Zapatero-Sanchez: Personae Non Gratae in Israel

Enough is enough; thus, it is time to call things by their name: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s former prime minister, should be barred from setting foot in Israel or Judea and Samaria. For too long, his career after leaving office has been drenched in contradictions, double-standards, and dangerous liaisons—none more toxic than his cozy embrace of Venezuela’s narco-regime.

The United States itself has quietly signaled that Zapatero is unwelcome on its soil. Washington’s security establishment has little interest in granting access to a man who has become little more than a spokesman for Nicolás Maduro and his criminal clique. Zapatero has acted not as a mediator, but as a public relations agent for Caracas, repeatedly minimizing the regime’s crimes, excusing fraudulent elections, and blocking genuine international pressure.

In fact, it is no coincidence that after his premiership ended, Zapatero’s fortune swelled. Curiously, his newfound wealth has been linked to ventures in Venezuela—including a mining concession in the Orinoco basin, where he struck minerals under the regime’s protection. Enrichment through blood minerals in a collapsed state looks less like statesmanship and more like cartel economics.

Even worse, Zapatero’s duplicity extends to his rhetoric against Israel. He never misses a chance to accuse Israel of “excessive force,” while maintaining a calculated silence about the rockets, suicide attacks, kidnappings, and Iranian weapon pipelines that fuel Hamas and Hezbollah. He pretends to be a man of peace while defending the very tyrannies and terror groups that preach Israel’s destruction. In Madrid, he wraps his anti-Israel posture in flowery talk about “international law”; in Caracas, he wraps it in handshakes with a narco-dictatorship. The hypocrisy is unbearable.

Just days ago, Zapatero nostalgically declared that he misses the “days of mass protest against the Iraq War.” But if global outrage was justified then, why does he remain mute today when Hamas terrorists massacre civilians, or when Iranian drones rain down on Israel’s towns? Why does he applaud anti-Israel street theater while dismissing Israel’s right to self-defense? His selective moral compass points only in one direction: always against America and Israel, never against tyrants, dictators, or terrorists.

Zapatero’s role in Spain was destructive long before Venezuela came calling. He revived the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, weaponizing historical grievances from the 1930s to split society into “good” and “evil,” left versus right.

Under his watch, ETA terrorists—whose hands are stained with more than 300 unresolved murders—were ushered into the political arena. Instead of justice for the victims, Zapatero offered legitimacy to killers and their allies. That same indulgence of extremists has metastasized into Spain’s current government, where ETA’s heirs now prop up Pedro Sánchez in exchange for concessions.

Meanwhile, current Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has not only continued Zapatero’s legacy—he has deepened it. Recently, Sánchez declared that Spain “cannot stop Israel because it does not have nuclear weapons.” This was no mere slip of the tongue. It was a disturbing echo of Spain’s darker past, when the Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews defined national policy. By framing the absence of nuclear arms as a limitation to “confront” Israel, Sánchez revealed not only hostility but also the centuries-old animus against Jews, repackaged for today’s politics.

At home, Sánchez’s corruption scandals mount daily. Investigations surrounding his wife, his family, and his party weigh heavily, and rather than face accountability, he lashes out against Israel to distract the Spanish public. Just as Zapatero used historical wounds to divide Spain, Sánchez now uses Israel as a convenient scapegoat to cover his failures. Hamas itself has praised him for his anti-Israel positions, an endorsement no democratic leader should ever welcome. When Hamas congratulates a European prime minister, something is gravely wrong.

Sánchez too has turned Spain’s domestic politics into a climate of polarization, one that mirrors Zapatero’s destructive revival of Civil War narratives. The difference is that Sánchez has coupled this with overt hostility toward Israel, making him not only divisive at home but dangerous abroad. By aligning with terrorist sympathizers, deflecting from corruption, and echoing antisemitic tropes, Sánchez has earned the same condemnation as Zapatero.

So why must Israel act? Because allowing Zapatero or Sánchez to parade through Jerusalem or Ramallah would hand both men a propaganda victory. It would embolden the anti-Israel narrative spun relentlessly by Spain’s leftist elites, a discourse that twists truth into slander, painting Israel as an aggressor while excusing terror. To invite them is to invite men who have defended narco-dictators, appeased terrorists, legitimized corruption, and weaponized history against Jews.

Israel owes them nothing. On the contrary, banning Zapatero and Sánchez would send an unmistakable message: those who side with tyranny, who profit from corruption, who embrace Hamas, and who promote anti-Israel hostility are not welcome. Spain’s left may seek to export its poisonous narrative abroad—but Israel must refuse to give it a stage.