Barcelona has suspended official ties with Israel over its violation of Palestinian rights. Barcelona mayor Ada Colau announced on February 8: “I have decided to temporarily suspend relations with the state of Israel and with the official institutions of that state — including the twinning agreements with the Tel Aviv City Council — until the Israeli authorities put an end to the system of violations of the Palestinian people … We cannot be silent.”
The Barcelona-Tel Aviv agreement was originally signed in 1998 in the context of the already moribund Oslo Peace Accords and included a twinning arrangement between Barcelona and Gaza.
Given the pathological sensitivity of the Zionist state to criticism and campaigns against its apartheid rule over the Palestinian people, even in quieter times this decision would have had an explosive impact.
However, coming as it does in the run-up to the May 28 election for Barcelona Council, Colau’s move has guaranteed that the Israel-Palestine conflict will now become an important factor in the contest, and in Spanish politics.
Critical decisions await the council. Should it try to reverse Colau’s decision and restore ties with a state condemned by the United Nations and Amnesty International for systematic violations of human rights?
Will major Catalan parties, like the Party of Socialists of Catalonia (PSC) and the governing Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) — that last year helped carry a Catalan parliament resolution describing Israel as an apartheid state — now run for cover when asked to act against it?
Read the article by Dick Nichols in Green Left.