I would like to congratulate Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas for postponing the Palestinian legislative elections once again and thereby entering the 22nd year of his 4 year term. His commitment to democracy is exemplary and no doubt the failure to conduct elections in 18 years is someone else’s fault.
Meanwhile the real democracies of Spain and Israel are going to polls, the latter tomorrow. Guerre and Shalom has no official opinion on whether left or right wing governments should be elected to power; after all both the Israeli and Spanish governments have elements from the other side of the spectrum. In Israel, there are uber-socialist, non-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox parties and in Spain there is anti-Spanish, conservative support from Junts. Meanwhile, the Israeli opposition contains hawkish, decidedly non-left wing parties on security, a liberal, capitalist party in B’Yachad and a (somewhat) Islamist/traditionalist conservative party in Ra’am.
So the issue isn’t right or left on policy. A liberal democracy must encourage both sides of the political spectrum to speak freely. It’s character. And in the estimation of the editor, right-wing Netanyahu with his hard-right coalition and left-wing Sánchez with his hard-left coalition are two peas in a pod politically. In this article we explore why.
So our advice to voters in Israel and Spain is this: vote politically according to the arguments, but decisively reject the rule of the incumbents, whose political labels are deceptive: Netanyahu and Sánchez were separated at birth. - Daniel Clarke-Serret (Editor, Guerre and Shalom
Reporting directly from Zaragoza, Spain:
As a long time commentator on Israeli affairs and a long time resident of the Kingdom of Spain, let me say this: Netanyahu and Sánchez are tal para cual, two peas in a pod, made for each other in all moral respects.
Their governments are cesspools of corruption and anti- patriotic sentiment which are using each other as a distraction from their own moral turpitude. The peoples of Israel and Spain are utterly embarrassed by their elected representatives, those who achieved office through electoral pacts with fringe extremists and those who have no loyalty to the State. Nonetheless, the peoples of both countries maintain their pride, culture and resilience in spite of their inane rulers which seem intent on crushing liberal democracy into the dust.
Before we begin, allow me to make two preliminary statements. Firstly, I am probably one of the few people on the entire planet to have spent extended periods of time in both countries. So on the basis of the (questionable) Likud nationalist refrain that one needs to live in a place to know about it, I am uniquely qualified to comment. Most Israelis and Spaniards who talk about the other country do so in a state of complete ignorance and are manipulated by their respective governments to hate the other for domestic benefit.
Secondly, there is no difference between extreme left and extreme right. There is an idea born in France, that there needs to be a cordon sanitaire only around the latter. Meanwhile, the likes of Jean-Luc Mélanchon , Yolanda Diaz and Jeremy Corbyn are allowed to continue their nefarious activities unmolested. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is bullshit.
I utterly condemn the neverending stream of extremism flowing from the mouths of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, but I equally condemn the exact same phenomenon from Yolanda Diaz and Spanish separatist politicians. The electoral authoritarianism of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Cosmopolitan Palestinianism of Pedro Sanchez are both disgusting contemporaneous phenomena and both equally worthy of condemnation. Unfortunately, so many modern commentators are infected by partisan tribalism they are blind to the barely concealed indecency on their own side.
It's difficult to know where to begin in comparing the manifest similarities of Netanyahu and Sánchez. Both came to office as purer than pure white knights, promising to defeat the corruption of their predecessors. Faced with the endemic corruption in the center right Popular Party of Mariano Rajoy, Pedro Sánchez promised a “democratic renewal”. In words that sound almost laughable today, he sermonised:
“Corruption acts as a corrosive and profoundly harmful force for any nation. It erodes society’s trust in its leaders and consequently weakens the authority of the state. But it also strikes at the very root of social cohesion. Corruption undermines faith in the rule of law when it is left to run rampant or when there is no political response commensurate with the harm caused. Ultimately, corruption destroys trust in institutions, and more profoundly, in politics itself, when there is no decisive reaction grounded in exemplary conduct”.
Not to be outdone, Netanyahu once positioned himself as a conscience of the nation against the corruption of Ehud Olmert. A 2008 Billboard across the main Tel Aviv Highway pronounced:
“A prime minister who is neck-deep in investigations has no public or moral mandate to make crucial decisions… the right thing to do is for the government to go home.”
Yet today we find that both governments are synonymous with endemic corruption. Spain, which has faced persistent corruption issues since its democratic inception, is now once more faced with the spectre of senior officials gaining kickbacks in return for public contracts. Meanwhile, Sánchez’s wife and brother also stand accused, the former stained with allegations of influence peddling and corruption. In scenes painfully reminiscent for Israeli readers, the Spanish PM has gone on the offensive, accusing his political and media enemies of a “harassment and bullying operation”. Remind you of anyone?
Meanwhile, not so long ago, Israel endured 5 elections in 4 years due to the persistent failure of Benjamin Netanyahu to resign over corruption allegations. Instead of doing what any decent democratic leader would do and step down to fight the charges, he played every dirty trick in the book to stay in power, most shamefully of all being the bridesmaid for Itamar Ben Gvir to enter the Knesset.
Where once the Likud of Shamir had boycotted the Parliamentary pronouncements of Meir Kahane, the shameful incumbent had no such qualms. He had the audacity to give Kahanism a first-class ticket into government — all so he could remain in post and damn the consequences.
Pedro Sánchez, also up to his neck in corruption allegations involving his political associates and immediate family, is similarly indecent in his lust for power. Despite gaining less votes than the centre-right Popular Party of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, he remained in La Moncloa due to a shameless pact with the devil.
Having cobbled together a fruitcake coalition with extremist far-leftists, and having secured the support of Basque and Catalan separatists who didn’t even believe in the continuation of Spain, he still didn't have enough Parliamentary seats to cross the line —-but as with his Israeli homologue, he wasn't one to let the arithmetic deny him. He was “forced” to turn to Junts.
For those who haven't been following closely, Junts is led by the former Catalan Regional President Carles Puigdemont, a fugitive from the law currently in hiding in Belgium. The suspect may not return to the Iberian Peninsula, lest he be forced to see the back of a Spanish prison cell.
This is the man who, in complete contravention of the Spanish Constitution and in an act of appalling sedition against the Spanish state, conducted an illegal referendum on Catalonian Independence. Despite being boycotted by the 50% of Catalan Parliamentarians and citizens who feel entirely Spanish in their sympathies, he awarded himself the God-given right to smash up the Law and declare a new, unrecognised country. [Recognising the independence of non-existent polities is a Spanish habit I’m afraid…]
Yet Pedro Sánchez needed the votes of this enemy of the State. So against the wishes of huge swathes of the Spanish population, he enacted an amnesty law for those Catalan nationalists involved in the criminal actions of 2017. Hundreds of thousands of furious Spanish protesters hit the streets, waving their national flag in an act of defiance, but as Israeli protesters know only too well, the power-hungry politician has no interest in the common will.
Both Prime Ministers are now caught in a moral death spiral, beholden to the sentiments of their fellow government members, both extremist and non-patriotic. First turning to the extremists, Netanyahu is forced to bite his tongue when one far right minister after another calls for Jewish settlement in Gaza, even up to and including “voluntary displacement”. In one particularly egregious case, the lunatic heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu called for the use of a nuclear bomb in Gaza.
At least Netanyahu, to his credit, distanced himself from this statement (though in sane times, of course, he would have sacked him). Sánchez, by contrast, actually pronounced the N word himself. In a statement scarcely conceivable from a Western leader, Spain’s disgraceful PM openly called (effectively) for mass extermination. He opined that he wished his nation had nuclear weapons to stop the war in Gaza. Not content to limit himself to outrageous lies about a made-up genocide, Sánchez now dreams of nuking Tel Aviv. Looks like the left aren’t so cuddly and friendly after all.
Now probably, just like his Israeli homologue, Sánchez doesn't believe half the things he's saying, imprisoned as he is by his Coalition partners. [Lest we forget, Netanyahu once defended the independence of the Supreme Court and Sánchez once showed solidarity with the Israeli mainstream.] But political circumstances aren't an excuse. Both men should resign if they are being “forced to” make statements and support policies against their conscience.
In his attempt to appease Diaz’s Sumar, Pedro Sánchez has allowed himself to pronounce evermore deranged statements in respect of the Middle East. He openly supported violent, disruptive “Palestine protests” during a bike race that should now be renamed La Vuelta a Palestina. Egging on lawbreakers to persist in their criminal activity - and thereby putting in danger the safety of participants - Sánchez spoke of his “pride” at the actions of these deviants, all the while remaining impassive to the waves of Spanish political opponents who fly the national flag in protest at his government.
He never called for Hamas to release the hostages unconditionally. He never called for a surrender of the terrorist government of Gaza. He never called for an end to mosques and hospitals being used as military bases. Instead , this unashamed ally of human rights-abusing Venezuela, China, Equatorial Guinea and Algeria focuses incessantly and UNIQUELY on the world's only Jewish state.
He talks about a genocide that doesn't exist to whip up his extremist allies into a fervour of rage —-something that wouldn't have been out of place in the Anti-Jewish Riots of 1391. This is antisemitism on a grand scale from one of the world's most historically anti-Semitic countries. There are no words.
I’m not done. Both Netanyahu and Sánchez are also beholden to non-patriotic elements to stay in power. In the Israeli case, Netanyahu relies on the support of ultra-Orthodox factions who refuse to teach the national curriculum, violently protest participation in the army, break State law on a staggering scale and then expect the hard-working taxpayer to support their renegade, anti-national society.
Meanwhile, Sánchez would be toast without pouring money into Catalan and Basque autonomous communities, already extremely wealthy provinces, who are sworn to the political destruction of Spain. They use their portion of the national tax take to develop an entirely separate curriculum, police force and set of laws, all the while ostracizing those who wish to use Castilian. Both governments masquerade as Israeli and Spanish Patriots respectively, while all they really represent are regimes of division, without and especially within.
There was something ironically comic - and pathetically sad - about the last year’s exchange between Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar and his Spanish homologue José Manuel Albares. In an act of unseemly tit-for-tat, the government ministers blamed each other for sins that both governments are themselves complicit in.
BOTH have members who have disgracefully referred to nuclear weapons.
BOTH are engaged in unprecedented slander about the other.
BOTH have boycotted serving cabinet ministers.
BOTH have criminal elements in their ranks.
And BOTH have been mired in indecent corruption.
The Spanish ministry, with no little irony, said that it “categorically reject(ed) the false and slanderous statements from the Israeli Prime Minister’s office". What a shame-faced lack of self-reflection! Do they not appreciate that Spain has being engaged in a three-year campaign of never-ending slander against the Jewish state, namely in super spreading the blatantly false claim of ”genocide”?
Meanwhile, Gideon Sa’ar hit back - wait for it! - with the claim that Spain’s ruling party needs a distraction from corruption allegations. All true of course, but conveniently - and hilariously - forgetting the particular circumstances of Sa’ar himself!
Did not Sa’ar form a new political party on the basis of Likud corruption and its assault on the judicial system? And in light of “New Hope”s precipitous fall in the polls, did he not return to the self-same corrupt Likud in return for the plumb position of foreign minister? So while one cannot but agree with Sa’ar’s assessment of Spanish politics, it takes one to know one.
Both the Spanish PSOE and the Israeli Likud are suffering from a mental illness: it's called denial. Both are run by corrupt Prime Ministers beholden to extremist coalition allies and in need of the support of anti-patriotic defiers of the State. The rhetoric is being ratcheted up to ever greater levels because they both need a scapegoat for their own manifest sins.
Netanyahu and Sánchez hate each other so much because they are the same. Venal, destructive, power-hungry leviathans who care not for the damage they do to their own political institutions.
Vote.