The Hebrew name for Spain is Sefarad. Ever wondered why Sefardic Jews come from the Middle East and North Africa? Because they were violently removed from their birthplace. And so, when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez accuses Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, it is not only false and incendiary, but the height of historical hypocrisy.
Let’s begin with the accusation itself. The charge of genocide implies a deliberate attempt to annihilate an entire people. That is not what is happening in Gaza. Israel is engaged in a painful, prolonged war with Hamas, a terrorist group that deliberately embeds itself within civilian infrastructure – schools, hospitals, and mosques – using its own people as human shields while launching rockets at Israeli towns and cities.
Unlike genocidal regimes, Israel takes unprecedented steps to protect civilians. It issues warnings before airstrikes. It drops leaflets, makes phone calls, and broadcasts evacuation routes. No other country fighting a terrorist insurgency takes such measures. And let’s not forget: This war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas massacred over 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children – an act of genocidal violence if there ever was one.
Spain's historical relationship with the Jews
Why is Spain so quick to jump on the genocide-lie bandwagon? It’s called transference. Spain is the one that committed genocide against the Jewish people. Not once. Not twice. But three times.
The first was the rise of the Almohad regime in the 12th century. The golden age of Spanish Jewry came to a violent end, as Jews were given the choice to convert to Islam, flee, or die by the sword. The family of Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of all time, was forced to flee Cordoba for their lives. That was classic religious ethnic cleansing that bears the marks of genocidal persecution.
The second was the Spanish Expulsion of 1492. Under Ferdinand and Isabella, some 200,000 Jews were forced to leave the country they had called home for centuries. Tens of thousands more who had converted to Christianity were hunted down by the Inquisition, tortured, and burned at the stake for “heresy.” Jewish identity was systematically erased from the public sphere. Jewish books were banned. Synagogues were converted into churches. This was physical and cultural genocide in its most thorough form.
And the third time, which occurred within living memory, was when Spain turned its back on the Jews. During the Holocaust, when Europe’s Jews desperately sought refuge from Nazi annihilation, Spain closed its doors to its own citizens. Of the 4,000 Jewish Spaniards scattered throughout western Europe, only 800 were readmitted into their country of birth. The rest were sent to the gas chambers, making Spain a complicit partner in the genocide of its Jewish citizenry.
So when Prime Minister Sanchez accuses Israel of genocide, the irony and hypocrisy are staggering. Israel was created in part so that there would be one place where Jews could defend themselves. That’s what Israel is doing now. Not exterminating a people, but defending its own citizens from one that has vowed to wipe it off the map – while taking unsurpassed measures to protect innocent Palestinian civilians from the pain and suffering their genocidal Hamas regime has brought upon them.
The writer is a professor of political science at Touro University.