The Barcelona City Council has severed relations with Israel, international media reported on Friday.
The proposal for breaking relations with the Jewish state was made by the Catalunya en Comú (People’s Party) and the Socialists’ Party of Catalonia (PSC), and said that the city will suspend “institutional relations with the current Israeli government until respect for international law and international humanitarian law is restored and respect for the basic rights of the Palestinian people is guaranteed,” according to the proposal’s text that was accessed by El Pais.
The PSC, which co-signed the suspension of relations, was joined by votes from the Republican Left of Catalonia party (ERC), which also presented a request to the city’s mayor, Jaume Collboni, to ban Israel from the Fira de Barcelona trade fair institution.
The Spanish city had also decided to sever its status as a twin city with Tel Aviv.
The proposal’s text also includes contractual clauses to cease working with “pro-Israel companies,” according to El Pais. It also requested that the Port of Barcelona not dock vessels carrying weapons to Israel.
Previous severing and restoring of ties with Tel Aviv’s twin city
Barcelona’s former mayor, Ada Colau, had initially announced that Barcelona would no longer be twinned with Tel Aviv in February 2023, accusing Israel of “apartheid” and “flagrant and systematic violation of human rights,” in a partnership that had gone into effect in 1998 – when both cities jointly signed a “twin city” agreement with Gaza City.
Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a written letter, Colau wrote in February that around 4,000 constituents had petitioned her to “condemn the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
The decision was deemed antisemitic by the Federation of the Jewish Communities of Spain.
“Barcelona and Tel Aviv are open and welcoming societies, leading cities that attract startup investments and tourism,” the Federation of the Jewish Communities of Spain said in a statement. “We call on the city council to allow Barcelona to continue to build bridges of harmony and avoid promoting a discourse of rejection and isolation.”
It wasn’t until September of that same year, when Colau’s successor as mayor, Collboni, restored his city’s status as the twin of Tel Aviv, but had stated that he would continue to support the Palestinians, but that Tel Aviv also represents “the best of Israel’s progressive values.”
Zvika Klein and Jackie Hajdenberg/JTA contributed to this report.
