The Ambassador had to be evacuated to a safe room in the face of imminent physical danger and her security entourage had to take deterring measures.
Israel’s Ambassador to Spain Rodica Radian-Gordon was attacked by several dozen pro-Palestinian activists during a conference she gave at Universidad Complutense of Madrid on Wednesday.
The conference, at the invitation of the faculty of philology, was about “The Oslo Agreements: a commemoration.”
When the Ambassador arrived in the University a mob of about 40 people decided to enter the University with the clear intent of sabotaging the conference.
There was a moment when the security of the Ambassador was in danger of being overwhelmed, so it was necessary to send urgently riot police to dissuade the mob from their intentions of physical aggression.
The Ambassador had to be evacuated to a safe room in the face of imminent physical danger and her security entourage had to take deterring measures.
In a video that circulated on social media in Spain, the ambassador is seen being evacuated to the secure room by Israeli and local security guards while dozens of activists swarm around them.
The incident was reportedly very violent and serious. After the local police sent forces to the scene and evacuated the protesters, the ambassador’s lecture resumed. The police made two arrests.
“We are appalled by the violence of the anti-Israel demonstrators, which was directed against the Israeli ambassador at the conference at Complutense University to mark 30 years of the Oslo peace process,” stated the Israeli Embassy in Madrid.
According to ACOM (Action and Communication on the Middle East), a pro-Israel advocacy group in Spain, for weeks groups had been announcing a violent boycott against the presence of the Ambassador of Israel. The names of the organisers of this boycott did not appear, but it was broadcast, among others, by “Frente de Estudiantes, “Estudiantes en movimiento”, or “A.U. La Chispa”.
These organisations, it said, belong to the radical left of Madrid, associated with the environment of extreme left Unidas Podemos.
Other organisations that sympathise with terrorist groups such as Samidoun and Alkarama also led the violent protest.
It is not the first time that some of protestors who are not students take part in acts of violence against Israelis, Jews, and friends of Israel.