Luis Ayllón
Spain’s Consul General in Jerusalem, Ignacio García-Valdecasas, has been dismissed from his post by Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya, citing a “loss of confidence”, diplomatic sources told The Diplomat A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the dismissal of the diplomat to this website, but did not add anything else.
García-Valdecasas had been in the post since August 2019, and has just over two years left to reach 70, the retirement age.
The decision was taken yesterday, after the Undersecretary, Celsa Nuño, informed the Board of the Diplomatic Career of her intention to dismiss the consul, after an internal investigation had confirmed the accusations of mistreatment made against García-Valdecasas by some of his subordinates in the consulate, accusations that the consul has rejected, according to sources close to him, who told The Diplomat.
Ignacio García-Valdecasas was appointed consul general in Jerusalem in April 2019, following the resolution of the competition to fill posts abroad, known in diplomatic jargon as “el Bombo”. This is a post that normally carries an asterisk, which is why the Minister reserves the appointment without waiting to hear the opinion -which is never binding- of the Board of the Diplomatic Career.
The Consulate General in Jerusalem, in the eastern part of the city, is considered a kind of ‘unofficial embassy’ to Palestina. The Consulate is now headed by deputy consuls Sofía Ruiz del Árbol and Paloma Serra, until a ‘bombito’, i.e. a specific competition to fill the post, is announced shortly.
Diplomatic sources consulted by The Diplomat emphasised that the dismissal does not come at the best time, given that the Consulate has been particularly busy in recent weeks for various reasons.
On the one hand, the consular representation is closely following the trial of Spanish humanitarian worker Juana Ruiz Sánchez, who has been detained for almost a month and accused of “belonging to an illegal organisation”. Juana Ruiz is a project coordinator for the Palestinian NGO Health Work Committees, which Israel accuses of diverting European funds to the activities of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Yesterday, the Spanish aid worker faced a new hearing before a military judge, in which the consul, now dismissed, was present.
On the other hand, the escalation of clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, which have not ceased since the events of Friday’s entry of Israeli forces into the Esplanade of the Mosques in the Holy City, and which have caused several hundred injuries, is worsening. Yesterday, Hamas fired six rockets into Jerusalem and Israel responded with an attack on the Gaza Strip, resulting in a large number of deaths.
In addition, political tension remains between the various Palestinian factions after Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas decided to cancel the elections scheduled for 22 May, which were to be the first in the Palestinian Territories for fifteen years.
Ignacio García-Valdecasas has a long professional career, having served as Spain’s ambassador to Paraguay and Cyprus, as well as ‘number two’ at the Embassy in Moscow, consul general in Cape Town and director of Institutional Affairs at the Office of the Government High Commissioner for Marca España, among others.
This is the third time that González Laya has dismissed a consul general before the end of his term, although the reasons have been different. In June last year, he ordered the dismissal of Álvaro Alabart as consul general in Bayonne, following complaints of irregular actions during the COVID’s confinement, a measure that was unsuccessfully appealed against by the affected party.
Later, in November, the minister forced Fernando Villalonga to resign from his post as consul general in Rabat, to which he had just been appointed, and before he took up his post, for statements critical of the government made on a television station prior to his appointment.
