Feijóo seeks a balance between Sánchez and Ayuso's pressure on Israel.

Israel's military offensive in Gaza has taken center stage on the Spanish political agenda, and the president of the People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is trying to find his own balanced position in the face of pressure from the left, by the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and from the right, by the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who was joined yesterday by former president José María Aznar. Feijóo called yesterday for an end to the "massacre" in Gaza, but refused to define what is happening as "genocide," as Pedro Sánchez demands, while Ayuso and Aznar unhesitatingly sided with Israel.

Feijóo had so far limited himself to criticizing the Israeli government's response to the October 2023 terrorist attacks and calling for a distinction to be made between Benjamin Netanyahu's administration and the Israeli people, but he had avoided using qualifiers. However, yesterday the PP leader went a step further and called for an end to the "massacre." The main opposition party is beginning to accept that Sánchez has managed to impose the "smokescreen" of Palestine to avoid discussing the alleged corruption cases looming around his personal and political circle and the parliamentary weaknesses of his government, and they have been forced to take a clearer stance on the issue.

Aznar supports the Jewish state: "If we lost, we would have a problem in Western Europe."

In any case, Feijóo's position seeks to strike a balance and is in line with the position of the European People's Party (EPP), led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The EPP has spearheaded the initiative to suspend the trade agreement with Israel, a weapon that could harm the Hebrew state due to the weight of economic relations, but whose implementation is uncertain because it is supported by a qualified majority of EU states (15 of the 27). In this sense, the EPP also does not want to fall into the narrative of the Socialists, much less the Spanish Socialists, who are trying to define, in their opinion, what is happening in Gaza as "genocide."

Sánchez tried again yesterday to force Feijóo to define what is happening in Gaza as "genocide." "Don't listen to me. I know I have little success with you. But listen, for example, to the United Nations working group that has spoken of a genocide being committed in Israel. Or listen, for example, to a survey by the Elcano Royal Institute that stated that 82% of Spaniards, and therefore also voters of the Popular Party, believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Stop insulting and argue, Your Honor," Sánchez said yesterday, in the face-to-face session with Feijóo.

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The PP leader countered that Sánchez is using the Palestinian conflict as a "smokescreen" to stay in power, to the point of asserting that the Prime Minister would "make a pact with Netanyahu" if necessary: ​​"Save the lessons in humanity. You also suffered greatly for the Sahrawi people, and you changed your mind in an afternoon. We already know you too well: to stay in power, everyone knows you would even make a pact with Mr. Netanyahu."

As Sánchez pressed, so did Ayuso and Aznar. The president of the Community of Madrid rejected the idea that schools and universities were displaying pro-Palestinian flags and "politicizing" students, although she denied having personally ordered them to be removed, as the left claims. Ayuso has been the PP's most vocal defender of Israel.

Aznar, along the same lines, yesterday defended the Jewish state and compared the need for Israel to win with Ukraine's resistance. "If Israel were to lose what it's doing, we wouldn't realize the problem we would have in Western Europe," he said yesterday at the opening ceremony of the Faes Campus, entitled "Europe and the Future of the Atlantic Bond."