The Barcelona City Council rejected this Friday, in up to three votes, the decision of the mayor Ada Colau to break relations with Israel.
However, despite the rejection of the majority of the Catalan councilors, for the ruling party (BComú), the mayoral decree of February 7 continues to prevail, which was produced after pressure from pro-Palestinian, feminist, immigrant and LGBTQ+.
Ada Colau’s unilateral decision temporarily suspended relations with Israel, including the twinning agreement with Tel Aviv, alleging that the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians amounts to “apartheid.”
The twinning between Barcelona and Tel Aviv was signed by Mayor Joan Clos in 1998, also uniting the Catalan capital with the Gaza Strip.
Once the results of the vote in the ordinary and extraordinary plenary session of the City Council were known, the Embassy of Israel in Spain expressed its “recognition
to the councilors who voted against the break between Barcelona and Israel and Tel Aviv decreed by the mayoress. “
“Maintaining and establishing bridges between cities is for the benefit of citizens and favors peace and progress,” the embassy added.
On the other hand, the newspaper El País reported that Giaco Ventura, president of the World Sefarad Congress, sent a letter to Mayor Colau warning that Israel “is not at war with the Palestinian people, it is at war with Hamas terrorists.”
In addition, Ventura pointed out to Colau that his country has the “right and duty to defend its citizens from the barbarity of thousands of daily missiles directed without warning at the Israeli population.”
Finally, the president of the World Sefarad Congress accused Colau of not knowing that “international law declared Hamas a terrorist group” and maintains that they are “partners of the jihadists” who attacked La Rambla in Barcelona.
