Although Catalunya is not an independent state, non-formal relations between the regional Government of Catalunya (Generalitat) and the Government of Israel have been persistent and active since 1986. One of those who has made this closeness possible was Jordi Pujol, President of the Generalitat of Catalunya between 1980 and 2003. Interestingly, Pujol studied at a private German pro-Nazi middle school in Barcelona, because his father wanted a secular education for him. Although he grew up in such environment, Jordi Pujol always had misgivings about the Nazism. These postures were consolidated when he was college and comprehend the atrocities perpetrated in Auschwitz and Buchenwald by the Nazis.
It is during this period when Pujol begins to see the Jews as an inspiration; at least from a Zionist perspective. Through this ideology, he learned that a conglomerate of people sharing ideals can stand up and claim their culture and language. Thus, they can also claim their national aspirations. These ideas led him to serve- during the Francoist regime-two and a half years in jail.
It should be remembered that anti-Semitism and the anti-Jewish rhetoric was a constant narrative of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. Interestingly, Catalans were called the “Jews of Spain” under the fascist ruling, and suffered a lot of repression. They were even forbidden from speaking catalan in public, just like Jews couldn’t speak yiddish in several European countries. This is why Pujol sympathized with the essence of the national aspirations of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael. This affinity was strengthened because of three main reasons: his personal closeness to the Tenenbaum family, the comparison that the francoism created between the Jews and the Catalans, and the struggle the Jewish people had to have a state after the Holocaust. David Tennenbaum was a Jew, originally from Galitzia, who settled in Berlin but due to the rise of Nazism went to Gijón, Spain, and from there to Catalunya. There, he became a businessman and met Florenci Pujol-Jordi Pujol’s father. Jordi Pujol’s interest for Israel was so great that Mr. Tennenbaum recommended him Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat book and the biography of Chaim Weizmann. Pujol read those books, which caused a profound impact on him.
His interest lead him to closely follow the Israeli diplomatic efforts at the UN in 1947. That same year the Partition Plan was approved. In addition, he closely followed the development of the War of Independence of Israel in 1948 and the later conflicts that this country will have with its Arab neighbors. Like the Catalan socialists in exile, who during the 1950’s and 1960’s supported Israel and saw it as a socio-cultural-economic example to follow in the future, Jordi Pujol strongly believed in the existence of the State of Israel. That is why he considered it essential for the Catalan nationalism of the future to be based on reviving their culture, language and identity. Already in 1965, and in full clandestinity, Pujol wrote an article entitled "Israel" in which he praised that “the Jews evoked their past, history, language, culture and religion to create and shape a state, and that should be an example to the us”.
When diplomatic relations between Israel and Spain were established in 1986, Pujol was seen as a politician within the Spanish set to rely on. Moreover, Franco's and post-transition Spain was very Pro-Arab. An example of this is that the Spanish Government President, Alfonso Súarez, met with Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, on September 13th, 1979 in Spain when the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was considered a terrorist group by Israel and the West. All of this took place while Arafat was militarily supporting the Basque terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). This meeting showed that even though Spain was now moving towards a “democratic politico-social model”, their alliance with the Arabs and the PLO was an unbreakable relationship. However, Pujol was key in the process of establishing serious and close diplomatic relations between Spain and Israel, and he even advocated for this to happen. In fact, a year before diplomatic relations were established, Pujol made clear that if Spain wanted to enter the European Economic Community it should recognize all the countries that the members of this entity recognize.
On July 10, 1986, Pujol held a dinner to celebrate the recently opened art exhibition called "Art in Israel", promoted by Baltasar Porcel, who was then the President of the Association of Catalunya-Israel Cultural Relations alongside recently appointed Ambassador of Israel in Spain, Samuel Hadas. This dinner took place a few months after diplomatic relations were established with the accompaniment of well-known historian Joan Culla, a young Artur Mas-who would later become President of the Generalitat of Catalunya and one of the promoters of the current pro-independence movement of Catalunya-, among others. This supper took place in Casa dels Canonges-the official residence of the President of the Generalitat- where jokingly Jordi Pujol claimed "next year in Jerusalem".
One year later, from May 5th to May 9th, 1987, Jordi Pujol visited Israel, accompanied by a delegation of about 90 people. Although Catalunya has no foreign affairs competences, in Tel Aviv he was received by the Spanish ambassador Pedro López Aguirrebengoa and several other israeli cabinet members. An interesting detail is that although the President of the Canary Islands (Spain), Jerónimo Saavedra, had visited Israel a few months before Jordi Pujol, institutional support and relevant political figures met with Pujol and not with Saavedra. Moreover, Pujol’s visit had the support and explicit consent of the Spanish Government. It is important to highlight that Pujol officially, during his 23 year mandate, visited Israel on three occasions with the purpose of promoting business, investment and cultural exchange in the years 1987, 1994 and 2003.
Pujol’s first visit sought to make Catalunya visible and to demonstrate that he was pro-Israel (unlike a Spanish state that even after the Transition was still pro-Arab), and to prove that Catalunya could have influence at the international stage. During his first trip, Pujol attended several conferences where he talked about how to invest and how to do business in Catalunya. During this trip, his delegation managed to establish a direct flight from Tel Aviv to Barcelona, and many Israeli companies showed interest in investing in Catalunya. Although it was already the Spanish region that exported the most to Israel, and more than 20,000 Catalans had already visited Israel in 1987, these sectors got strengthened after his visit.
This trip also achieved an agreement by which Israelis would help the Catalan government to establish the kibbutz model in certain areas of Catalunya, while the Generalitat would provide the Israelis with half a million fish from the Ebro River to repopulate the Dead Sea. During this trip, there was also controversy. In a dinner were President Pujol participated alongside the President of Israel, Chaim Herzog, the flag of Catalunya was not displayed. Although several members of the Catalan government left, Pujol stayed and during his speech to the Israelis he made clear that his presence in the Jewish State was to make known “Catalunya’s existence and history”. He also met with Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, and then Minister of Industry, Ariel Sharon. On the other hand, Pujol met with the mayor of Tel-Aviv, Shlomo Lahat and Shimon Peres, who was then the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and whom he had met in a trip President Pujol made a couple of years earlier.
Almost at the end of the trip, during an international fair, Catalunya was mentioned alongside other countries participating in the event without being clarified that it was a region of Spain. This did not cause amusement to the Spanish ambassador in Israel, although he did not complain. Nevertheless, to Pujol this anecdote was a very funny one. His subsequent visits to Israel in 1994 and 2003 had similar positive impact-both politically and economically-on Catalunya. However, the moment of greater prominence came to Pujol on October 28th, 2007 when he was invited to the Knesset to give a speech after receiving the Samuel Toledano Award. Curiously, Pujol never visited the occupied territories during his repeated official trips to Israel.
The first tripartite government of the Generalitat of Catalunya- post-Pujol era- broke with this particular political and diplomatic norm in the controversial trip carried out by President Pasqual Maragall and Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira in 2005. In more recent times, the arrival of former President, Artur Mas, to the Generalitat brought back a more sympathetic position from Catalunya to Israel with regard to the conflict and many other issues. However, during this new scenario would also bring a rising Catalan nationalist-pro-independence movement, after the failure of the 2006 Catalunya’s Statute Reform. So despite the fact that the pro-independence movement was in full swing, the visit of President Artur Mas in 2013 gave a lot of international and domestic exposure to the Catalan pro-independence leaders.
It is actually during this trip when the Catalan leader was received by President Shimon Peres at the presidential residence in Jerusalem. There he made clear that "as in Israel, in Catalunya there is a people also determined to be free". This phrase was very controversial among the Spanish media and the passivity shown by President Peres worried the Spanish government. Furthermore, before seriously considering moving forward with the independence process, President Mas took two steps: he met with the United States ambassador in Spain and then he went to Israel in November 2013. By December, he sets the referendum date which was hold on November 9th, 2014. So at this point it is clear that President Mas sought support from the United States and Israel. Remarkably, based on the achievements of his trip to Israel, and the way in which he was received, it is likely that he got some support, especially from Shimon Peres.
However, this is not the case with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is very close to former right-wing Spanish President, Jose María Aznar. Despite this, Netanyahu has had very ambiguous positions about what would be the Israeli position with regard to an independent Catalunya.
It would not be until 2014-a year before the Catalan pro-independence political parties won the Catalan Parliament elections with an absolute majority, when Santi Vidal, a former judge and member of the Republican Left of Catalunya (RLC) party, said in a political event that Israel was one of the possible countries that could finance an eventual independent Catalan state. But not only that, Mr. Vidal also stated that the Mossos d’Esquadra-the Autonomous Catalan Police- had contacts with the Mossad to receive advice about security issues. The Catalan Government denied the veracity of these declarations, and Vidal had to resign. It is important to highlight that Mr. Vidal also filtered that the Catalan Government was illegally collecting data from its own citizens in order to use it for a future referendum’s purpose. In the end, this turned out to be true and the Catalan government used illegally collected information to organize polling stations for the referendum of self-determination this past October 1st, 2017. Therefore, Vidal’s declarations cannot be entirely discarded. In one of his political rallies Mr. Vidal even went further. "There is a non-European State that has offered to give credit to the Generalitat in case of independence, and there is a non-official agreement with two non-European investment funds to open a credit line up to €20,000 million in case the central government suspends the aid of the ALF (Autonomous Liquidity Fund) to Catalunya. Also, there is a foreign government, which is not European, who is currently forming a counterintelligence unit of the Mossos d'Esquadra", he said.
Interestingly, it is during this period of time that security officers of the Generalitat of Catalunya kept visiting Israel constantly. However, the only visit that is being know by the media is the one made during the beginning of 2017 by the Mossos to meet with Mossad officials. This visit strengthened the theory that Israel might be helping the Mossos to create a counterintelligence unit in case that Catalunya separates from Spain.
Perhaps this is why the former Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, was hesitant to allow the opening of Israel's new Honorary Consulate in Barcelona. This is probably the reason of why the recently appointed consul in Barcelona was Antonio Sánchez Molina. Mr. Sánchez Molina is a right-wing, anti-independence catalan attorney who is close to the pro-spanish bourgeoisie in Barcelona. The Israeli Honorary Consulate in Barcelona had been vacant since 1997 and to take over the delegation several names of people aligned with the sovereignist strategy were believed to be under evaluation by the Israeli Embassy in Spain. These people were Lluis Bassat-Jordi Pujol’s publicist-, David Madí - Artur Mas’s right-hand-, and Carles Vilarrubí, Vice-president of the FC Barcelona. But the person chosen by Daniel Kutner, Israel's ambassador to Spain and Andorra, and accepted by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has no sympathy for the pro-independence. Mr. Sánchez Molina is a very active member of the Jewish Community of Barcelona, and a converse who joined the community because of his linkage with the Tarbut Shorashim. Evidently, the current diplomatic policy of the Israeli ambassador in Madrid and Andorra, Daniel Kutner, is very different from that of his predecessor, Alon Bar, who had made numerous gestures of sympathy towards the Catalan and Basque nationalist pro-independence movements.
Despite the fact that in 2016, former President of Generalitat of Catalunya, Carles Puigdemont, met secretly with members of the Jewish community in Barcelona and with the Israeli Ambassador, Daniel Kutner, to discuss the pro-independence process he was leading, this meeting had no impact on the views of the ambassador. Clearly, President Puigdemont did not achieved the endorsement he wanted to obtain from Israel in favor of his political project. In an email that I exchanged with Ambassador Daniel Kutner on October 2th, 2017, a day after the self-determination referendum in Catalunya, he said that "Israel does not meddle in internal affairs." This position has been reaffirmed by the Israeli government. On November 1st, 2017 Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry stated that “a peaceful solution should be encountered as soon as possible”. Despite of this, Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry did not express what the Spanish Ambassador in Tel Aviv, Manuel Gómez-Acebo, wanted Israel to say, which was that Israel believed in a “strong and united Spain”. Mr. Gómez-Acebo wanted Israel to reject the self-proclaimed Republic of Catalunya as the United States, the United Kingdom and several other western countries had previously done. However, Israel did not.
It is important to mention that on December 2016, Spain voted in favor of resolution 2334 while presiding the United Nations Security Council. This resolution condemned and declared illegal all the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Even with regard to Jerusalem, Spain had not supported Israel at the UN and had previously supported the various resolutions that deny Jewish ties to the capital of Israel. This fact could explain why Israel has not energetically rejected the October 27th, 2017 Independence Proclamation of Catalunya and has not publicly supported a “united and strong Spain”. Interestingly, during his visit to Spain from November 5th to November 8th, 2017, the current President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, just talked about how to stop the expansion of the BDS movement in Spain. Also, President Rivlin celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the reestablishment of Jewish presence in Spain, and during his speech at the Spanish Senate he only mentioned that "Spain is a State, a single sovereign state entity, and all the problems it is dealing with these days are internal affairs”. In my opinion, Israel prefers to keep an ambiguous opinion with regard to this political conflict. It is a way to pay Spain back for everything it has done to Israel at the international stage.
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