Elham Asaad Buaras
Barcelona will no longer be twinned with Tel Aviv due to Israel’s “apartheid policy” towards Palestinians, announced the Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau at a press conference on February 8.
Colau explained she wrote to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, informing him that relations between Barcelona and Israel are severed until “Israeli authorities stop the systematic violation of human rights of the Palestinian people.”
She said more than 100 organisations and over 4,000 citizens demanded the city “defend the human rights of Palestinians.”
The decision came after an activist campaign that resulted in an official Barcelona City Hall petition that gathered over 4,000 signatures urging the municipality to cut ties with Israel.
Last month, hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters gathered in front of the City Hall, urging politicians to suspend the twin city agreement with Tel Aviv.
Barcelona, Tel Aviv and Gaza City signed a friendship and cooperation agreement in 1998. Pro-Palestinian activists called for Barcelona’s relationship with Gaza City to continue.
In her letter to Netanyahu, Colau said that voters had asked her to “condemn the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, support Palestinian and Israeli organisations working for peace, and break off the twinning agreement between Barcelona and Tel Aviv.”
Following the invasion of Ukraine, Barcelona suspended its twinning relationship with the Russian city of St. Petersburg last year.
The decision was welcomed by pro-Palestine campaigners and condemned by Israel supporters and Jewish groups.
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) said it “salutes” Colau and the grassroots groups who helped push the move.
“Barcelona has become the first city council to suspend ties with apartheid Tel Aviv in solidarity with the Palestinian people, a move that is reminiscent of the historic and courageous city councils that pioneered cutting links with apartheid South Africa,” BNC said in a statement.
The decision was labelled anti-Semitic by the Spanish pro-Israel group Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM), which has threatened to sue the mayor.
“The Barcelona City Council has reached a new low by pushing Barcelona to the maximum expression of sectarianism and discrimination, becoming the most openly anti-Semitic city in Europe,” said a spokesman for ACOM in a statement.
Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry, said on Twitter that the decision gives “support to extremists, terrorist organizations, and anti-semitism.”
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain echoed similar criticism. “It so happens that Israel is the only Jewish country in the world. Therefore, in our opinion, this decision has nothing to do with politics, human rights, or peace. This has a name and is called ‘sophisticated anti-Semitism,’” the federation said.
In recent years, numerous leading international human rights NGOs, including Human Rights Watch (April 2021) and Amnesty International (February 2022), have accused Israel of apartheid. Apartheid is an international legal term that refers to systematic oppression of one racial group over another.
