The facts that Sánchez and others ignore when equating ETA and Hamas terrorism

Surrounded by corruption scandals, yesterday Pedro Sánchez decided to extend his favorite smokescreen to the United States.

Sánchez does Hamas new favors on the same day that Hamas murders a Spaniard
The favors to ETA for which Pedro Sánchez does not want anyone to talk about those terrorists

Half an hour of interview without saying a word about corruption

The Spanish prime minister spoke for nearly an hour at Columbia University's World Leaders Forum (the full video can be seen here). The last half hour of the event was spent in an interview. During that half hour, the interviewer didn't ask Sánchez a single time about corruption, one of Spain's main problems and the reason Sánchez's party, the PSOE, is sinking in the polls. The socialist leader has his wife, his brother, his attorney general, a former minister, and his party's former number two all under judicial scrutiny, but the interviewer didn't think it was a topic worth mentioning.

Sánchez continues to slander Israel to cover up his scandals

Instead, Sánchez dedicated himself to spreading his Palestinian smokescreen to distract people and try to mobilize left-wing voters dissatisfied with these corruption scandals. Once again, Sánchez equated Russia (the aggressor country) with Israel (the country under attack) and once again slandered the Jewish State with a false accusation of "genocide" that only serves to favor and whitewash Hamas. With all this, the Spanish socialist leader demonstrated an absolute lack of respect for the truth, something that is already part of his particular way of doing politics, as millions of Spaniards know.

But beyond that, Sánchez dared to lecture Israel on how it should fight terrorism, using Spain as an example:

"Unfortunately, we in Spain have been living with terrorism for 40 years and we also suffered jihadist attacks in Madrid, in our capital, terrible attacks, so we already know what terrorism is, right? How do you put an end to terrorism? Well, we have to combine several policies. First of all, it's clear, the issue of security, the fight against terrorism, not war, but the fight against terrorism. In this case we are not talking about war and that is the mistake."

His favors to ETA and his alliance with those who do not condemn terrorism

It's the last straw to hear this guy giving lessons on the fight against terrorism, considering that Sánchez has been doing favors for ETA and its entourage for years and has even allied himself with EH Bildu, a party that refuses to condemn ETA murders. So far, in its quest to gain the support of these ETA sympathizers, Sánchez’s party has done things like vote against the EU investigating ETA murders as crimes against humanity so that the 379 unsolved ETA murders go unpunished.

Furthermore, his government has been allowing hundreds of tributes to ETA terrorists, many of them organized by his partners in EH Bildu, claiming that he can't do anything about it. However, in 2022 he prevented a tribute to the police and civil guards who fought against ETA, again so as not to upset his pro-ETA allies. Is this what Sánchez is proposing to Israel?

The common denominators between ETA and Hamas

There are a number of "small" details that Sánchez and others seem to ignore whenever they equate ETA and Hamas terrorism. Both criminal organizations have in common their absolute disregard for human life and their belief that the end justifies any means, even murder, kidnapping, and torture. Both organizations have murdered countless people by committing horrific crimes, crimes that some seem determined to forget, especially on the far left, which is the political sphere in which we can place a politician like Sánchez who encourages violence for political ends, as we have recently seen.

Among these common elements, we must include another: Sánchez has dedicated himself to doing favors for ETA and now he is dedicated to doing favors for Hamas, demonstrating a total lack of scruples and principles regarding terrorism. So far, the Spanish socialist leader has managed to provoke the rejection of victims of ETA and Hamas alike by doing these favors for the terrorists.

The differences in means and methods between both criminal groups

Beyond these common elements, ETA and Hamas have very different material means, human resources, and methods of action. Two years ago, a study by Mikel Buesa estimated that ETA had around 7,800 active and collaborating members (in total, there has been a maximum of 762 terrorists in prison), in a country like Spain that had 46 million inhabitants when ETA announced the end of its criminal activity in 2011 (at that time the Basque Autonomous Community had 2.17 million inhabitants).

In 2021, Radio France reported that Hamas had 40,000 fighters in Gaza (not counting collaborators), a territory with around 2 million inhabitants. Furthermore, Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2006, a territory that has effectively functioned as an independent country, while ETA operated clandestinely using a region of Spain as a base.

On the material level, ETA carried out its attacks with light weapons and explosives, very occasionally using mortars and grenade launchers. In contrast, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been launching thousands of large rockets from Gaza against Israel, weapons with a range of up to 250 km and warheads with up to 400 kg of explosives (to give us an idea, a BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile has a warhead of 450 kg). Israel has had to equip itself with missile defenses to shoot down these rockets, investing a large amount of money to protect its citizens. Spain has not experienced a situation like this since the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

It should be noted that Hamas has all these resources largely because it appropriated a large part of the international aid to Gaza, millions of dollars in aid sent from the European Union, including Spain, and that instead of serving to improve the lives of the population of Gaza, it was used to commit crimes and bring war to that territory, leaving it in ruins. Many Western politicians, including Sánchez, should be ashamed of having financed this terrorist group, without bothering to verify how the European taxpayers' money was used.

In a single day, Hamas murdered and kidnapped more people than ETA in 43 years.

On the other hand, in 43 years of terrorist activity, ETA murdered 853 people, including 22 children, caused 6,389 injuries and maimings with its attacks, and carried out 86 kidnappings. In its October 7, 2023, attack alone, Hamas killed 1,139 people, including 36 minors, in some cases murdering entire families in their homes (this was the case in Kibbutz Nir Oz, where the terrorists also massacred three children aged between 2 and 6).

AFurthermore, Hamas kidnapped 251 people that day, killing 75 of them. The terrorist organization has used hundreds of kilometers of tunnels built under the populations of Gaza (an infrastructure that ETA never had) to hold these people captive. Even today, Hamas holds 48 hostages 514 days after their kidnapping. Only one ETA kidnapping lasted that long: that of José Antonio Ortega Lara, who was freed by the Civil Guard 532 days after being kidnapped. The war in the Middle East would end today if Hamas were to release those hostages and lay down its weapons, but those terrorists prefer to maintain the suffering of the people of Gaza, a suffering attributable to Hamas, which was the one that started this war with its attack on Israel.

Hamas is a terrorist army comparable to Al Qaeda or ISIS

Due to the number of victims, the criminal methods and the material and human resources, more than with ETA, Hamas must be compared to Al Qaeda or ISIS, authentic terrorist armies that have committed massacres with very high numbers of victims (such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the massacre of Christians and Yazidis in the Nineveh Plains) and having at their disposal weapons of war with a great range.

Spain maintains a military mission in Iraq to combat ISIS

Both Sánchez and others seem to have forgotten that the response against Al Qaeda and ISIS has not only been police, but also military, since a police force does not have sufficient means to confront the resources of these terrorist armies. In fact, while Sánchez instructs Israel not to make a military response against Hamas, a terrorist group that has been committing its crimes with weapons of war, Spain maintains a military mission against ISIS in Iraq, in order to train the Iraqi Army to combat that terrorist army.

What the Basque provinces would be like if they were like Gaza

The comparison between the Basque Autonomous Community and Gaza would be valid if that Spanish region were an independent country with a dictatorship governed by ETA, where women had to wear veils, homosexuals were persecuted and Islamic law was the supreme law, a country that had spent 18 years launching thousands of rockets against Spanish cities, trying to indiscriminately murder Spanish civilians after a declaration by ETA calling for their extermination, and finally ETA had launched an attack torturing and murdering 1,139 people, raping women, burning entire families alive, kidnapping 251 people and broadcasting all these crimes on the internet so that the whole world could witness the level of vileness of that terrorist organization. Images that Sánchez seems to have already forgotten.

Of course, if that had happened, I have no doubt that Sánchez would be doing ETA the same favors he does Hamas, favors that have earned him the applause of those criminals on several occasions. If Sánchez has demonstrated anything, it is his harmony with all kinds of criminals and totalitarians and his infinite capacity to give in to them.

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Main photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90. Hamas terrorists parade with Qassam rockets in Gaza.