction,” sneering that she was promising Spaniards “to work less and get paid the same. Why not half as much work for double or triple the salary?” And the tighty far-righties? Vox warned it would wreck small businesses and destroy jobs and said Sánchez had “sent [Díaz] to the slaughter.”.
The separatists. Junts twisted the knife: after months of negotiations with Díaz’s ministry, they dismissed the whole project as reckless, damaging to small businesses, and “against Catalonia.” Then Nogueras got personal and told Díaz her party was — how can we say this delicately? — um, ~~f’ing meaningless~~ irrelevant: “Ms. Díaz, you talk as if you had a majority you don’t; the polls place you in a residual position.” Ouch. 🥊

It’s not hard to see why Díaz is rattled. The PSOE has quietly kept its distance, leaving her to take the hit. Junts, once a potential partner, dunked on her movement. And for a party like Sumar—already fuzzy in identity and shrinking in the polls—this kind of very public failure cuts deep.

So what’s left? Díaz says she’ll push forward with consolation-prize measures: stricter rules on out-of-hours contact and digital “right to disconnect.” Important? Sure. Kinda. But not exactly the stuff of history.

Still, Díaz insists the 37.5-hour week will happen someday.“This debate will be won because the force of history will prevail,” she said. We tend to agree. But if it happens, odds are her name won’t be on the law.

4. 🍋 Feijóo’s ‘I like fruit’ karaoke video goes viral and… sparks a dumb political fight

Spanish politics is weird. Case in point: PP boss Alberto Núñez Feijóo hopped on stage at a bar in A Coruña (Galicia) this weekend and belted out Mi limón, mi limonero (My lemon, my lemon tree) and then posted the video on his Instagram Stories with the caption “Me gusta la fruta” (“I like fruit).” 🍋.

Origin. The phrase might sound innocent (even wholesome!), but in Spain’s current political climate, it’s loaded with meaning.

Ayuso v. Sánchez. Back in 2023, Madrid’s regional president and PP heavyweight Isabel Díaz Ayuso was caught on camera in Parliament muttering “hijo de puta” (“son of a bitch”) about PM Sánchez when he was addressing the floor.
Who, me? When her team was asked about the insult, they initially claimed she was just saying“Me gusta la fruta.” Eventually, the team admitted the insult.
A meme is born. Within days, PP supporters were chanting it at rallies, making t-shirts, and turning it into an inside joke that everyone understood. (If it all feels somewhat familiar, that’s because it mirrors the U.S. experience with “Let’s Go Brandon”, ~~a euphemism for Fuck You Biden~~ a cruder insult against President Joe Biden.)

Feijóo’s Instagram post was the latest escalation in this running joke, and the Sánchez government didn’t find it funny.

A bit exaggerated? Félix Bolaños, Minister of the Presidency, said Feijóo was contributing to what he called “the ethical and political collapse of the PP.” ‼️
Who said that? The insult was also somewhat of a surprise, coming from someone who is seen as calmer and less prone to insults than Ayuso. (Also, when he was elected leader of the PP in 2022, he said he wasn’t coming to Madrid to insult Sánchez but to defeat him.)

I will take a moment in the limelight. Ayuso, who wasn’t involved in this but is never one to miss a fight, discussed Feijóo’s use of an expression that, after all, was invented by her own team.

You cannot be serious. In a TV interview, she mocked the PSOE outrage, saying, “With everything going on in this country, the government is worried about this? Please. I really do like fruit — a lot. That’s just how it is.”
Humor-free zone. Ayuso, who really doesn’t like Sánchez, like, at all, said the controversy is proof that Sánchez can’t take a joke: “If they get upset, it’s because they don’t understand humor. Someone who thinks he’s the lord of all three branches of government doesn’t like it when others laugh at him.”

And now let’s move on. To more serious, less fruit-driven news.

5. 🇺🇸 Americans take over the housing market (kinda)

Gentrification: coming soon to a city near you. Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash