Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced on Friday May 24 that he had “decided to cut the link” between the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem and the Palestinians. This is a “response” to Madrid’s recent recognition of the State of Palestine and an “anti-Semitic call” from a Spanish minister.
“I have decided to cut the link between the Spanish [diplomatic] representation in Israel and the Palestinians, and to prohibit the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from providing services to the Palestinians in the West Bank,” Mr. Katz wrote on the social network
The minister claims to have taken these measures “in response to the recognition of a Palestinian state by Spain and to the anti-Semitic call [from a Spanish minister] not simply to recognize a Palestinian state but to ‘liberate Palestine from river to the sea.”
Spain, Ireland and Norway announced on Wednesday their decision to recognize the State of Palestine from May 28, provoking the fury of Israel which denounced a “reward for terrorism”, while the war in course in Gaza, sparked by the deadly attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7, is approaching its eighth month.
The slogan “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” denounced
On Thursday, Israel’s ambassador to Spain condemned statements by the number three in the Spanish government, Yolanda Díaz, leader of the far-left Sumar party and minister of labor, seen as “a call for the elimination of ‘Israel’.
“Today we welcome the fact that Spain recognizes the State of Palestine,” but “we cannot stop there. Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,” Ms. Díaz declared on the social network X, denouncing a “genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Chanted in demonstrations in support of the Palestinians, this slogan refers to the borders of Palestine under British mandate, which extended from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. It is interpreted by its detractors, notably the Israeli government, as a call for the elimination of Israel.
Asked about the practical modalities and concrete consequences of implementing the decision announced by Mr. Katz, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not responded to Agence France-Presse by mid-morning.