Eugenio García Gascón uses Yom HaShoah to criticize Israel.

On Sunday, May 1, 2011, Israel commemorated the 6,000,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust through the Yom HaShoah, i.e., the Holocaust Day. The next day, Público published an article by Eugenio García Gascón titled Antisemitismo (Anti-Semitism). This journalist's double standard and lack of historical accuracy is more than evident in this article. Please pay attention to the first paragraph (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"Yesterday night, during a ceremony held at the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told that the world hasn't learnt the lesson derived from the Holocaust, and compared the Holocaust, that is the Second World War nazi actions against Europe's Jews with the current Iranian threat. It's something which seems to be disproportionate and out of place but all Israeli leaders talk endlessly about Iran, once they see a microphone within their reach, and Netanyahu is not an exception, although Iran is a country which never has attacked anybody, unlike Israel, and in exchange it had to endure aggressions."

So Eugenio García Gascón pretends to make his readers to believe that Iran never attacked anybody while Israel did, and that Iran suffered attacks. The truth is that Iran attacked others in the past and is currently doing so. Its victims include Iranians (real or alleged political dissidents, homosexuals, adulterous and raped women, and so on), Israelis (who suffer attacks by terrorists organizations supplied with weapons by Iran), Palestinians (who suffer repression by the aforementioned organizations) and the Red Crescent (whose ambulances were used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to smuggle weapons into Lebanon).

Meanwhile, aggressions against Israel are not mentioned by Eugenio García Gascón as the main cause of Israel's defense policies. It's not also told by the Spanish journalist how, while Iran was being attacked by Saddam Hussein-led Iraq between 1980 and 1988, the Persian State received Israel's help; in spite of this, Iran refused to re-establish ties with Israel.

The journalist ends his article by suggesting that complete Israel's withdrawal from the Palestinian territories would stop anti-Semitism worldwide, taking into account statistical data which shows that anti-Semitic acts dropped in 2010, a year after the operation Cast Lead ended. The truth is that Israel withdrew once from the Gaza Strip and such a concession only led to an increase on terrorist attacks by Hamas (an anti-Semitic organization), while reading journalists such as Público's Eugenio García Gascón should be enough to understand that media bias against Israel seems to be one of the actual and main reasons behind anti-Semitism.

Spanish Goverment's and media's double standard.

One of the most acclaimed TV programs in Spain is Tengo una pregunta para usted (I have a question for you), broadcasted by TVE's (Televisión Española, Spain's public TV) channel La 1. It gives citizens an opportunity to ask politicians about those issues they consider important or of a special interest. And on January 26, 2009, Spain's President of the Government and secretary general of the P.S.O.E. (Partido Socialista Obrero Español or Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was the politician invited to be questioned by ordinary citizens.

Rafael Lafuente Blanco, 29 years old, from the city of Granada, was one of those ordinary citizens. He chose to ask Zapatero about the Spanish arms trade, which makes Spain one of the main exporters of weapons globally, as well as about the hypocrisy behind Zapatero's cabinet, publicly committed to peace while veiledly committed to supply Israel and Colombia with weapons (please notice that, according to Lafuente, Israel and Colombia are countries which usually violate human rights).

Spanish President of the Government answered by explaining that the total amount of weapons sold to Israel by Spain equals just about 1,000,000 €, and that such a quantity means that Spain is not one of Israel's main suppliers of weapons. Then, Lafuente interrupts Zapatero's answer by asking: "Do you have any idea about how many Palestinian civilians have been killed by our weapons?" Zapatero answers by telling that Spanish war material sold to Israel was not used by the Jewish State to kill Palestinian civilians.

Another argument provided by the Spanish socialist leader is the fact that Spain is a pioneer country on the erradication of cluster bombs.

Well, on Friday, April 15, 2011, Público published an article, based on another one published by Europa Press (a Spanish news agency), regarding Libya. Both of the articles reveale that Muammar al-Gaddafi's forces used cluster projectiles against Libyan rebels in Misrata. Those cluster projectiles were made in Spain in 2007 (a year before Spain signed an international agreement which banned this kind of weapons), and later provided to Libya. This issue was also covered by The New York Times, and can also be read in El País, in English.

Público's and Europa Press' articles also deal with the fact that al-Gaddafi's forces used Grad rockets during their operations. The two articles provide explanations about these type of rockets regarding their use by al-Gaddafi's forces, including civilians killed and locations attacked by them, as well as their design and technical data.

Now please notice that:

i) The P.S.O.E. has been very critical towards Israel, especially during the 2006 Lebanon War and the 2008-2009 operation Cast Lead. Spain's socialist leader, who is the President of the Goverment since 2004, admitted to have provided Israel with weapons, and justified it by explaining that those weapons were not used to kill innocent civilians. But at the same time, the socialists, while governing the country, sold nothing less than cluster ammunitions to the Libyan regime.

ii) Público and Europa Press explained in detail how the Grad rockets have been used by al-Gaddafi's forces, how these rockets affected civilians and infrastructures in Misrata and how these rockets were designed. But at the same time, neither Público nor Europa Press depicted in such detail how Israel has been being attacked with al-Qassam and Grad rockets, as well as mortars, during the last months.

Eugenio García Gascón on the religion in Israel (I).

Yoram Cohen was appointed new Shabak director. The Shabak (an acronym for Sherut haBitahon haKlali or General Security Service), formerly known as the Shin Bet, is Israel's security service for operations inside the State of Israel itself and the Palestinian territories.

Público's Eugenio García Gascón wrote an article about the issue, published on Wednesday, March 30, 2011, under the title Kipot y uniformes (Kipot and uniforms). The journalist describes how religious Jews are taking the control over the State of Israel, putting Yoram Cohen as an example. On what grounds did Eugenio García Gascón base his theory? Yoram Cohen usually wears a kippah (whose plural form is kippot). This means Yoram Cohen is a religious Jew, and for Eugenio García Gascón this is enough to think that "a doubt concerning his professional behaviour will always exist."

He also wrote that many appointments recently made in Israel fell on religious Jews, as well as there are many religious military high commanders. On these grounds he argues that Israel is becoming a more nationalistic and religious country.

Well, he seems to forget that, in spite of the presence of religious Jews in Israel, Israel's Supreme Court sentenced against imposed gender segregation in mehadrin buses, used precisely by religious Jews; that Israeli homosexual couples are granted the right to adopt children and take paternity or maternity leaves, being the homosexuality a sin according precisely to the Jewish religious law or halakha; that religious Jews can be arrested for having committed hate crimes based precisely on religious laws; and that in Israel there is a free press legally able to criticize precisely religious Jews.

Please notice that the aforementioned facts happened during the last years, being Israel under Netanyahu-led coalition Government, usually portrayed as too much nationalistic, too much religious and of a right-wing extremist nature by the Spanish media. So, is there a regression in Israel, as Eugenio García Gascón literally wrote? Should we be alert, as he recommends us?

Should somebody tell Público's journalist that protraying Yoram Cohen as he did just because the new Shabak chief usually wears a kippah is an anti-Semitic argument in nature?

An analysis of the vocabulary and the images used by the Spanish media regarding Israel.

On Tuesday, March 22, 2011, an article by Ana Carbajosa was published by Spanish daily El País. Ana Carbajosa is El País' correspondent in Jerusalem, which is Israel's capital, though the newspaper she works for still denies this fact by intentionally indicating that Israel's capital city is Tel Aviv.

But now it's time to focus on the vocabulary and the images used by the Spanish anti-Israeli media, and the aforementioned article will be used here as a good example of media bias against the Jewish State.

Firstly, the article is titled as follows: El ejército israelí mata a ocho palestinos, dos de ellos menores, en Gaza, i.e., Israeli army kills eight Palestinians, two of them being minors, in Gaza. And secondly, it's subtitled as follows: "Más de una veintena de palestinos, varios de ellos jóvenes, han resultado heridos durante el ataque a consecuencia de una serie de ataques perpetrados por el ejército", i.e., "More than twenty Palestinians, several of them being youths, have been injured during the attack as a consequence of a series of attacks perpetrated by the army".

Both the title and the subtitle deliberately omit Israel's main reason to attack: Palestinian attacks intentionally directed against Israeli civilians by launching rockets from the Gaza Strip. It's also deliberately omitted that among those killed there were three Palestinian terrorists who were firing from densely populated areas, a fact which could confirm Israel's claim of being attacked by them and the use of local non-combatants as human shields and civilian infrastructures as bases for their operations.

The Palestinian attacks against Israel, the dead terrorists and their tactics are mentioned within the main body of the article, but taking into account that the title is written in bold and in bigger letters and the subtitle is just under it, as well as they're the first part to be read, they claim the attention of the reader firstly and thus condition his or her perception of what has happened: a supposed Israeli attack against Palestinian civilians or at least without consideration for them.

Furthermore, the terms "terrorist", "terrorists" or "terrorism" are not used regarding the members of Palestinian terrorist groups or the groups themselves. The two Palestinian terrorist groups mentioned in this case are Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which are referred to by their names or as "Palestinian armed groups" or simply "armed groups". Hamas is also referred to as an "Islamist movement".

The terrorists are referred to as "militiamen".

In order to avoid doubts about Israel's veiledly alleged vileness among the readers and to erase those facts which could be used to defend Israel's claims from their minds, it's told precisely in the last paragraph that Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip, early in 2009, left 1,400 Palestinians dead.

Facts which could be used to defend Israel's claims regarding what really happened during the 2008-2009 Gaza War, such as statements by a spokesperson of Hamas admitting the use of human shields as well as confirming Israel's death toll of Palestinian terrorists killed (about 700, an estimation initially denied by Hamas), as well as the increasing of Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks against Israel in spite of the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, are not mentioned.

Finally, the picture shown next to the article shows a dead Palestinian child's body, which is claimed to have been "murdered" by an Israeli tank. Please notice that the verb "murder" is used referring to an intentional, premeditated and illegal killing, and in this case there is no evidence enough supporting such a claim; it seems to have happened rather the opposite, i.e., an unintentional, unpremeditated killing, whose legal consequences should affect the terrorists who fired from a densely populated area.

Meanwhile, not a single picture showing the intentionally sought adverse effects of the Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli civilians is shown to El País' readers.

Is Antonio Gala an anti-Semite?

Antonio Gala is surely one of the most renowned Spanish writers, with works such as Petra regalada, Samarkanda or La pasión turca, among many others.

But he doesn't only write novels, poems or scripts, but also opinion articles to be published by Spanish daily El Mundo. And, as Libertad Digital reported on Wednesday, March 16, 2011, one of his last ideas consisted of using the human and national tragedy Japan is currently living to target Israel.

Gala explained in his article about what he calls the "human fleas" that "lessons such as the earthquake and the tsunami in Japan should teach them other kinds of behaviour: unity in the face of helplessness, generosity, (...). But they don't learn." And then he writes about Israel in this manner: "So we see Israel there, the most racist country, going back to Gaza after the fright."

This is not the first time he targets Israel or even the Jews. In an article published on February 5, 2009 by El Mundo, he explained that "the Jewish people will succumb again. Like it happened many times: pogroms, voluntary or unvoluntary ghettos, extermination, persecutions, expulsions,... From Egypt to Sepharad, from Canaan to Zion: all of them promised lands. Shouldn't they ask themselves why does always happen the same to them? Or is the rest of the world wrong?"

Spanish journalist David Gistau answered Gala through an article published on February 8, 2009 by El Mundo. He wrote that Gala's "reasoning makes Hitler an executor arm of a hate morally justified by a majority", as well as "we should ask Gala whether he would apply the same logic to (...) understand other persecutions (...). For example, those which were suffered by homosexuals."

Did Gala react to Gistau's argument by apologizing to the Jews? No, he didn't. On March 5, 2009, another article written by Gala was published by El Mundo. The Spanish writer explained about the Jews that: "Always the same: or persecuted or persecutors. Or both things at the same time."

I'll not insult anybody's intelligence by explicitly answering the question which serves as the title of this article since I think you can do it by yourselves easily.

Spanish society surveyed about international issues.

The Real Instituto Elcano surveyed 1,200 people in Spain between October 28 and November 10, 2010, regarding international issues. When it comes to rate different countries in a 0 to 10 scale, the results are the following:

1.- Brazil: 6.

2.- Germany: 5.9.

3.- France: 5.8.

4.- United States: 5.7.

5.- Argentina: 5.6.

6.- Chile: 5.3.

6.- Venezuela: 5.3.

8.- Russia: 4.7.

9.- Cuba: 4.6.

10.- China: 4.5.

11.- Turkey: 4.4.

12.- Israel: 4.1.

13.- Morocco: 3.9.

14.- Iran: 3.

Russia, Cuba and China are considered Not Free by Freedom House's Freedom of the World report of 2010, while Venezuela and Turkey are considered Partly Free and Israel is considered Free by the same report. But in spite of these facts, Israel is rated worse than Venezuela, Russia, Cuba, China and Turkey by the Spanish society.

Does a Spanish intelligentsiya exist, properly speaking?

Through an article by Lucía Villa published on Público's official website on Monday, February 7, 2011, a video has been presented in support of a campaign for a new Gaza flotilla, called Ship to Gaza (translated into Spanish as Rumbo a Gaza). The video shows Spanish celebrities such as Alberto San Juan, Guillermo Toledo, Wyoming, Juan Diego Boto and Melanie Olivares, among others. They mainly come from the so-called mundo de la cultura (literally, culture world), which encompasses personalities from sectors like the TV, the cinema or the literature.

In other words: celebrities. Celebrities who serve as useful idiots (as Bernard-Henri Lévy portrayed those who joined the last Gaza flotilla on behalf of the I.H.H. through an article I'll translate soon) for a cause related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, whose history and characteristics they surely don't even know (as they demonstrate by their own words, repeating myths proven historically wrong on this blog), but who don't hesitate to present themselves as a moral authority on humanitarian issues (and they're often accepted as such by the public opinion and the mainstream media).

Well, or that's what they pretend to be. Because we've been presented individuals in that video such as Spanish actor Willy Toledo, who justifies the Cuban dictatorship and portrayes a non-violent anti-Castro activist as a common criminal.

Because those who appear in that video tell absolutely nothing about the despotic regime Hamas established in the Gaza Strip and the rocket and mortar attacks that terrorist organization committed against the Jewish State, in spite of the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the aforementioned Palestinian territory (which these celebrities also omit), a withdrawal which Hamas tried to avoid and managed to delay.

Independent documentary filmmaker Maital Guttman managed to explain all of this and more here. Why don't we the Spaniards have such an example of real (and, by the way, beautiful) intelligentsiya?