Spain's Podemos leader requests to ban Israeli basketball team and fans from entering Madrid

Maccabi Tel Aviv’s scheduled Euro league basketball game against Real Madrid on Tuesday, prompted the leader of Spain’s Podemos party, Ione Belarra, to ask the Spanish government to prevent the Israeli team and its fans from entering the country’s capital, Madrid, El Pais reported on Monday.

Belarra made her request in a letter addressed to the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, and the Spanish Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska. In the letter, Belarra referred to the war in Gaza and reiterated her oft-repeated claim that Spain should not maintain relations with Israel, accusing the Jewish state of committing ‘genocide,’ El Pais reported.

“In order to ensure respect for human rights and avoid incidents, we request that, in the exercise of their respective powers, they adopt appropriate security measures to prevent the entry into the country of entities and persons who support and provide cover for genocide and to cease any relationship with those who perpetrate it,” Belarri wrote in her letter, according to El Pais.

“We do not want the fans to glorify genocide,” said the Secretary and Spokesman of Podemos, Pablo Fernández, at a press conference, according to El Pais. On 𝕏, he posted the following: “We ask the government to ban the entry of players and fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv, a violent, Zionist fan base that advocates genocide.”

His message was accompanied by a video of the pogrom committed against Israeli football fans in Amsterdam in November last year with the gloating captions “how it started” showing Israeli fans celebrating in Amsterdam, and “how it ended”, showing Israeli fans violently attacked by Arabs.

The Spanish government declined to cancel the game, which went ahead as planned on Tuesday. A pro-Palestinian demonstration of around a 100 people was allowed to take place outside the stadium. Maccabi Tel Aviv narrowly lost the game – which ended 116-113 to Real Madrid.

Real Madrid Head Coach Chus Mateo praised the Israeli basketball team for their game.

“I didn’t think we would have a game with such a high score, but I would rather win a game like this than to lose a lower scoring game. Maccabi really played well and scored with amazing percentages especially from 3-pointers, 13/22 for 59% and they were perfect from the line at 26/26. This can happen in the Euroleague as Maccabi has a lot of talent and they have a lot of scoring ability,” Mateo said.

Ione Belarra has a long history of vilifying and attacking Israel. Just days after the Oct. 7 atrocities committed by Hamas, Belarra, who was then a minister in the Spanish government, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “war crimes” and urged for him to be prosecuted. She has repeatedly called on the Spanish government to break off diplomatic relations with Israel.

In December, Belarra once again accused Israel of committing genocide, this time in Syria.

“Israel is taking advantage of the instability in Syria to advance its colonial and genocidal plan, bombing several areas, including Damascus,” Belarra wrote on social media.

“Virtually no Western media outlets are reporting on it. International inaction in the face of genocide endangers humanity as a whole,” she continued.