“He never misses an opportunity to incite hatred against Israel.” This is how the Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, referred to Pedro Sánchez after he criticized the actions of the Israeli police against the head of the Catholic Church in Jerusalem.
“When an Iranian missile hit near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, Pedro Sánchez did not say anything,” the Israeli leader published on X along with a photograph of a fragment of an intercepted Iranian missile that fell last week near the Holy Sepulcher. “Sánchez, who does not even wish Spanish citizens ‘Merry Christmas,’ never misses an opportunity to incite hatred against Israel.”
The Foreign Minister insisted that “Israel is committed to freedom of religion and worship, and will continue to defend it, unlike the Iranian regime, which publicly supports Sánchez.”
Wave of criticism
But it has not only been Spain that has positioned itself against Israel’s decision this Sunday, but many other countries have also spoken about it, such as Italy, one of the first countries to react.
This is what Giorgia Meloni did, who expressed her unmitigated condemnation of what happened: “Preventing the entry of the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Custodian of the Holy Land, especially in a solemnity as central to the faith as Palm Sunday, constitutes an offense not only for believers, but for every community that recognizes religious freedom.”
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has also spoken out, offering his “full support to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Christians of the Holy Land, who are prevented from celebrating the Palm Sunday mass at the Holy Sepulchre.”
Even the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, considered very close to the Israeli authorities, has expressed his dismay at the measure. Although Huckabee admits the need to establish these types of rules, the US ambassador has resolved that what happened “constitutes a regrettable abuse of power that is already having significant repercussions worldwide.”
