Relations and contacts between Euskadi and Israel, and Catalunya and Israel are old. Even though the Basque and Catalonian Left-wing parties are today Pro-Palestinians, Center and Right-Wing Basque and Catalonian nationalists have always been Pro-Israel, and they have consistently had great admiration for the Jewish people and the achievements of the State of Israel. Even Left-wing paramilitary entities like Euskal Ta Askatasuna-ETA have supported Zionism and the foundational core values of the State of Israel. However, during the 1970s they started being supported by the Palestinians and switched alliances. It is considered that there are many similarities between Israelis, Catalonians, and Basques: they have their own language, and ethnic character, symbols, own history, and, above all, a deep national identity. It should be noted that although Euskadi and Catalunya are now part of the Spanish State, both nations have their own history (Kurlansky and Muñiz Gómez). Another link between these territories and Israel is the presence of Jews and their influence in both Catalunya and Euskadi.
A. History of Catalunya and Euskadi
- Euskadi
It is important to understand the history of Euskadi and Catalunya to better comprehend why did Euskadi’s and Catalunya’s post-Spanish Transition nationalism has been so interested in getting closer to Israel. The Basque people have very particular characteristics, and this is mainly because of the fact that they have been quite socially and politically isolated throughout their history and have been able to maintain their tradition and language. An example of this is that the Roman Empire never conquered the Basque territory, mainly because of the geographical characteristics of the area where they are based. Unlike the other people that used to live in this area, the Basques didn’t acquire the influences that the Romans brought to the rest of the Peninsula. Therefore, they maintained their own customs, language, and traditions, and preserved the lifestyle they had prior to the Roman invasion. This did not happen anywhere else in the Iberian Peninsula, and therefore it can be said that the Basques are one of the groups with the most ancient and unique heritage in the entire Peninsula. Subsequently, in history, the Basques became part of the Kingdom of Navarra, to which they belonged until 1528. During this period of time, they had their own political entities and Euskera (a pre-Romanic language) was this region’s main used language (Kurlansky). Nowadays, the territory in which Basques are based is denominated Euskal Herria, and it includes Euskadi, Navarra, and a portion of the South of France.
- Catalunya
In the case of Catalunya, this is a territory that was completely constituted in the sixteenth century, when the Barcelona County managed to get together with other counties- what today is known as the provinces of Lleida, Tarragona, and Girona-to form Catalunya (Alert). Despite this, it was not until the XIV century when Catalunya officially implemented their own government (Generalitat). After the union of the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon in the XII century, these territories started being named as the Catalano-Aragonese Crown. Nevertheless, the Principality of Catalunya-which was part of this kingdom- maintained its complete autonomy. For example, to cross from Catalunya to the Kingdom of Aragon you had to pay a tariff. Already in the 17th century, the Principality of Catalunya became independent of Spain under French protectorate for almost 20 years. However, in practice it was just independent for just three weeks; the rest of the time the French rulers managed to keep total control of Catalunya.
Then in the middle of the XVII century, an agreement between France and Spain was reached. Now, the north of Catalunya was going to be annexed by the French, while the rest of Catalunya was going to be under Spanish rule again. However, after the fall of Barcelona in the hands of the Bourbon troops during the War of Succession, Catalan institutions were suppressed by the new royal house in 1716. So it would not be until the First and Second Spanish Republic when Catalunya would have democratic and public institutions again. In 1931, the newly-elected President of the Generalitat de Catalunya-Autonomous Government of Catalunya-Francesc Maciá declared independence from Spain but in a symbolic way because the proclamation just lasted for 2 days. Then in 1934, the newly-elected President of the Generalitat of Catalunya, Lluís Companys, also declared the independence of Catalunya within the Spanish territorial context, but it lasted for just 3 days. Later, Mr. Company was sent to jail in 1935 and posteriorly he was shot by Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in 1939. It is interesting to note that between 6,000 and 8,000 Jews-who many of them belonged to zionist and syndical organizations, like Bund-joined the international brigades who fought Francisco Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War.
With the end of the Civil War and the rise of fascism in Spain, Catalunya’s public institutions were abolished. Moreover, between 1939 and 1942, Franco’s dictatorship collected the name of 6,000 Jews in Spain and gave it to the GESTAPO-the official secret police of Nazi Germany-so that they can be aware of the number of Jews in the fascist country. Also, it is during this period of time that 40,000 Jews were captured-who were mainly concentrated in Catalunya- by the GESTAPO in Spain. However, after Hitler lost the Second World War, the Franco regime tried to undercover this reality with the argument that thousands of Jews were saved by Spanish Embassies during the war. But they were helped because of personal and unilateral decisions made by Spanish diplomats, that were not following direct orders from Franco’s regime. Nonetheless, it should be noted that there were other cases in which the Franco regime – although not with the dictator’s direct interaction – helped the Jews. For example, between 1957 and 1961, 25,000 Jews left Morocco with the help of custom officers who were scouring services in Ceuta and Melilla. Then these Jews went from there to Paris, and from Paris to Haifa. At the end of the Franco regime, more than 250,000 Jews had moved to Israel via Ceuta and Melilla even though Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime opposed this (Cygielman). There is even another episode in which fascist Spain helped Jews to move from Lebanon to the Jewish State by giving them Spanish passports right after Israel was founded.
In 1979-with the death of dictator Francisco Franco- the Generalitat of Catalunya was restored, and the President of the Generalitat in exile, Josep Tarradellas, returned (El llamado ilegal que tienen los catalanes a las urnas). In 1980, the Eusko Jaurlaritza-Basque government-was also reinstated. Despite the differences of contrast in their history, there is something in common between Euskadi and Catalunya: Israel. Although these two nations are not independent, and thus do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, the political, paramilitary, and economic links between Israel and the Left, Center, and Right-wing nationalist movements in Euskadi and Catalunya are evident. So in this text, it will be demonstrated that the relations between the Basque and Catalan nationalism with Israel go further than the official Spanish diplomacy (that established relations with Israel in 1986); in fact, they were pre-existing to the aforementioned date.
B. History of Jewish presence
- Euskadi
- Arrival
It is estimated that Jews were present in Euskadi since the year 70 A.D. However, there are no documents that can validate this argument or valid research that can support this because the Golden Age of Jews in Spain did not have a huge impact within the Basque Jewish Community and Jewish traces were literally erased from history (Juduen Euskal Herria: la comunidad judía de Baiona, la más importante del país en los últimos cinco siglos-a).
2. Establishment and position
However, Jews had a great impact in this region. The basque city of Bayonne, in an area of Euskal Herria today situated in France, was the city from where the secret of chocolate spread across Europe. When Jews arrived in the Iberian Peninsula after being expelled by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, they did so by bringing the cacao seed, and the knowledge of how to harvest it and how to eat it. After having been merchants in the kingdoms that were in contact with indigenous people who worked the cacao, when they settled in Bayonne they had the necessary knowledge of where to find the cacao beans and how to trade it with South America and the Mediterranean. There, they continued with business relationships and began to make chocolate in the city. By the 16th and 17th centuries, Bayonne became the first city in the French state to make chocolate, and from then on, it started spreading throughout Europe (Juduen Euskal Herria: la comunidad judía de Baiona, la más importante del país en los últimos cinco siglos-b).
- Catalunya.
- Origins
In the case of Catalunya, Jews began to settle in this territory in the year 70 A.D, when they migrated and established across the Mediterranean. The first documentation of Jews in Catalunya was from the year 890 when 25 Jewish families moved to the Catalan city of Girona. They settled in Girona in exchange for a payment of an annual fee. In Besalú, the oldest documentation of the presence of Jews was in the year 1229, but it is thought that Jews arrived in Besalú almost at the same time as they did in Girona. The Jewish population in Besalú exponentially grew between the 13th and 14th centuries with the migration of Jews from al-Andalus and Paris-where a catastrophic pogrom took place in 1240. In Barcelona, Jewish presence was first documented in 985, but there may have been a Jewish community before this date (Villatoro).
2. Important personalities
Jews in Catalunya were so prosperous that between the 12th century and the 14th century-before Barcelona’s Pogrom in 1391 and the arrival of the Spanish inquisition in 1484-Jews occupied royal positions, and worked as merchants, translators and bankers. An example of this is Bonjuha Cabrit. Mr. Cabrit converted from Judaism to Catholicism and he was the owner of many of the properties around the ‘call’-term in Catalan for the Jewish quarter-including the one where the Generalitat of Catalunya is currently located at. On the other hand, there were other Catalan Jews who are still remembered worldwide like Moshe Ben Nahman or Nahmanides (Villatoro).
Nahmanides was a physician and rabbi who made Barcelona one of the most important places in Europe to study Kabbalah. Nahmanides is well known because of his performance during the Barcelona religious dispute in 1263 which was hosted by the King of the Catalan-Aragonese Kingdom, Jaume I. Nahmanides defended Judaism and refuted Christianity against converting Paul Christiani. The official record in Latin and a version written in Hebrew by Nahmanides are still preserved. Both opponents considered themselves winners in the controversy, but Nahmánides was condemned to exile and in 1267 emigrated to Eretz Yisrael. He stayed in Jerusalem for some time, which he found devastated, and soon settled in Acre (Villatoro).
3. Conflicts and expulsion
It is outstanding to note that after this controversy, anti-semitism started growing, more sanbenito cases took place and more Jews started to convert or to leave Catalunya. This is why after the Barcelona Pogrom in 1391, which led to other pogroms that same year in places like Lleida and Girona, many Jews moved to the Balearic Islands, and many of those had to convert to Catholicism. This new community isolated themselves from the rest of the population (Alert). At this point, they started mixing many of their Jewish customs and traditions with their newly adopted religion. This group of converted Jews is known as the Xuetas, and they are characterized because of the characteristic 15 last names that the members of this community have their “kosher” feeding practices, and their endogamy (Alert). Even though just a small portion of this community practices Judaism today, renowned Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman in 2011 recognized the Xuetas as Jews.
Euskadi-Israel: A relationship of military training, politics and ETA’s empathy for Zionism
During the Nazi occupation of France, the Basque resistance, who were the ones controlling the crossings passages, in coordination with the allies managed to evacuate many Jews through the border with France. There are some rescue operations, for example in the concentration camp of Gurs, which allowed the release of some arrested Jews through an underground tunnel that was made by the Basque resistance. Later, between 1947 and 1953 a large number of Basque sailors-more than a hundred-were hired by the Haganah and the Jewish Agency in Marseilles and Paris to participate in helping them to bring Jewish immigrants to Palestine (Nacionalismo vasco-Estado de Israel: Historia de unas relaciones secretas-a).
During the Civil War
These contracts had the approval of the delegation of the Basque Government in Paris, represented by Javier de Gortázar. They were carried out through the Ginesta Society, which in the midst of the Spanish Civil War had served as a cover to support the Spanish Republic, and which has now become a backdrop for Mossad activity. One of the most spectacular operations was the one executed by Víctor Gangoitia. Mr. Gangoitia, delegate of the Basque Government for Refugee Affairs from 1947 to 1953, along with Captain Esteban Zubiaga Hernandorena de Portugalete, Rafael Inda, Mariano de Lekeito, and thirty other Basques from several basque cities, helped more than a thousand Jews to escape from Bulgaria (Lisbona, 91).
During Dictatorship: Basque Nationalist Party and ETA
Afterward, there would be more operations performed by Mr. Gangoitia, one of the most prominent being the Exodus operation in 1947. In 1948, Mr. Gangoitia decided to permanently stay in Israel. From that date until 1959 he was part of the ZIM Integrated Shipping Services, Israel’s largest shipping company. In Israel, he would meet his wife and one of his two daughters was born there. Captain Esteban Hernandorena, best known in Israel as “Captain Steve Gate”, settled in Haifa in 1948 with his wife and their four children. Captain Hernandorena became one of the most important members of ZIM. After his death in 1965, a plaque was placed in his memory as an homage on the wall of the house of the sailors in Haifa that says: “1905-1965, born in Vizcaya; sea captain, active in the “illegal” fleet; one of the founders of Israeli Merchant Marine, based in Haifa” (Lisbona 96-99).
Between May of 1946 and 1948, the Haganah also requested the services of the Basques for the acquisition of armament in Marseille. Nationalist leaders like Javier de Landáburu, José Mitxelena, Julio Jáuregui, Leizaola, Ajuriaguerra and Lehendakari José Antonio Aguirre (President of the Basque Government) received with joy the creation of the new State of Israel. The kibbutz living model, the renascence of Hebrew, and the armed groups like Irgun and Lehi were achievements that the Basques looked up to. Jesús de Galíndez, delegate of the Basque Government in New York, had many meetings and developed close friendships with several Israeli ambassadors to the United Nations (UN) such as Abba Eban, Moshe Tov, and Golda Meir. In May 1949, the Basques congratulated the Israeli Government for voting against the entry of Spain into the UN and for not recognizing Francisco Franco’s regime (Lisbona, 117).
For many young people of ‘Euzko Gastedi’ (Basque Resistance), Israel’s proclamation of independence was their ideal model of political sovereignty for the future State of Euskadi. The armed struggle of the Jewish groups, especially Irgun, were movements from which the Basques hoped to learn from. Irgun Zvai Leumi had been the main Jewish paramilitary formation against the British occupation of Palestine. For this reason, the book The Revolt, written by Menachem Begin, became the literary work of reference for the Basque Nationalist Party’s (BNP) youth group (EGI). Another manual that also influenced Euzko Gastedi is a text about the Jewish resistance in the Ghetto of Warsaw. From what they learned in this book, the Basque resistance developed strategies and methods to try to make collapse the Francoist dictatorship (Lisbona, 120).
On June 5, 1967, shortly after the beginning of the Six-Day War, the President of the Basque Government in exile, Jesús María de Leizaola, visited the Israeli ambassador in Paris to express his support for the people of Israel. In its struggle for resistance and freedom, the Basques offered the Israelis the assistance of the Basque diaspora colonies scattered throughout the world. The Society of Friends of the Country of Pamplona transmitted to the Israeli ambassador in Paris “the offer of a donation of the blood of the Basque youth destined to the relief of the wounded in the present war and formulated by this Cultural Association, representative of the feelings of the Basque People towards the admirable and heroic Jewish nation” (Lisbona, 145-193). On November 25th of 1975, the powerful Caracas Basque Center-established in the Venezuelan capital-publicly protested against the UN resolution 3379 condemning Zionism “as a form of racism” and expressed their solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people.
For the first founding leaders of the terrorist group ETA, as for EGI, Israel was a political-national entity to admire. A nation that achieved their national liberation based on the armed struggle. For ETA, the clandestine Jewish terrorist group Irgun became their role model, and Menachem Begin’s literary work, The Revolt, was their “bible”. The internal security rules that ETA established at the beginning were basically the same that Irgun followed when they were active.
Irgun’s most spectacular operation was the blasting of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem; intelligence headquarters of the British forces in the British Mandate of Palestine. But by the 1960s, ETA did not have the necessary resources, training nor weapons to perpetrate these kinds of acts. Julen Madariaga, one of ETA’s main leaders, pushed in favor of the adoption of these types of actions during the terrorist group’s third assembly in 1964 (Nacionalismo vasco-Estado de Israel: Historia de unas relaciones secretas-b).
Madariaga raises the need for an immediate start of the violent struggle and for the implementation of an urban guerrilla action plan. In his opinion, one should not be fooled by the course of the revolutionary war in Indochina, China, Tunisia, Cuba, Algeria, or other countries. In all the cited cases, the revolutionary war had taken the form of “guerrilla warfare essentially, that is to say, in the countryside, mountain and unpopulated areas” (Lisbona, 195). But to apply the same to Euskadi was a great mistake since the immense majority of the population was part of the industrial class and therefore concentrated in great urban complexes. For this reason, Madariaga pointed out Israel as a modern example that had more similarities with them, because they're “the urban commandos prevailed over the mountain guerrilla” (Lisbona, 198).
During the months that he was incarcerated in 1961, Madariaga was extremely attracted by the French edition of the book The Revolt by Menachem Begin. This textbook was facilitated to Madariaga by the BNP member Luis Maria Retolaza, another enthusiast of Israel who in 1980 was appointed Secretary of Interior of the Basque Government. A few months before his arrest, the head of the military branch of ETA proposed to attempt against the Civil Government of Bilbao, as the activists of the Irgun did when the British intelligence headquarters were installed in the King David Hotel of Jerusalem. However, the attack was not perpetrated. Before this, Julen Madariaga proposed an unprecedented step: he wanted to request military aid to Menachem Begin, who will later become the Prime Minister of Israel between 1977 and 1983.
In the autumn of 1963 Julen Madariaga, accompanied by another member of ETA’s military branch, Juan Luis Irusta, and by Jaime-an engineer who later integrated himself into the BNP- moved to Paris. Through the well-known basque nationalist Alberto de Onaindía-an official at Unesco’s headquarters- and thanks to the mediation of a personal friend of BNP leader Juan Ajuriaguerra, Elie Meisi, a Haaretz correspondent, the two ETA leaders achieved their goal. They contacted Irgun’s representative in Paris, Shlomo Steinberg. Although Irgun formally dissolves shortly after the War of Independence of Israel, for about fifteen years it maintained a parallel structure integrated within the political party Herut, led by Menachem Begin.
Steinberg welcomed Juan and Jaime in his office in Paris. For more than an hour and a half, he listened carefully to the two BNP leaders. During this meeting, Madariaga narrated the lack of freedom Basques have in Spain, the “occupation of Euskadi”, Franco’s dictatorship repression of all Basque national identity symbols, and explained that ETA was a “Basque Revolutionary Movement of National Liberation “, similar to Irgun. However, this requires help and support, so Julen Madariaga asked Steinberg to transmit this to Menachem Begin. He asked for Begin’s help and required him to provide ETA the necessary training to carry out the “armed struggle for the national liberation of Euskadi” (Lisbona, 225).
At that time, ETA had about 300 militants in the “free community”, and another 110 in prison. During this meeting, Madariaga made clear that “Euskadi is under the occupation of the oppressive states of Spain and France.” Before concluding the meeting, Steinberg tells them that he will immediately transmit their requests to Begin, but he warns that if Begin asks for his opinion, he will desist from this idea because of the close relations that Israel had with France at the time. Is actually during this period when France helped Israel in many issues, such as the development of nuclear technology, investment, and military training. Three weeks later Irgun’s representative in Paris informed the leaders of ETA’s military branch that Begin, despite being sympathetic to their cause, could not provide them with any assistance that could go against De Gaulle’s France.
Nevertheless, Madariaga is not the only ETA leader who admired Israel. José María Benito del Valle, José Manuel Aguirre and José Luis Álvarez Emparanza (Txillardegi), members of ETA’s founding group, in addition to the Irgun struggle, greatly valued a very important Israeli achievement: the recovery and resurgence of Hebrew. For them, the loss of Euskera would mean the disappearance of the Basque nation. Above all, Txillardegi, a scholar expert in linguistic matters, advocated for the need of prioritizing the use of the Basque language in an eventual independent Euskadi, as Israel had done with Hebrew. However, Benito del Valle, next to Madariaga, is the most interested one in Israel. He even visited the Israeli embassy in Paris during the spring of 1967 in search of documentation to write some of the articles that he would later publish about Israel in Zutik and Branka, ETA’s newspapers.
Thus, in 1968 Del Valle writes a long article in Branka in which he analyzes the use of Hebrew, the achievement of Israeli independence, and the kibbutzim and moshavim model in order to give a general perspective of Israel at the time. Among his conclusions, he pointed out that the Basque language must reborn before the beginning of any national liberation movement. The interest of José María Benito del Valle is such to learn about the Israelis day-to-day life that, in the early seventies, he lived for several months in a kibbutz in Israel. Three years after the request to Begin, Julen Madariaga has a new occasion to request military aid, but in this case to the Government of Algeria.
In March 1966, the ETA leader, who had been exiled in Algeria since March 1965 after being expelled from France, asked the National Liberation Front of Algeria leaders to supply ETA with arms, financial aid, paramilitary training, and a radio station to promote their struggle as Nasser’s Egypt did with the PLO in the 1960s. The response of Colonel Huari Bumedian, head of the Algerian state, was also negative. But the reason is really interesting: Spain was going to sell them about half a million lambs, essential to celebrate the day of Ait Lakbir-the Islamic festival of Sacrifice-and he cannot renounce this because Spain was the only country willing to do this. So in February 1972, ETA signed its first statement of solidarity with the Palestinian cause and became an ally of the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine (PLO). Undoubtedly, this was a clear political and ideological switch for ETA.
Between January 1974 and May, 1977-one month before the first democratic elections after Franco’s death-Euskadi’s Government in exile and the BNP requested and obtained military training from two Israeli captains belonging to elite units. The contacts were made by Primitivo Abad Gorostiza, who had a long military career. He was a commander for the gudaris (Basque soldiers) during the Spanish Civil War, and amid World War II he was integrated into the Basque Brigade, fighting alongside American troops. From January 9 to February 6, 1974, Primitivo Abad visited Tel Aviv to take, as head of the Solidarity of Basque Workers group (SBW), a course on labor and cooperative issues taught by the Histadrut- the General Confederation of Workers of Israel.
But their mission was really different. According to the indications made by the powerful BNP leader Juan Ajuriaguerra, he must contact Israeli soldiers who are willing to train paramilitary commandos who, under the guarantee of the Basque Government, will be sent to Israel. Through Josu de Arenaza, a member of Buru Batzar (National Council) of the BNP in Vizcaya, Abad comes in contact with captain Yair Dori Yussif. This military captain belonged to an elite unit of parachutists of the Israel Defense Forces (Nacionalismo vasco-Estado de Israel: Historia de unas relaciones secretas-c).
Captured two years earlier in the Sinai by the Egyptian army, he was the sole survivor of a special commando composed of fifteen members. After eleven months of being in captivity, and because of the successful mediation performed by the Red Cross, he was exchanged for several wounded Egyptian soldiers. At this point, the Basque emissary communicated to Dori the purpose of his mission, indicating that in addition to training commandos in Israel itself, there is a possibility that he and other Israeli military commanders selected for training will have to go to the French Basque Country. Abad assures “not to use the knowledge acquired for other reasons than the national freedom of Euskadi” (Lisbona, 261).
On February 6, Primitivo Abad had a meeting in Paris with the Basque Government President, Jesús María de Leizaola. He transmits the acceptance of Captain Yair Dori to carry out the requested mission. The lehendakari approves and goes even further by stating that in the near future he will make efforts to establish, even if unofficially, informal relations with the Jewish State. Eight days later, Abad asked Juan Ajuriaguerra, Joseba Rezóla, and Luis María Retolaza to have a meeting with the captain in Paris to which the Lehendakari himself will attend. The meeting is set to take place in the French capital on April 8th, 1974. In that meeting participated Yair Dori- who had just arrived from Tel Aviv-, Lehendakari Leizaola and Mikel Isasi. The latter had been a liaison between the youth of the BNP and EKIN, the incipient group of ETA, and had some military knowledge since in the early sixties he had participated in a course organized by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland.
The Basque leaders explained to the Israeli captain that it is unknown how are they going to leave clandestinity, that they believed that a state of violence will appear after the dictatorship and that before that happened they wanted to have a series of commandos that could maintain public order. Dori must select other Israeli officers in order to help him. In the beginning, he contacts three other captains, also belonging to elite units. Together they prepare a program for a two weeks-long course. In subsequent contacts, Abad reports that the best date to carry out the first “military session” will be August and that the size of the group to be trained will be fifteen or twenty people.
The Region of Vizcaya counted already 19 companies with 103 fighters each one. The training place was going to be the BNP’s party house in Bayonne. Since it was a small group, Yair Dori Yussif decided to move with only two other captains. It is proposed to travel from Tel Aviv to Paris by plane and to take a train from there to Bayonne. However, at the end of July 1974, by the request of the Basque nationalists, the trip was postponed. Franco’s sudden illness makes them cautious before launching into such an operation. In addition, the general assembly of the BNP to be held on July 6 was postponed until September or October. In any case, Captain Dori is informed that his help is important to them and that they will contact him soon with new information (Nacionalismo vasco-Estado de Israel: Historia de unas relaciones secretas-d).
Additionally, the BNP was immersed in a serious economic crisis, and therefore the delay was accepted. The treasury of the BNP and the Basque Government couldn’t afford to hire the Israeli military at that time. After several contacts by letter and after more than a year, in September 1975, Abad communicates to Dori that all the mechanisms have been put in place again to carry out the postponed mission. Throughout October, Ajuriaguerra, Retolaza, Isasi, and Abad himself, began carefully selecting the person who would participate in these training sessions. On December 7th, 1975, seventeen days after Franco’s death, Ajuriaguerra asked Abad to contact Dori and to expedite his transfer to Bayonne. He added that he was being asked about the possibility of a short visit to the Basque Country to gain field knowledge and to better comprehend its peculiarities.
It seems that from the earliest contacts, the Basque resistance within the Francoist Euskadi had expressed its desire that Dori and his men move there to show their commitment to the Basque resistance. On December 17th, 1975, the Israeli captain replies that he is willing to move on any date, alongside another commanded of equal rank called Marcos G. and who has no problems with going to Euskadi. Finally, on February 15th, 1976, the green light is given.
The purpose of the course was to teach some specific military techniques that they knew could be transmitted to the future Basque government’s security/military forces. For all this, they wanted some extensive knowledge on issues such as forms of recruitment, commitments that they should accept, a smaller number of unit cell, square, section, company, etc. Also, the geographical distribution of these units in populations of 300,000 people and in villages of 10,000 people or less, materials to be used, means of acquiring them, etc (Lisbona, 233-239).
Yair Dori and Marcos G. stayed in Bayonne from February 15th, 1976 until March 6th, 1976. There, they trained a group of 18 people including: Primitivo Abad, Mikel Isasi, Antón Ormaza (President of the BNP’S Buru Batzar in Vizcaya), and José Luis Irurita, also a member of Buru Batzar. Juan Ajuriaguerra and Luis María Retolaza personally attended two training sessions. On the 16th and 17th of March, the two Israeli captains visited the Spanish Basque Country, although after many hesitations, as they feared a possible arrest in a state that does not maintain-at that moment-diplomatic relations with Israel. Moreover, the delicacy of their mission makes them more suspicious of the journey.
Anyway, Yair Dori asked Abad if the president of the Basque Government in exile contacted with Israel to formalize their relations. From Jerusalem, Abad makes two telephone calls to Jesus Maria de Leizaola, urgently asking him to appear at the Israeli embassy in Paris to “secure the captains” and to explain “the motives of the trip.” (Lisbona, 250). The lehendakari even visited the diplomatic delegation twice, but he himself realizes on Friday, May 13th, 1976 that the whole operation has been short-circuited. In Euskadi, 5 people were killed the day before after a terrorist attack was perpetrated. The operation ended up being a failure. Abad, Irarita and Emeldi left Israel on May 19th. Less than a month later, on June 15th, 1977, in the first national elections, the Basque Nationalist Party obtained eight seats. Juan Ajuriaguerra and Xabier Arzalluz became members of the Spanish Deputies Congress during Spain’s Constituent Assembly (Lisbona, 252).
- The maintenance of the relations from then to nowadays
A “National Home”, so-called by the Founding Congress of Zionism in Basle, and later by the Balfour Declaration (1917) (Brenner), is what Basque nationalism wanted and wants for Euskadi. For Basque nationalism the ideas of Theodor Herzl – the Sabino Arana of Basque Nationalism – and its design of a Jewish national state are enriching and very useful. But one of the key elements to learn from Zionism is the common language Jews established in Eretz Israel. For the BNP and Euskadi’s nationalism in general, it is desired to apply the Israeli experience in the recovery of Hebrew within the current borders of Euskadi and beyond (by this I mean Euskal Herria) (Lisbona, 262).
Thus, between 1978 and 1979 contacts began with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Later in the mid-1980s, the Basque Government’s Education Minister and spokesman, Pedro Miguel Etxenike, traveled to Israel together with his deputy minister and professor of Linguistics, Koldo Mitxelena, to study and learn the Israeli teaching techniques with the objective of its possible application in Euskadi. As a result of this visit, Israeli specialists in education traveled to Euskadi and signed a collaboration agreement with the Basque Government within the context of a program of technological innovation in education. But Etxenike, in addition to his contacts in Israel during the years he was the Ministry of Education and Culture, will establish another type of ties in an area that he knows perfectly well because he was a recognized professor of Physics: nuclear energy (Lisbona, 275).
Also, the Minister of the Interior, Luis María Retolaza, had a close friendship with the Israeli professor of Nuclear Physics, Yavin Avivi. While Etxenike travels to Israel, Avivi visits Euskadi. In June 1981, a large delegation of experts from the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission and officials from the Dimona nuclear power plant in the Negev moved to Euskadi to advise on issues of interest to the Lemoniz nuclear power plant project. One of the issues that most interested the Basques was the plant’s security. While the leaders of the Basque Government were trying to reduce the importance of these “nuclear” contacts, authorities in Madrid did not want to ignore what was happening in Euskadi.
On one occasion, alarmed by the large number of visas requested by Israeli citizens bound for the Basque Country, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs requests authorization from the Presidency of the Government, to instruct its consulate in Jerusalem to reduce the flow of ‘scientific’ trips to Spain. The relations between the BPN and Israel continued, and once leading the Basque Government from Euskadi, secret contacts between both sides continued. In 1980, Spain’s Ministry of Interior, prefers British and German security forces to train the future members of the Ertzaintza. Nevertheless, Luis María Retolaza, Euskadi’s Minister of Interior, was interested in asking the Israel Defense Forces to train the new Basque security forces.
The Israelis are little used to train the future Basque police-Ertzaintza-, but instead, the services of the Mossad and the Israeli military are requested in 1983 to form the Ekintza, an elite corps of the Erizaintza created, above all, to help the Basques create a Basque intelligence entity. This petition was made in April 1986. Some Basque agents of the Ekintza were housed in a kibbutz during their instruction. During this time, the entire leadership of the Basque Government was great admirers of Israel: Luis María Retolaza, counselor; Eli Caldos, Deputy Minister of Interior; Juan José Arrizabalaga, Deputy Minister of Security; Sabino Arrieta, Deputy Minister of Administration and Planning; and Genaro García de Andoain, delegate of Housing Affairs. Some of them had even traveled to Israel several times, sometimes in secret and sometimes not.
Another issue that has always interested the BNP-who has controlled the Basque Public Institutions since the transition-is to the health field. Israel’s health organizations enjoy great prestige around the world. So the Basques fell in love with Israel in this field too. One of the most successful journeys is the one made by Andoni Monforte in the mid-1980s as a health advisor to the Basque Government. The official reason for his visit to Israel was to get closer to the various cardiovascular research advances the Israelis had achieved. But in reality, the trip had two other “secret” reasons. The first to know how Israeli scientists could help in studies on the high percentage in the Basque population with the RH negative factor. The other reason was to contact the Israeli security services to find convergent points of collaboration between the police security forces of Israel and Euskadi. Some of the Basques’ requests are rejected by the Israelis. Let us not forget that Mossad also collaborated closely with Spain’s old intelligence agency-CESID (Lisbona, 293).
On July 16th, 1994, Basque Nationalist Party President, Xabier Arzalluz, moved to Israel to head a delegation composed also of Aguirre Arizmendi, Senator Caballero Laskibar, and Congressman Ollora Ochoa de Aspuru. The motive is to explore the possibilities of reaching an agreement with ETA through a similar process like the one Israel and the PLO carried out weeks prior to the agreement reached in Oslo in August 1993 (Lisbona, 297).
Arzalluz was also interested in the procedure used to begin direct negotiations, as well as the lengthy decision-making process followed by the Israeli Government. The president of the BNP arrives to meet with Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, Isaac Rabin, and with one of its men of confidence, the architect of the agreements of Oslo, Yosi Beilin. A book on the Jewish people, The Compromise, conditions Xavier Arzalluz on the conception of the world towards Basque nationalism. Since then he has always confessed that he has good friends in Israel. Today, relations between the BNP, which, like Center and Right-wing Catalan nationalism have captured the political scene of their respective peoples, are limited to certain commercial and business agreements, and institutional visits. An example of this is the visit made by the current Israeli Ambassador to Spain, Daniel Kutner, who visited on February 9th, 2016 Euskadi’s current Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, in Vizcaya (+ Eusko Jauralitza-Gobierno Vasco).
Catalunya-Israel: Jordi Pujol, Catalunya’s Nationalism and “Non-Official Relations”
- Jordi Pujol and the Jews: The origins of the relation
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 have made possible this closeness is Jordi Pujol, President of the Generalitat of Catalunya between 1980 and 2003. Interestingly, Pujol studied at a private middle German Pro-Nazi school in Barcelona, because his father wanted for him an anti-ecclesiastical and laic education. Although growing up in such an environment, Jordi Pujol always had misgivings against Nazism. Postures that were consolidated when he started college and better comprehended the atrocities perpetrated in Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
But it is during his adolescence when Pujol begins to see the Jews as an inspiration through Zionism. As a Catalan, and because of the repression suffered during the Franco regime as a young student-Pujol was sent to jail for two years and a half because of his ideas- 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.
It should be remembered that anti-Semitism and the anti-Jews rhetoric was a constant narrative of Franco’s regime. Similarly, Catalans were called the “Jews of Spain” under the fascist ruling and suffered strong 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 Israel based on Zionism. This affinity was strengthened because of three main reasons: his personal closeness to the Tenenbaum family, the comparison that 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 who arrived from Galitzia to Berlin but that with 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. The interest of Jordi Pujol 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. (Jordi Pujol i els jueus, 40) .
His interest leads him to closely follow the diplomatic process in the UN which ended-up with the approval of the Partition Plan in 1947. In his memories, he explains that he was avidly listening to the radio when Israel declared its independence in 1948. 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 1950s and 1960s 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. (Jordi Pujol i els jueus, 55). That is why he considered essential for the Catalanism 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” (Jordi Pujol i els jueus, 61).
- Jordi Pujol as the bridge between Spain and Israel
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 the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, on September 13th, 1979 in Spain. All of this took place while Arafat was militarily supporting the Basque terrorist group 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-who at the time was considered a terrorist group the West- was an unbreakable link (“El presidente Suárez recibirá hoy a Yasser Arafat en Madrid”, El País). 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 relations were established, Pujol made clear that if Spain wanted to enter the European Economic Community-what will later become the European Union- it should recognize all the countries that the members of this entity recognize (Pujol i els jueus, 102).
On July 10, 1986, Pujol held a dinner to celebrate the recently opened art exhibition “Art in Israel”, promoted by Baltasar Porcel, who was then 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”.
- The first visit of President Pujol to Israel
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 competencies, in Tel Aviv he was received by the Spanish ambassador Pedro López Aguirrebengoa -who was a diplomat that the Israeli government did not trust much- and several other Israeli cabinet members. Pujol was received like any other international leader.
An interesting detail is that although the President of the Canary Islands, 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 consent of the Spanish Government. It is important to highlight that Pujol officially-during his 23 years mandate-visited Israel on three occasions with the purpose of promoting business, investment, and cultural exchange: 1987, 1994, and 2003 (Jordi Pujol i el jueus, 108).
The first visit of Pujol 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 the people of 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 and the Generalitat would provide Israelis with half a million fish from the Ebro River to repopulate the Sea of Galilee (Jordi Pujol i el jueus, 110). In this trip, there was also controversy, because, during a dinner with 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 Catalunya’s existence and history known. However, the cordial and elegant way in which Pujol said that was such that interestingly this was the main highlight from that dinner. During this trip, Pujol also met with Shimon Peres, who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs and whom he had met in private in a trip President Pujol did a couple of years earlier. He also met with Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, and then Minister of Industry, Ariel Sharon. Also, Pujol met with the mayor of Tel-Aviv, Shlomo Lahat, and other political leaders of Israel at the time.
Almost at the end of the trip, and 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 impacts-both politically and economically-on Catalunya. However, the moment of maximum exit came to Pujol on October 28th, 2007 when he was invited to the Knesset to give a speech after receiving the Samuel Toledano Award. This is a political addressing opportunity that is currently only shared with King Philip VI. Not in vain Pujol never visited the occupied territories during his repeated official trips to Israel.
- Catalunya – Israel relations after Pujol’s presidency
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. Maragall then met with Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, and Deputy Prime Ministers Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert. The two Catalan leaders also met with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah (Maragall y Carod viajan a Israel y Palestina con una agenda marcada por el equilibrio). Despite this, Catalunya and Israel maintained close and cordial relations.
- Israel and the recent growth of the Catalan pro-independence movement
In more recent times, the arrival of Artur Mas-that young advisor of Territorial Policy and Public Works for President Jordi Pujol, who is 1986 participated in the dinner with the newly appointed Israeli ambassador to Spain-brought back a more sympathetic position from Catalunya to Israel with regard to the conflict and many other issues. However, during this new scenario, he would also bring with him a nationalist-pro-independence movement, after the failure of the 2006 Catalunya’s Statute Reform, and a Catalan government seeking support for their cause. So despite the fact that the pro-independence movement was in full swing, the visit of President Mas in 2013 gave a lot of international and domestic exposure to the pro-independence leaders.
The official agenda began by visiting-as Pujol did in 1987-the Weizmann Scientific Institute, in the city of Rehovot, where Mas signed a cooperation agreement (Cataluña e Israel: convenios políticos y negocios empresariales polémicos). He then traveled with a delegation of about thirty entrepreneurs and representatives from different research centers to establish links between the two governments, as well as to strengthen economic and knowledge cooperation, and trade relations in the field of technology. On his way back to Tel Aviv, the Catalan president gave a lecture titled “Catalunya, the center of knowledge in southern Europe”, at the School of Law of the University of Tel Aviv, where he made clear the pro-independence aspirations of his administration. He later visited Matimop, the Israeli national agency for industrial cooperation in I + D (Informe: Las relaciones económicas Cataluña-Israel).
Also, Mas met with Israeli Finance Minister at the time, Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem. On the last day in Israel, 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” (Mas pide el apoyo de Israel). This phrase was very controversial and the passivity shown by President Peres before these words worried the Spanish press and government. The Catalan delegation also had the presence of the Mayor of Barcelona at that time, Xavier Trias, who met with the Mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, at a meeting also attended by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Catalan Government, Roger Albinyana (Lamelas, El Periódico). Furthermore, before seriously considering moving forward with the independence process, President Artur Mas took two steps: he met with the United States ambassador in Spain and then he went to Israel in November 2013 (Las relaciones entre los gobiernos de Cataluña e Israel, cada vez más estrechas). By December, he sets the referendum date which was held 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. Interestingly, the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2013 compared Catalunya with Scotland-a year before the non-binding referendum- and declared that “if Catalunya becomes independent, the US and Catalunya will have to work together” (El embajador de EEUU en Londres afirma que si Catalunya se independiza “habrá que trabajar juntos”).
It would not be until 2014-a year before the Catalan pro-independence political parties won the Catalan Parliament elections with an absolute majority (Primor, Haaretz), when Santi Vidal, a former judge and member of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) party, said in a political event that Israel was one of the possible countries that could finance an eventual independent Catalan state (Escándalo en Cataluña: denuncian planes de crear una “NSA catalana” con Israel). But not only that, but Mr. Vidal also stated that the Mossos d’Esquadra-the Autonomous Catalan Police- had contacts with the Mossad to receive advice about security issues (Campreciós, El Periódico). The Catalan Government denied the veracity of these declarations, and the former Senator of ERC submitted his resignation. It is important to highlight that Vidal filtered that the Catalan Government was collecting data from the Catalan people illegally to be used for a future independence referendum (El juez Santiago Vidal cree que Alemania e Israel financiarán la independencia de Cataluña). In the end, this turned out to be true and the Catalan government used illegally collected information of Catalans to organize polling stations for the referendum of self-determination that was made last October 1st, 2017 (Muñiz Gómez-b). Therefore, Vidal’s declarations cannot be entirely discarded. In one of his political rallies, Mr. Vidal even went further by saying: “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” (Israel, EE.UU. y Alemania, los aliados de Cataluña).
Interestingly, it is during this period of time according to several non-official reports- that security officers of the Generalitat of Catalunya kept visiting Israel constantly. However, the only visit that is being known by the media is the one made during the beginning of 2017 by the Mossos to meet with Mossad officials (Prensa hoy: Los Mossos se reunieron con el Mossad en Israel). This visit strengthened the theory that Israel might be helping the Mossos to create a counterintelligence unit in case that Catalunya separates from Spain (Los Mossos se reunieron con agentes del Mossad en Israel).
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. Maybe this also the reason why the new consul was Antonio Sánchez Molina, 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, as Lluis Bassat-Jordi Pujol’s publicist-, David Madí – the right-hand man of Artur Mas- or 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, is at the antipodes of the sovereignty movement. In fact, José Antonio Sánchez Molina has no sympathy for independence and during his youth, he was part of an extreme right-wing group in Blanes, Catalunya (Puigdemont apuesta por Israel y Margallo bloquea el consulado honorario en Cataluña. Noticias de Cataluña). 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. So 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 sectors (Alon Bar: ´Hay muchos catalanes que piensan en Israel como un modelo´).
Despite the fact that in 2016, the current 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 independence process he was leading, this meeting had no impact on the views of the ambassador with regards to the secessionist matter. So evidently President Puigdemont did not achieve the endorsement he wanted to obtain from Israel to the independence process (Val). In an email that I exchanged with Ambassador Daniel Kutner on October 2th, 2017 after the October 1st, 2017 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 this, the 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.
It is important to mention that in December 2016, Spain voted in favor of resolution 2334 at the United Nations Security Council. This resolution condemned and declared illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Even with regard to Jerusalem, Spain had not supported Israel in the UN and had previously supported resolutions who 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 between November 5th and November 8th, 2017, the current President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, just talked about how to stop the expansion of the BDS movement since Spain has more than 60 municipalities-of which stand out which Córdoba, Seville, Santiago de Compostela or Gijón-who support this anti-Israel initiative. Also, President Rivlin celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the re-establishment of the 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” (El presidente del Estado israelí afirma en el Senado que España es una “única entidad estatal soberana”). Moreover, during his visit to Spain on November 21th, 2017-just three weeks after President Rivlin’s visit-Palestinian Authority (PA) President, Mahmoud Abbas, just limited to say that he supports the idea of a “united Spain” after Spain’s King, Felipe VI recognized that “Palestinians deserve their own state.”
This caused that a well-known nationalist pro-independence member of the Spanish Deputies Congress, Joan Tardà, who questioned the PA leader about his support to the “self-determination right that all the peoples of the world have.” In a letter, written in Spanish by Mr. Tardà to PA’s President Mahmoud Abbas, he said: “We urge you to reconsider your words and make prevail in your interests the struggle for human rights and the legitimate liberties of all oppressed peoples.” At the end of this letter, Joan Tardà highlights the “fraternity between the Palestinian and Catalan people’s” (Tardà lamenta la “desconsideración” de Mahmoud Abbas hacia Catalunya). These two visits clearly show the different positions that Israelis, but also the Palestinians-who still desperately looking for more international support in favor of their cause-have with regard to the Catalunya issue. This is why President Abbas is ignoring the Catalan pro-independence cause while is more concerned about expanding Palestinian support around the world, especially among European Union members. Although 130 countries have already diplomatic relations with the PA, the support of countries such as Spain is immensely important for the Palestinians. Clearly, today, Israel prefers to keep an ambiguous opinion with regard to this political conflict while the PA wants to support Spain’s territorial status quo because evidently benefits their cause.
- Conclusion
As has been seen along with this analysis, the relations between Catalunya and Euskadi with Israel come from afar and have been maintained throughout time. Before Catalunya or Euskadi becomes independent, relations with Israel should be strengthened. Israel would be a key ally, and from whom to obtain support in the international arena. Although Israel today considers the Catalan issue as “an internal affair” and the current ambassador of Israel in Spain has confirmed it, all these links between Israel and Euskadi, and Israel and Catalunya are conspicuous. Clearly, the support of Basque and Catalan society today towards Israel is less because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and because of the current coalition government in Israel. Although all the aforementioned paradigms demonstrate that the ties between Israel and Euskadi, and Israel and Catalunya are unshakable. In the event that one of these two territories separates from Spain-even if it is done by unilateral routes-Israel most probably will decide its real position before such scenarios.
No comments:
Post a Comment