Spain withdraws ambassador to Israel, widening diplomatic rift as Trump threatens to sever trade

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez meets with Arab and European ministers to discuss “the implementation of the two-state solution” at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, Spain, Sept. 13, 2024. Photo by A. Perez Meca/Europa Press via Getty Images

(JTA) — MADRID — Spain has permanently withdrawn its ambassador to Israel in a symbolic rebuke of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has emerged as an unequivocal and lonely voice in Europe against the Iran war, widening Spain’s rift with Israel and making an enemy of President Donald Trump.

Ambassador Ana María Salomón Pérez was removed from her post on Tuesday, according to an announcement issued Wednesday by the Spanish government. Israel recalled its ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, shortly after Spain said it would recognize a Palestinian state in May 2024.

Spain’s move marks an escalation in the countries’ strained relations, which have severely deteriorated since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez became one of Europe’s most vocal critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prosecution of that war. Over the last three years, he rallied support for Palestinian statehood, accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and imposed a total arms embargo on Israel.

Pérez was summoned to Madrid in September, following a diplomatic row over Spain’s ban on aircrafts and ships carrying weapons to Israel. Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar called the measure antisemitic and barred two members of Sánchez’s Cabinet from entering Israel, saying they supported “terrorism and violence against Israelis.”

Spain and Israel are now both represented in each other’s embassies by their respective chargés d’affaires, lower-ranking officials who reflect their downgraded relations. It is the same status that Israel maintained with South Africa before the two countries ejected even the lower-level envoys earlier this year.

Sánchez has been one of few major European leaders to emphatically reject the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, calling them “an unjustified and dangerous military intervention” that he says violates international law.

As the leaders of Germany, France and Italy have taken more conciliatory tones, Trump has lashed back at Sánchez. After Spain refused to allow the United States permission to use two jointly operated bases in its territory for strikes on Iran, Trump threatened to sever trade.

“Spain has been terrible,” Trump said during a press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on March 3. He added, “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”

Sánchez, in response, has revived the “No to war” slogan that galvanized Spaniards in 2003. At the time, millions took to the streets to reject then-Prime Minister José María Aznar’s support for the Iraq war, contributing to his center-right party’s collapse in 2004. The war was also seen as a driver behind a deadly terrorist attack in Madrid whose 22nd anniversary Spain marked on Wednesday.

Sánchez said the slogan summed up the Spanish government’s position in a televised address on March 4. In a pointed line, he said leaders who have not improved their people’s lives “make use of war to hide their failure whilst filling the pockets of a few — the usual ones, the only ones who win when the world stops building hospitals in order to build missiles.”

Even more pointedly, without naming Trump, he said, “We are not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world and contrary to our values and interests, simply out of fear of reprisals from anyone.”