<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Congress has decided to postpone the vote on the ratification of the Royal Decree-Law imposing an arms embargo on Israel until this Wednesday. The objective of this postponement is to prevent the vote, scheduled for this Tuesday in the plenary session of the Lower House, from coinciding with October 7, the second anniversary of the Hamas attacks.</strong></h4> This decision was made by the Congress's Spokespersons' Board after both the PP (People's Party) requested that the debate and the vote be postponed until next week. This option would have required modifying the agenda of the plenary session, which requires unanimity of the groups. Ultimately, the Government rejected the PP's request, so it was decided to hold the debate for this Tuesday and postpone the vote to the following day, as proposed by Junts. This past Monday, the PP's Deputy Secretary for Institutional Regeneration, Cuca Gamarra, described the choice of October 7, the second anniversary of the Hamas attacks, as "unacceptable." The Israeli Embassy, for its part, described the choice of a date when "the entire people of Israel and the Jewish communities are in mourning, remembering their victims," as "perverse, inhumane, and aberrant." For her part, Sumar spokesperson Verónica Martínez Barbero stated that the date of the vote on the Royal Decree is a "minor issue" because, ultimately, the arms embargo is already in effect, and the important thing is that it remain so. During Tuesday's debate, Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo asserted that "this decree legally consolidates the arms embargo that this government has already been implementing." "It is a text of maximums that pushes the boundaries of international and EU regulations," the minister continued, assuring that the executive branch will apply the Royal Decree "with the utmost rigor." According to Cuerpo, the proposed text reflects the government's "firm political commitment" to "support the resolution of the armed conflict, make it difficult for the invasion of the Gaza Strip, and ensure Israel has access to more military resources and protect the people who are victims of systematic human rights violations." For the time being, Podemos's position on the vote remains unclear. The vote of the purple party will be crucial for the government's proposal to pass, since, if it votes against it, the Royal Decree would receive exactly half of the votes (if the PP also votes against it, in addition to Vox and UPN), which, in compliance with the rules of the Lower House, would render the proposal null and void. Podemos Secretary General Ione Belarra insisted at a press conference this Tuesday that the government must withdraw this "fake" embargo proposal because, in her opinion, it will not prevent Spain from continuing to be "a sieve" for the transport of arms to Israel. However, she refused to reveal her party's final decision and assured that she would only do so when the vote is due. For her part, the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, warned at a press conference on Tuesday that if the embargo goes ahead, "Spain will probably be the one most harmed" because our country exports more than it imports to Israel. She also questioned whether this measure would serve "to stop the Israeli government from massacring the Palestinian civilian population" and warned that Donald Trump's peace plan, "which has enjoyed the support of the majority of democratic leaders and Arab countries," would probably be much more helpful. On Monday, Cuca Gamarra also declined to reveal the PP's position. "Throughout the debate, we will inform the Spanish people of our position," she told the press. "What is clear is that when we talk about making decisions regarding the termination of contracts that affect national security, it must be absolutely guaranteed that national security is not affected," he continued. In this regard, the Second Vice President of the Government and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, has requested support for the Royal Decree and warned the PP and Podemos that the choice is "very simple: to stand on the side of international law and condemn the genocide in Gaza or to defend the criminal regime" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In any case, Sumar (a minority partner in Pedro Sánchez's coalition government) has insisted on requesting that the exceptions to the embargo included in the text be removed and that the scope of the royal decree be expanded to include more countries in the future. <h5><strong>Flotilla</strong></h5> Meanwhile, the 27 Spanish members of the Global Sumud Flotilla who had not yet left Israel landed last night at the airports of Madrid, Bilbao, and Barcelona. The activists arrived at Barajas Airport on an Air Force military plane chartered by the government from Athens. According to Foreign Affairs sources, the aircraft carried the members of the Flotilla and "people from other EU countries" who voluntarily decided to take advantage of this option. Both activists and Yolanda Díaz have demanded the immediate release and return to Spain of Reyes Rigo, the only Spanish member of the Flotilla who remains detained in Israel after being accused of biting a female soldier at Ketziot prison during a medical examination. Flotilla members have reported mistreatment, violence, harassment, and torture by Israeli security forces.
