For a country that exiled its Jewish community—and tortured and sentenced to death thousands of Jews—you would think that it would show some sensitivity towards Israel, recognizing the threats it faces.

By Daniel S. Mariaschin, JNS

It should come as no surprise that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has joined the call for an arms embargo against Israel. Spain is now in the company of Canada, France and the United Kingdom in calling for or enacting either a full or partial arms embargo.

The Sánchez government has been particularly aggressive in its criticism of Israel, predating the massacres carried out by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. Spain is part of a group of “never-Israel’’ governments inside the European Union, including Ireland, Norway and Slovenia, that compete to see which can excoriate Israel more. It’s no coincidence that all four countries have recognized a Palestinian state in the wake of the fighting.

Post-Oct. 7 comments emanating from the capitals of these countries are deep in charges of genocide and violations of international law. Cabinet members in each place have laced their statements on Israel’s defensive war in the Gaza Strip with full servings of opprobrium.

In May, Spanish Minister of Defense Margarita Robles called the fighting in Gaza “a real genocide.’’ She gratuitously added that Spain’s recognition of “Palestine’’ was meant to “help end the violence.’’

Spain’s minister of social rights, Ione Bellara, has endorsed the International Criminal Court’s case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “war crimes,” calling the fighting in Gaza a “planned genocide.”

Spain’s early and full-throated endorsement of the International Court of Justice’s efforts to push Israel into the dock on genocide charges is but further evidence of the Sánchez government’s efforts to feather its pro-Palestinian street cred.

To be certain that no one would miss the point, Spain has repeatedly voted for a series of anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations in recent years, including the odious document introduced in the General Assembly by “the state of Palestine” and adopted recently, which includes a laundry list of measures to be imposed on Israel, such as an arms embargo and BDS-style trade restrictions.

Just this week, Spain doubled down on ways to further Israel’s isolation by calling for the E.U. to suspend a free-trade agreement with the Jewish state over what it is calling Israel’s “human-rights violations.” In a further move meant to complicate Israel’s operations in Southern Lebanon, the Sánchez government has rejected Israel’s call for U.N. peacekeeping forces in the area to stay out of harm’s way while the Israel Defense Forces conducts its defensive war against Hezbollah.

This is all against the backdrop of the glorious and tragic history of Jews in Spain. Much has been written and told about the “Golden Age” of philosophers and advisers to the royal courts. Maimonides, Judah Halevi, Shmuel HaNagid, Moshe ibn Ezra, and others are names etched in Spanish Jewish iconography and Jewish historical consciousness.

But so is the Spanish Inquisition with its expulsion of more than 100,000 Jews and its auto-da-fés, public humiliation and burning at the stake of thousands of conversos, those Jews who converted to Christianity and who practiced Jewish customs in secret.

Spain was very late in establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel. That happened in 1986, long after almost every European country had done so.

But it was only in 1992, on the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews, that then-King Juan Carlos, in the presence of Israeli President Chaim Herzog at the synagogue in Madrid, offered an apology for the Spanish Inquisition. Said the king: “May hatred and intolerance never again provoke expulsion or exile. On the contrary, let us be capable of building a prosperous Spain, in peace amongst ourselves on the basis of concord and mutual respect.”

Not long after, the center-right Spanish government led by José María Aznar introduced a period of increasingly close relations between Madrid and Jerusalem.

Aznar spoke out early about the dangers of BDS and presciently defended Israel’s strategic importance. In 2010, he stated: “Anger over Gaza is a distraction. We cannot forget that Israel is the West’s best ally in a turbulent region.”

After leaving office, Aznar became active in the Friends of Israel group of international public figures who have been outspoken in their support of the Jewish state.

Now, Sánchez and his government have sought to turn the clock back by erasing the positive strides that had been made in Spanish-Jewish relations. Frankly, the message now is, “We don’t care.”

Sánchez’s Socialist Workers Party, with its doctrinaire policies aimed at punishing Israel in multinational fora, especially at the ICJ and the ICC, has given aid and succor to Hamas and to those who advance the Palestinian narrative.

While the 1992 royal apology was welcome, it could not wash out the stain of the Inquisition. And what we are witnessing today in terms of Spain’s antagonizing of Israel suggests an echo of lingering hostility toward Jews and now the Jewish state.

For a country that exiled its storied Jewish community—and tortured and sentenced to death thousands of Jews—you would think there would be a measure of remorse, and a sensitive and understanding policy towards Israel that recognizes the threats it faces.

That is not the case. Spain’s shameful policies are not based on correcting history; they seem to be writing another sorry chapter of it.

Daniel S. Mariaschin is the International CEO of B’nai B’rith.