Senhan Bolelli
15 January 2025•Update: 16 January 2025
MADRID
Demonstrators gathered in Madrid on Tuesday to protest the arrival of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team and Israel, accusing the country of using sports to obscure human rights violations against Palestinians.
The protest, organized by several pro-Palestinian civil society groups and Spain’s left-wing Podemos party, took place outside the WiZink Center in Madrid ahead of a Turkish Airlines EuroLeague game between Real Madrid and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans including “Boycott Israel,” “Murderer Israel,” “Free Palestine” and “Long live Palestine’s freedom struggle.”
The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, joined the protest and accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians.
She criticized Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares for his stance that “sports should be kept separate from politics” after calls to block the Maccabi Tel Aviv team and its fans from entering Madrid.
“While Albares initiated efforts within the EU to exclude Russia from sporting activities over its invasion of Ukraine, he defends the separation of sports and politics when it comes to Israel, which commits genocide,” Belarra said. “This is hypocrisy and complicity in Israel’s crime of genocide.”
She called on the Spanish government to sever all ties with Tel Aviv.
Spanish police maintained tight security around the sports venue, and the demonstration attracted significant media attention.
Separately, activists in Spain’s Basque region called for the cancellation of another Turkish Airlines EuroLeague game between Baskonia and Maccabi Tel Aviv scheduled for Feb. 7.
The group Palestinarekin Elkartasuna accused Israel of using Maccabi Tel Aviv to “normalize its genocide against Palestinians.”
“Through this propaganda, Israel aims to improve the image of the Zionist state and dissociate itself from colonialism,” the group said in a statement. “No event that normalizes genocide should be allowed.”
Israel has continued its war on Gaza, which has killed more than 46,600 people, most of them women and children, since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
In November last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
*Writing by Seda Sevencan
