When Corruption Hits, Sánchez Attacks Israel

On September 8, 2025, Pedro Sánchez decided that the best way to confront yet another storm of corruption scandals at home was to point his finger—once again—at Israel. From the Moncloa Palace, “Pedro I of Spain” announced the most sweeping anti-Israel measures in Spain’s history: a total arms embargo, bans on Israeli cargo transit, trade restrictions targeting settlement goods, entry bans for alleged “war criminals,” and even expanded aid to the Palestinian side. He wrapped it all in solemn language about “genocide,” but the timing told the real story.

Because on that very same day, while Sánchez was wagging his finger at Jerusalem, a Spaniard from Melilla was murdered in cold blood by a Palestinian terrorist in East Jerusalem. Did Sánchez pause to recalibrate his words? Did he speak of protecting Spanish citizens abroad? No. He doubled down, punishing Israel while saying almost nothing about the killers. This is not a principle. This is politics.

The usefulness of Sánchez’s crusade against Israel is close to zero. Spain is not a top arms supplier to Israel; thus, a unilateral embargo is symbolic theater unless the EU joins in. Trade limits on settlement-linked goods sound dramatic but can easily be circumvented. As for the move to join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice, this is not about stopping violence tomorrow but scoring points in the court of opinion. Symbolism dressed up as statesmanship.

And yet the danger lies less in the emptiness of the measures than in their selectivity. Spain has not leveled sanctions or legal cases against other regimes accused of mass killings—whether Assad’s Syria, Russia in Ukraine, or Sudan. Only Israel is elevated to this moral absolutism.

The rhetoric of “genocide,” repeated as a mantra, may satisfy Sánchez’s domestic audience. Still, it plays directly into the hands of those who blur the line between criticizing Israeli policy and demonizing Jews altogether. That is why Israel did not hesitate to call Spain’s policy antisemitic. Madrid indignantly denies it, but when one democratic state is singled out in language and measures never applied elsewhere, the accusation is inevitable.

And then there is the timing. Sánchez has a habit of discovering new moral outrage against Israel whenever his government is cornered at home.

The summer of 2025 brought a cascade of scandals: his wife, Begoña Gómez, summoned in an embezzlement probe, the justice minister dragged into legal suspicion, and party officials resigned under bribery clouds.

Then, on September 8—the very day Sánchez thundered against Israel—the PSOE’s own plumber, Leire Díez, testified before the Senate, laying bare embarrassing details about the ruling party. Instead of headlines about Díez’s testimony, Spain’s newspapers were filled with the prime minister’s crusade against Israel. Coincidence? Hardly. It was a political diversion, executed with the skill of a man who knows how to change the subject.

This is the recurring pattern: when corruption knocks at his door, Sánchez seeks refuge in foreign policy spectacle. And Israel, with its polarizing image in European politics, is the easiest lightning rod. He knows it stirs passions, distracts voters, and rallies a certain base. But this is governance by scapegoat. It does nothing to clean up Spain’s institutions, nothing to reassure Spaniards worried about corruption, and nothing to protect the very citizens—like the man from Melilla—who pay the ultimate price for terrorism abroad.

The cost of this cynical maneuvering is high. Spain’s credibility abroad is eroded when its foreign policy looks like a domestic smokescreen. Its credibility at home suffers when citizens see leaders wield international morality as a shield against accountability. And its moral authority is undermined when antisemitic narratives gain traction under the cover of “justice.”

Pedro Sánchez wants to look like a moral crusader on the world stage. But the facts point elsewhere: empty measures that won’t change Israel’s actions, selective outrage that reeks of bias, and a calendar of announcements that suspiciously syncs with corruption scandals in Madrid. On September 8, he should have been answering questions about Leire Díez’s testimony and protecting Spaniards abroad. Instead, he chose to attack Israel yet again. That is not leadership. That is escapism.