In recent days, Pedro Sánchez has been heavily criticized for his comments against Netanyahu during his visit to Israel, causing an unprecedented diplomatic crisis. The Israeli executive accused the prime minister of “supporting terrorism” and warned that “Europe will be the next to be bombed.” Therefore, international media and European countries have also strongly questioned the Spanish head of state, especially the German press. Recent critics say that “recognizing Palestine is the same as considering the independence of Catalonia or the Basque Country.”
The last critic against Sánchez was Clemens Wergin, German journalist for WelT. On his X account (formerly Twitter), Wergin quoted a tweet with the statements of the Spanish head of state. “If the European Union does not recognize the independence of the State of Palestine, Spain will make its own decision,” Sánchez said in controversial statements to Netanyahu in Israel. So Wergin answered with a parable: “I think that we – Germany – should recognize the independence of the states of Catalonia and the Basque Country.”
The German press was very critical of the government president this weekend. Wergin joins other journalists such as Thomas Schmid, journalist and editor of the newspaper “Die Welt”, and Hans-Christian Rösseler from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The latter defended Ferraz’s demonstrations against Sánchez and the amnesty and ensured that the demonstrators do the same “Spaniards who care about Spain, normal Spaniards, they are not nostalgic Francoists or right-wing extremists.”
Schmid added: “Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is a politician who we in Bavaria would call Hundling, i.e. a man who doesn’t take the law too seriously.” “While similar cases like Viktor Orbán are being attacked in Hungary, left-wing Europeans in particular are treating Sánchez with visible leniency,” he complained.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised the visit of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who arrived in Jerusalem this Sunday, and on the evening expressed his support to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander over the “hypocrisy” and “double standards” of other European leaders De Croo and Pedro Sanchez. Herzog therefore thanked Steinmeier for the federal government’s “clear stance” on Israel’s right to self-defense, in contrast to other heads of state and government of the EU states. Israel summoned the ambassadors of Spain and Belgium on Friday in response to the “false” statements made in recent hours by Sánchez and De Croo, who see them as Hamas’s “support of terrorism.”