Could Spain’s tough line on Israel be contagious across Europe?

Spain has become one of the most vocal European critics of Israel’s war on Gaza. Under Pedro Sánchez, Madrid has moved beyond rhetorical discomfort and tried to translate outrage into policy: recognition of Palestine, intervention at the International Court of Justice, a formal arms embargo, restrictions on military transit, a ban on imports from illegal settlements, and pressure inside the European Union to reconsider its relationship with Israel.

This raises a tempting question: can Spain pull Europe toward a tougher policy on Israel? The answer is probably no, at least not in the short term. Spain is not yet leading a European turn, but it is certainly exposing the absence of one.

Madrid’s position matters because it breaks with the cautious language that has long dominated Europe’s approach to Israel-Palestine. European governments have often defended international law in principle while avoiding meaningful costs for Israel when those principles are violated.

Spain has framed Gaza not as a tragic excess of war, but as a test of European credibility: the EU cannot treat international law as binding in Ukraine but negotiable in Palestine.

Spain then went further by submitting a declaration of intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. This legal move is central to understanding Madrid’s approach. Spain is not merely condemning Israel politically; it is trying to anchor its criticism in institutions, conventions, and obligations. In that sense, its position is less revolutionary than restorative. It asks Europe to apply the rules it already claims to uphold.

The same logic informed Spain’s later measures. In September 2025, Sánchez announced a package of measures aimed at stopping what his government described as genocide in Gaza. Later that month, Madrid strengthened the arms embargo on Israel, covering defence equipment and dual-use technology, and banned ships and aircraft transporting fuel or material for possible military use from entering Spanish ports and airspace.

The same logic has appeared in Spain’s position toward the US-Israeli war on Iran. Madrid refused to allow the US to use the jointly operated bases at Rota and Morón for attacks on Iran, stressing Spanish sovereignty over the bases. This should not be treated as a separate file from Gaza. It belongs to the same foreign policy grammar: international law, limits on military escalation, and refusal to provide automatic logistical support for wars Madrid considers illegitimate or destabilising.

Spain has not become anti-American or broken with NATO. It remains embedded in Western security structures and hosts strategically important US military infrastructure. But the Iran case shows that Sánchez’s government is trying to distinguish alliance commitments from automatic complicity.

The backlash was revealing, a Pentagon email floated possible punitive measures against Spain, while Donald Trump later suggested he might withdraw US troops from Italy and Spain. If refusing base access triggers threats from Washington, the issue is also about the boundaries of European autonomy inside the Atlantic alliance.

This wider positioning was visible in the progressive summit Sánchez hosted in Barcelona in April 2026. The event brought together leaders and figures from the international left, including Brazil’s Lula da Silva and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum, and was framed around democracy, multilateralism, social rights, and resistance to far-right authoritarianism. The Barcelona meeting matters because it places Spain’s Israel policy inside a broader attempt to connect European progressivism with Global South critiques of selective international law.

This is the structural limit of the Spanish push. On Israel, Europe does not act as a unified geopolitical actor. It acts as a coalition of memories, dependencies, domestic pressures, and strategic taboos. Germany’s relationship with Israel is shaped by historical responsibility; Italy’s by Atlanticist and Mediterranean caution; Eastern Europe’s by security, technology, and US-alignment lenses. The result is paralysis disguised as prudence.

Spain can therefore build pressure, but it cannot manufacture consensus. It can convene like-minded states — Ireland, Slovenia, Belgium, perhaps Norway outside the EU framework — but it cannot force Germany, Italy, or the European Commission to redefine the EU-Israel relationship.

The clearest recent evidence came in April 2026, when Spain, Ireland and Slovenia pushed again to suspend parts of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The initiative failed because there was insufficient support. Yet the European debate may be shifting at the edges.

Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in Hungary removed one of Israel’s most consistent defenders inside the EU and one of the symbolic pillars of the European far right. His fall was not primarily about Israel or Gaza, but it weakens a European illiberal axis that had often aligned with Netanyahu, Trump, and anti-Palestinian narratives.

Italy offers a different case. Giorgia Meloni has been among Europe’s most pro-Israeli right-wing leaders, yet her government suspended the automatic renewal of Italy’s defence cooperation agreement with Israel in April 2026. This does not mean Italy has joined Spain’s line, nor that the European right is turning pro-Palestinian. But it suggests something politically relevant: unconditional pro-Israel alignment is becoming more costly, even for parts of the European right.

Spain’s own position is not free of contradictions. Madrid remains embedded in NATO and in a European defence ecosystem that includes Israeli technology and companies. Previous contracts, institutional inertia, and defence dependencies complicate any claim of a clean break. But this makes Spain’s position more interesting, not less. Spain is a Western, EU, NATO member state trying to use the language of international law against the permissive consensus that has protected Israel from consequences.

The question, then, is not whether Spain can transform Europe overnight. It cannot. The more useful question is whether it can normalise a different menu of policy options. Before Gaza, suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, banning settlement goods, restricting military transit, rejecting base use for regional wars, or joining legal action against Israel were often treated as marginal demands. Spain has helped move them into the mainstream of European debate.

That may be the real impact of Madrid’s approach. It is not creating a European rupture with Israel, but it is widening the space in which such a rupture can be discussed. It is creating precedents, giving other governments language and legal arguments, and showing Arab and Muslim publics that not all European states are willing to hide behind Brussels’ slow machinery while Gaza is destroyed.

The broader European picture remains sobering. The EU has tools to impose costs on Israel: trade leverage, legal clauses, diplomatic channels, arms controls, settlement policies, and association mechanisms. What it lacks is political will. Spain cannot supply that will on behalf of the continent.

But Madrid’s position clarifies the choice Europe faces: either international law applies equally, including to allies, or it is a language of convenience deployed selectively against adversaries. Spain’s push may not produce a broad European turn against Israel, but it may make continued European inaction harder to disguise. For Palestinians in Gaza, that is not enough. Politically, however, it is a step forward.

Dr. Luciano Zaccara is Principal Researcher at New Ground Research, Qatar. Also, a Visiting Associate Professor at the Georgetown University in Qatar, and Director of the Observatory on Politics and Elections in the Arab and Muslim World, Spain.

Follow Luciano on X: @LucianoZaccara

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.