Netanyahu Thought He Was Safe From Sanctions – Spain Just Crushed Him

Right, so for months, Western leaders have played lawyers for genocide. Britain insists its F-35 “supply chain” is more sacred than the Genocide Convention. Germany mutters about “historical responsibility” while shielding Israel at every forum. Washington shovels weapons across the Atlantic and calls it “defence.” The charade was so grotesque it seemed indestructible — until Madrid just blew it up. Yesterday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez didn’t issue another “concerned statement.” He dropped a legal hammer: a total arms embargo on Israel, ports and skies slammed shut, settlement goods outlawed, UNRWA revived, war criminals threatened with entry bans. And just to salt the wound, his foreign minister called for nuclear talks with Iran. Spain has detonated the West’s wall of excuses to defend the indefensible and Israel is wailing. The only question now is whether others will follow - or will they continue to choose to be buried under the weight of their own hypocrisy?
Right, so for almost a year the governments of Europe and North America have staged a grotesque theatre. They watched as Israel bombarded Gaza into ruins, its ministers calling openly for the “erasure” of Palestinians, its military dropping bombs on schools and starving children into skeletal silence. Yet the same governments that denounced Russian aggression rushed weapons to Tel Aviv. Britain insisted its hands were tied by the sacred F-35 “supply chain,” as though contracts outweighed the Genocide Convention, though they have of course also now denied a genocide is even happening. Washington bragged of ironclad support, as though complicity were a badge of honour. Berlin hid behind history, shielding Israel at every international forum while the International Court of Justice warned of plausible genocide and has been for the last year and a half.
But yesterday, Spain shattered this charade. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a total arms embargo on Israel, not a token freeze or a “review of arms licences” but a legally binding prohibition on all direct and indirect arms dealings. The embargo was only the centrepiece of a nine-measure package against Israel though: Spanish ports will be closed to weapons shipments, Spanish skies will be barred to arms flights, settlement goods will be treated as contraband, aid to UNRWA will be expanded, atrocity perpetrators banned from entry to the country, Spain’s ambassador recalled from Tel Aviv, the EU challenged to follow, and — most explosively — a demand to reopen nuclear talks with Iran, all as the UK, France and Germany champ at the bit to impose sanctions instead.
Spain has not merely acted; it has detonated a precedent here. A NATO and EU state has torn through the wall of excuses of so many others and treated Israel for exactly what it is: a pariah. By doing so Madrid has ripped Britain’s threadbare defences to shreds, embarrassed Berlin’s double standards, and undermined Washington’s mythology that casts Iran as the villain and Israel as the “democratic bulwark” of the Middle East. Spain has rewritten the script.
Spain’s embargo matters because of both its scope and its legal mechanism. Let’s deal with the scope first. Madrid is not pausing a few licences or freezing a single deal. It is outlawing the entire pipeline of military cooperation, including subcontracted parts routed through multinational programmes. This tears apart Britain’s favourite alibi. For months Labour ministers have repeated like a mantra that the UK cannot interfere with the F-35 “global supply chain.” Spain has proved the opposite. With a stroke of a decree, Sánchez has shown that political will matters more than Lockheed Martin’s spreadsheets.
The legal mechanism is just as explosive. A royal decree no less, ratified by parliament, does not vanish with the next news cycle. It embeds the embargo in law. This distinguishes Spain from Belgium’s partial regional bans or Norway’s piecemeal restrictions. Madrid has written a precedent other EU states cannot ignore.
The justification is equally blunt. Sánchez declared that Israel is “exterminating a defenceless people.” He did not hide behind euphemisms about “proportionality” or “excessive force.” He called it what the ICJ has already warned: genocide. He can use the word. By framing the embargo as compliance with the Genocide Convention, Spain has not merely condemned Israel. It has exposed every Western state that continues arming it as willfully violating international law.
The embargo was part of a broader package. Each measure tightened the noose, and together they created a comprehensive regime of isolation that recalls the sanctions once used against apartheid South Africa.
Spain’s ports were the first to close. Vessels carrying weapons bound for Israel will find no welcome in Spanish harbours. In the 1980s dockworkers around the world refused to load South African cargo; today Madrid has written that boycott into law. The symbolism is clear: the ways of empire, once used to conquer, now block the passage of arms to an occupying power.
From the sea to the sky, the ban extended. Aircraft transporting weapons to Israel are barred from crossing Spanish airspace. This is not trivial. The US often uses European corridors for weapons transfers. Madrid has turned its skies into a barrier, declaring that complicity will not be flown overhead.
At the core lies the total arms embargo. By banning both direct and indirect dealings, Spain has killed the “supply chain” excuse. Britain cannot claim helplessness. If Spain can legislate, so can London. If London refuses as it seems determined to, having decided that the ICJ is wrong and there is no genocide at all, it is because it chooses complicity.
Equally dramatic is the settlement goods ban. Brussels currently requires settlement products to be labelled, a bureaucratic shrug at illegality. Madrid has gone further, outlawing them outright. Goods from the West Bank are not “disputed” items; they are the fruits of theft. Just as apartheid oranges were once boycotted, settlement goods are now treated as contraband.
The aid pledge adds weight. At the very moment when Washington and London cut funds to UNRWA on the basis of Israeli disinformation, Spain doubled down. Aid to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA is not framed as charity but as an obligation. By supporting Palestinian institutions, Spain resists Israel’s campaign to erase them.
Perhaps most stinging for Israel’s leadership is the promise of entry bans. Reports suggest Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and others could soon find themselves declared persona non grata. Imagine the reversal: leaders who once strutted across European capitals now unable to set foot in Madrid, all coming out of course at the same time Isaac Herzog the Israeli President is due to land in Britain. If that comes to pass, Israel’s inner circle will stink of their state’s pariah status wherever they go.
The recall of Spain’s ambassador from Tel Aviv, though not a full break, was another blow. Diplomats know this language. A recall is a warning shot: the relationship is broken, repair it or watch it collapse. Spain has used this sparingly before; to apply it to Israel signals a crisis in bilateral ties.
Madrid did not stop there though. Albares, the foreign minister, demanded that Brussels adopt a bloc-wide embargo. He reminded his peers that the EU is Israel’s largest trading partner. How can Europe sanction Russia to the hilt while feeding Israel’s war machine? The hypocrisy is unsustainable. By forcing the issue, Spain has put Berlin and Paris on the defensive.
Then came the bombshell though: the call to reopen nuclear talks with Iran. Western diplomats like to paint Iran as the shadow behind every rocket and every resistance movement. By linking Gaza’s future to renewed dialogue with Tehran, Spain just demolished that myth. Stability cannot be achieved by indulging Israel and isolating Iran. It requires talking to both.
Spain’s moves have functionally set three arenas trembling.
Within the EU, Madrid has smashed the fragile consensus. Germany and France cling to their “special relationships” with Israel, but Spain has pulled the rug out. Ireland and Belgium are likely to join. Others will face rising pressure from their publics. The double standard with Russia is glaring: sanctions for Moscow, contracts for Tel Aviv. Spain has forced the hypocrisy into the open. The question is whether the EU can survive such a fracture without realignment.
Within NATO, the implications are no less severe. For years Washington has insisted that support for Israel is unquestionable. Spain has just questioned it. Turkey has long gone its own way, but for pragmatic reasons. Spain’s split is different: rooted not in horse-trading but in law and principle. This turns NATO’s unity into a fiction. If a major Western member treats Israel as a pariah, how long can Washington maintain the pretence that the alliance speaks with one voice?
For the Global South, Spain’s action are vindication. South Africa can point to Madrid as proof that its ICJ case was not an isolated gesture. Brazil and Indonesia can argue that Western hypocrisy has been cracked. Spain now looks less like a peripheral European state and more like a bridge between Brussels and BRICS+. The symbolic power is immense: at last, a Western state has chosen law over complicity. It’s taken long enough as it is. Others will now be asked why they have not.
No comparison is more damning than with Britain though. On the day Spain announced its embargo, Starmer and Lammy rolled out the red carpet for Isaac Herzog. While Madrid recalled its ambassador, London prepares to toast Israel’s president. While Sánchez drafted decrees, Lammy recited excuses and wrote them down in a letter which one day I hope will end up being Exhibit A.
The supply chain defence now lies in ashes. Spain has proved that subcontracting arrangements can be banned. London could do the same tomorrow. It refuses because it will not risk offending Washington or the arms industry. The pretence of helplessness has been obliterated.
Diplomatically the contrast is absurd. In Madrid, Israeli leaders may soon be barred from entry. In London, they are embraced as honoured guests. Which looks more like leadership? Which looks more like complicity?
Legally Britain stands on quicksand. As a party to the Genocide Convention, it is obliged to prevent genocide. The ICJ has ordered states not to facilitate it. By continuing to export F-35 parts, knowing they will be used in Gaza, Britain is defying those obligations. Spain has chosen compliance. London has chosen crime.
The reputational cost will only grow from here. Activists, lawyers, even Labour’s own councillors will point to Spain as proof that the UK had options. Starmer cannot hide forever behind the language of inevitability. Madrid has torn that excuse to pieces.
But the boldest stroke was the call to reopen nuclear talks with Iran. For decades Western policy has depended on a cartoon: Israel the flawed democrat, Iran the irrational menace. Every Palestinian act of resistance has been blamed on Tehran’s strings. Every Israeli crime excused as defence against the Persian bogeyman.
Spain has burned that cartoon. By arguing that regional stability requires diplomacy with Iran, Albares reframed the conflict. Iran is not the shadow behind everything. It is a state actor that must be engaged. Gaza’s survival cannot be disentangled from the regional balance of power, and that balance cannot be negotiated by pretending Iran does not exist.
This exposes nuclear hypocrisy too. Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East, outside the NPT, with an undeclared arsenal. Iran, still a signatory, remains under IAEA oversight, more or less. Yet it is Tehran that is sanctioned, and Israel that is armed. Spain’s demand for talks brings that absurdity into the light too.
The pivot also reopens Europe’s own abandoned diplomacy. The JCPOA of 2015 was a European achievement, undone by Trump. Spain’s move hints that Europe could reclaim that space. The very suggestion terrifies Washington, which has invested years in portraying Iran as untouchable. If Europe listens, the myth collapses. It’s a big if still with the UK, France and Germany wanting to enact the JCPOA snapback against Iran, with little justification to do so.
In the fight against apartheid South Africa, sanctions were decisive. Arms embargoes, bans on settlement goods, the closure of ports, and travel restrictions broke the regime’s legitimacy. Spain has resurrected that playbook and not before time.
The comparison with Russia is just as cutting. Moscow annexes Crimea and Europe launches sanctions. Israel annexes land and exterminates civilians, and Europe sends them more weapons. Spain has shattered this double standard. If Russian oligarchs can be barred from European capitals, why not Israeli ministers calling for ethnic cleansing? If Russia’s aggression warranted embargoes, why not Israel’s? Madrid has forced the question into the open, and Brussels cannot dodge it forever.
Spain’s embargo is not only political. It sets a legal precedent. International law forbids complicity in genocide. The Genocide Convention obliges prevention, not just punishment. The ICJ has ordered states not to facilitate destruction in Gaza. Spain has complied. Britain and Germany have not.
The EU’s own Common Position on arms exports requires denial where there is a risk of IHL violations. Spain is applying that standard. Others are shredding it. Campaigners will seize on this. Courts in London, Berlin, and Paris will be asked: if Madrid can comply, why not you? The precedent is live, and it will not go away.
Spain’s embargo and nine measures mark the most consequential Western rupture with Israel in decades. Ports and skies closed, arms embargoed, settlement goods banned, aid expanded, leaders threatened with exclusion, ambassadors recalled, Europe challenged, Iran reframed — the package is comprehensive.
The consequences are vast. Europe’s hypocrisy lies exposed. NATO unity looks like fiction. The Global South has its vindication. Britain’s excuses are in tatters. The Iran bogeyman has fallen. Spain has detonated the wall of impunity.
The question now is who follows. Will Ireland and Belgium join? Will Germany and France cling to excuses until public pressure breaks them? Will Britain continue to roll out red carpets while its supply-chain defence smoulders?
History is unforgiving. Spain has written a new script: accountability instead of complicity, law instead of excuses, justice instead of genocide. Others must choose whether to read their lines — or to be remembered as accomplices when the verdict of history is delivered or indeed in the courtroom should they find themselves one day in one over this.
This Iran proposal by Spain is devastating particularly for Israel, all their work to isolate and box Iran in getting undone, but it isn’t just Spain doing that as this video recommendation as your suggested next watch will tell you all about.
Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you haven’t done so already so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new daily content as well as spreading the word and helping to support the channel at the same time which is very much appreciated, holding power to account for ordinary working class people and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.