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Sunday, September 7, 2025
Spain said planning to OK sweeping arms embargo on Israel, may declare Netanyahu persona non grata
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Spain plans to approve a complete and immediate arms embargo on Israel on Tuesday and may even declare Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers persona non grata, local news outlet El País reports.
Madrid’s government, which has escalated its anti-Israel rhetoric amid the war against Hamas in Gaza, is working to impose a sweeping ban on all direct and indirect deals on weapons or military technologies with any Israeli public or private body, the Spanish report says, citing unnamed sources.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government pledged to stop selling arms to Israel shortly after Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023. Last year, the Spanish government widened that commitment to include weapons purchases from Israel. In recent months, it has canceled several high-profile deals with Israeli companies.
The El País report says the intention is for the more complete embargo to take immediate effect this coming week by making it part of a royal decree, with the text building on the content of a law bill presented last year by the left-wing Sumar political alliance, which is part of the ruling coalition and has demanded stronger moves against Jerusalem.
Sumar founder Yolanda Díaz reportedly declares that her alliance is working with the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party on a package of steps aimed at “severing relations with the criminal Netanyahu regime,” halt all trade relations altogether, and declare the premier — as well as Defense Minister Israel Katz, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — persona non grata in Spain “for their incitement to genocide, forced starvation and ethnic cleansing.”
Spain is a long-time critic of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Speaking in the Spanish parliament last month, Sanchez called Israel a “genocidal state.”
His foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, told reporters last month that Spain would request the “immediate suspension” of the European Union’s cooperation deal with Israel, and would also urge partners to impose an arms embargo on Israel.
Spain had already outraged Jerusalem by recognizing Palestinian statehood in May 2024, in a joint move with Ireland and Norway.
The Times of Israel Community.