<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. <h5><strong>The debate</strong></h5> During Tuesday's debate, Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo asserted that "this decree legally consolidates the arms embargo that this government has already been implementing." "No controlled material manufactured in Spain will be sold to Israel, and no controlled material manufactured in Israel may enter Spain," he added. "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 to invade the Gaza Strip, and ensure that Israel has access to more military resources and protect the people who are victims of systematic human rights violations." At the moment, it remains unclear what Podemos's position will be in the vote. 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. The truth is that, during the debate, neither the PP nor Podemos announced what their vote will be. PP deputy spokesperson Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo accused the government of having "the sensitivity of a pumice stone" for proposing a decree that "calls Israel genocidal" coinciding with the second anniversary of October 7. She rejected the term "genocide" and stated that the "coquettish and hypocritical exclusion clause in the public interest" turns the royal decree into a "fake embargo." Podemos spokesperson Ione Belarra used the same phrase against "a fake embargo" that includes an exception that allows "it to continue buying and selling whatever weapons it wants." For his part, IU spokesperson Enrique Santiago, of Sumar (a minority partner in Pedro Sánchez's coalition government), called for support for the ratification of the decree and warned that anyone who does not vote in favor "will be disobeying the highest court in the world." At a press conference, the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, warned this 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 will 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, will 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 has insisted on calling for the removal of the exceptions to the embargo included in the text and for the scope of the Royal Decree Law to 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.
