Spanish politico: Holocaust denier interview helps Israel
Israel protested recent Spanish newspaper interview with Holocaust denier David Irving.
By Cnaan Liphshiz Tags: Holocaust Spain Israel newsIsrael's image in Spain can only benefit from the upcoming publication of an interview with Holocaust denier David Irving in a Spanish paper, a senior member of Spain's ruling party told Haaretz.
"Israel can only score points from this, because it will infuriate people," Congress Member Delia Blanco Teran, who is president of the Socialist Party in the city of Madrid, said Friday during a visit to Israel. She went on to criticize coverage of Israel and Jewish issues in the Spanish media.
Israel's ambassador to Spain recently complained to the editor of El Mundo, calling the daily's decision to run the Irving interview "harmful" to free speech. Blanco said that printing the interview was "a bad idea but part of a free, democratic society." Irving, she said, "is a bit crazy. This is a provocative paper, trying to start an absurd debate about a non-debatable issue."
The Spanish politician said running the Irving piece would be comparable to Haaretz "running a revisionist article about Spain's transition into democracy from dictatorship."
On her visit - organized by the Madrid-based Israel-Spain solidarity association, ASEI - Blanco led a number of prominent Socialists on meetings with Israeli and Palestinian politicians. The delegation from the Socialist Party - described by one of the Israeli trip co-organizers as "not traditionally Israel-friendly" - did not visit the Gaza Strip.
"Public opinion about Israel in Spain is different than what we see in the media," Blanco said. "The Spanish are the opposite of anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli. It's absurd to think this about a people which cohabited with Jews for centuries, because anti-Semitism is like hating our own roots." Israel's ambassador to Spain last week urged the Spanish government to control the "anti-Semitic attacks by leftist intellectuals."
Many Spanish journalists cover "Israel's complex conflict superficially," Blanco said, but added that the Israeli government's close relations with the administration of former U.S. president George W. Bush has harmed Israel's image in Spain.
"People in Spain do not understand its regional context as a Western country in the Middle East," Blanco concluded. "Israel is seen as a European country, and not enough consideration is given to the fact that it's not in Europe."
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British Holocaust denier, David Irving. |
| Photo by: (AP) |
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Not all Spanish people are Anti Semitic, but a large percentage are ! They can be found in Opus Dei, a secretive Ultra Catholic 'mafia' that provides schools and a university for its follower's kids. I know of a few of them and they are all Anti Israel. And a few are Neo Nazis too. I live in Spain so I see this round me every day. About half the population have no interest in this at all. The committed left and right sides of the political spectrum are both Anti Israel. I sense that this masks latent Anti Semitism. There definitely exists Anti Protestant, Anti Judaic, and Anti Islamic prejudice here. Just go through the lists of the conservative 'Partido popular' and you will find a lot of religious bigots hidden in there. You will find Ideological bigots in the Socialist Party, and the more left leaning 'Izquierda Unida' party. All in all, the only thing that holds this in check is the Spanish aversion to Islam. The uncontrolled influx of masses of N. African Arabs is out of control.
David of London, Yes, it's called tooting your own horn. All for publicity. You are right. It will just cause more people to want to find out what all the fuss is about.
Why don't we ever see surveys of how Jews feel about other nationalities or "the goyim" as a whole?
This is stated even in the law. and there was another holocaust 66.000.000 dead. In Russia and Ukraine. the perpetrators are amog others Enoch Ehuda, Lazar Kagan, Aaron Solt, Naftali Frenkel and other chiefs of Gulags and NKVD and OGPU. 66.000.000 : 6.000.000 who was it? Hitler
he came from a marrano family
everyone in this world is either Semi-Semitic, Semitic, or Very Semitic and the "Anti Semitic" Jews fall under "Self Hating Lot" ... when will you grow up a little for god's sake and realize that calling almost everyone who slightly disagree with you such names is making people laugh at you ?
In 1823 the Spanish Inquisition killed its last 'secret' Jew. Spaniards 'cohabited' with Jews who had to hide their identity to avoid being murdered. On the other hand Franco kept away from German anti-Semitism and sheltered Jews at risk.
I read the Artcile of "El Mundo" and I didn't think it deserved so much huuuha, maybe the name yes, but by giving so much publicity and attention to David Irving Isreal and Spain are actually doing him a favour because now people who never heard of him before would want to know what this fuss is all about and read more about what he said in the past, his interviews, the books he wrote etc. Just put his name in Google and see what you get.
The usual denials of Antisemitism. In studies Spain ranks among the most antisemitic.
"People in Spain do not understand its regional context as a Western country in the Middle East," Blanco concluded. "Israel is seen as a European country, and not enough consideration is given to the fact that it's not in Europe."
I disagree that promoting David Irving in the Spanish Press advances Israel's cause, that is absurd. But I do find some interest in the Socialist politician finding some parallels with Francoist revionism.I am one that sees the fact that the Tejero Coup was unsuccessful in 1981 because of the King's involvement in the protest against the coup headed by Felipe Gonzalez, the then Socialist Presodent of Spain.Conservative analyists say that it is because of the King's progressive ways that the coup did not succeed. But as someone from the Left that does not just crudely analyse the fact that Franco handed the reigns of his mantle to the King, I look deeper into the fact that Tejero did not fire at the popular protest because the King was present, and for a Francoist to fire at the King in unison with the people (which the Army did not think much of) would be unheard of out of the Spanish Fascist mentality of never even contemplating such an action against a Monarch.