John Collins and Derek Sherrange report from Madrid, Spain, where students are turning up the heat on universities that remain complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

To learn more about the first encampment in Valencia, I reached out to Dr. Jorge Ramos Tolosa, who teaches contemporary history at UV. In addition to his scholarship and teaching, he is a longtime activist with BDS Valencia and the Red Solidaria contra la Ocupación de Palestina (RESCOP), a network of Spanish organizations working in solidarity with Palestine.

On an ordinary Wednesday morning in the calm, well-to-do Chamberi district of Madrid, a group of about 150 Spaniards stood on the street corner opposite a large cultural center, with riot police watching on intently, and chanted:

“Murderers! Murderers! Shame! Shame!”

On March 3, more than 100 people showed up in Madrid, Spain, to hear a first-hand report from Manal Tamimi, a Palestinian activist whose family has been at the center of resistance efforts in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. In a talk that was both moving and sobering, Tamimi spoke passionately about the ongoing struggle of West Bank Palestinians at a time when the Israeli state’s machinery of violence appears to be more emboldened than ever thanks to the active and passive support of governments the world over.

On December 29, 2023, South Africa brought a case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, arguing that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. On January 11-12, 2024, the ICJ held public hearings on South Africa’s request for provisional measures of protection for the people of Gaza and eventually ruled that Israel was responsible for taking all necessary measures to prevent “acts of genocide” in Gaza. The ongoing ICJ case has been the subject of significant debate. To explore the issue further, I reached out to Dr. Somdeep Sen, a frequent Weave News contributor and a professor at Roskilde University.

How can international governments justify continuing to maintain arms sales to and from Israel at a time when Israel is actively carrying out a genocide in Gaza? And what will it take in order to change this intolerable reality? These were the central questions animating a panel discussion held recently in Spain, where grassroots pressure for an arms embargo on Israel continues to grow.

I woke up this morning in Malaga with the knowledge that today was an important day in Spain: a day of nationwide demonstrations calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. At a time when European leaders continue to fail to meet their basic moral obligations vis-a-vis the Palestinian people, more than 70 Spanish cities from Alacant and Albacete to Zamora and Zaragoza were scheduled to host actions under the common banner of stopping the genocide, ending arms sales to Israel, and cutting off diplomatic relations with the apartheid state.

s part of my commitment to bringing justice-oriented voices from Spain to a broader audience, especially in the context of the ongoing struggle for justice in Palestine, I am providing this English translation of remarks made by Ione Belarra, leader of the leftist Podemos party and Minister of Social Rights in the Spanish government between 2021 and 2023. Belarra spoke at a Podemos-organized event at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid marking 76 years since the beginning of the Palestinian Nakba.

When Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with international media on October 30, he ostensibly sought to clarify Israel's objectives in its ongoing military assault in Gaza. In doing so, he revealed yet again how language grounded in colonial denial serves to clear the way for the most extreme, even genocidal forms of violence. He also revealed, however, that Israel's brutal bombardment of Gaza may be providing an opening for us to revive a different, more liberating kind of language, one that survives the propagandistic weapons of colonial discourse as embers in the rubble of generational trauma.

As recently as a few years ago, it would have been very unusual to see an article in a major US publication openly trying to refute what much of the world knows: that Israel’s project in Palestine is a settler colonial project. The standard practice was simply to ignore the colonization issue. Yet in recent months, we are seeing more and more pieces seeking to debunk the “decolonization narrative,” all the more so since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. This is a welcome sign that the colonizers are losing control of the narrative.

As part of my commitment to bringing justice-oriented voices from Spain to a broader audience, especially in the context of the ongoing struggle for justice in Palestine, I am providing this English translation of remarks made by Spanish activist and Eurodeputy Miguel Urbán at an October 20, 2023 public event in Madrid held in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

As part of my commitment to bringing justice-oriented voices from Spain to a broader audience, especially in the context of the ongoing struggle for justice in Palestine, I am providing this English translation of remarks made by journalist Olga Rodriguez at an October 20, 2023 public event held in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

As Israel continues its brutal assault on Gaza, I continue to be struck by the difference between some of the news coverage here in Spain (as imperfect as it is) and the coverage I am used to seeing back home in the U.S. In my previous article, I wrote about the Spanish public television program La Noche en 24H and the interview they aired with former International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo. Today I focus on a subsequent interview from the same program aired last night (October 19, 2023).

As I noted in my recent report on Madrid’s October 15, 2023 Palestine solidarity march, protesters here in Spain have been seeking to focus attention on the genocidal aspects of Israel’s actions in Gaza. “No es una guerra, es un genocidio!” (“It’s not a war, it’s a genocide”) is one of the most common slogans heard at these solidarity events. For this reason, I was very interested in an interview featured in Spanish public broadcaster RTVE’s nightly news program La Noche en 24H last evening (October 18). Program host Xabier Fortes sought to shed light on the genocide issue by speaking with one of the most important international voices on war crimes prosecution. It was a refreshingly direct conversation.

As the Israeli military continues to subject Palestinians in Gaza to a brutal siege accompanied by heavy aerial bombardment, citizens around the world are rising up to express their solidarity with Palestinians and to demand that Israel and its international supporters be held accountable. At a march held in the Spanish capital, Madrid, protesters sought to focus attention on the role of the European Union (EU) in enabling Israel’s war crimes.

“De norte al sur, de este al oeste, la lucha sigue, cueste lo que cueste! (From north to south, from east to west, the struggle continues, whatever it takes!)” With this and other slogans ringing in the air, hundreds of activists of all ages filled the streets of downtown Madrid, Spain, on September 15 to demand rapid decarbonization and climate justice. At a time when news reports here are filled with stories of floods, fires, and killer storms throughout the wider Mediterranean region, Madrid’s 15S Climate March provided a much-needed dose of what is usually missing from those reports: a clear-eyed look at the policy steps that must be taken in order to face down our climate crisis.

“You wouldn’t believe the things people have screamed at me in this room.” Our tour guide for the Democratic Skylight/El Tragaluz Democrático exhibition in Madrid’s La Arqueria didn’t mince words when she brought us into the room containing materials related to Spain’s 1921-1926 colonial war in Morocco. I had previously read about this vicious war (generally known as the Rif War), in which Spain deployed a range of chemical weapons against civilian populations, but I had naively assumed that this aspect of the country’s history was relatively well known.

In my first article from Spain, I set the stage for the country’s upcoming national elections on July 23, focusing on the threat posed by resurgent fascist movements. Now it’s time to dig deeper into the complex political dynamics animating the campaign as well as some of the social forces shaping how the campaign is being waged and covered in the media.

In just over two weeks, Spanish voters will go to the polls for national elections, and the implications - both within and beyond the country - couldn’t be more far-reaching. I just arrived in Madrid and will be spending the next 12 months here, and I hope to provide Weave News readers with a critical, justice-oriented perspective that might be missing from much of the mainstream media coverage of Spanish politics. So, why are these elections so important?

“Rivers keep us alive and keep so many other living beings alive.” With those words, Blake Lavia, the President of Talking Rivers, welcomed more than 30 North Country community members to a wide-ranging discussion on a revolutionary idea: the Rights of Rivers. Held at Clarkson University on Earth Day (April 22), the event showcased the local and global momentum behind the idea as well as some of the key challenges facing those who would like the Rights of Rivers to become law across the St. Lawrence River / Kaniatarowanénhne and Adirondack Watersheds.