Spain lied about not selling weapons to Israel.
Even after October 7th, Spain has sold more than 1 million € of weapons to Israel. Norway and Finland make it possible.
In January, Spain made headlines word-wide when the government's Minister of Exteriors, José Manuel Albares (PSOE), claimed in Congress and later again in a radio interview that Spain had stopped selling weapons to Israel ever since October 7th. Israel's intensification of violence in Gaza following October 7th meant that, on top of decades of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, between October 7th and January 23rd Israel had already killed 28,000 people and forced 2 million out of their home. In this context, many people were demanding their governments stop arming and funding the genocide of the Palestinian people, and here on Tumblr and other social media sites like Twitter I think we all saw the many posts praising the Spanish government for this.
Well, it turns out it was a lie.
According to Albares, "Since October 7th there are no more weapons exportations [from Spain] to Israel". But in November alone, Spain exported weapons to Israel for 987,000€, as was published on the Spanish Government's official website dedicated to exterior commerce (Comex). A researcher from Centre Delàs (an independent centre for peace studies) found it and published it, and it has also been verified by newspapers such as elDiario.es.
This 987,000€ worth of weapons in November was not the only ammunition that Spain has sent to Israel in 2023. In 2023, Spain exported a total of 1.48 million € in war material to Israel.
All of the weapons sent in November come from the factory of Nammo Palencia (Castilla y León), a corporation that is 50% property of the Government of Norway and 50% owned by a public Finnish business. However, even if the owners are foreigners, the ammunition was sent from Spain and thus it had to be authorized by the an organism of the Spanish Government named Junta Interministerial de Defensa y Doble Uso, whose deliberations on whether a weapons exportation is accepted or denied are kept secret. The only cases where they have denied exporting weapons to Israel have been when they thought that Israel would re-sell these weapons to the Philippines.
Spain has had a close relation with Israel for years. As published by the Spanish Government, Spain has sold 20 million € of weapons to Israel between 2012 and 2022. Spain also buys weapons and military software from Israel (for example, the Spanish Intelligence Service has been using the Israeli software Pegasus to illegally spy on Catalan activists, journalists, politicians and civil society members and their relatives to attack the Catalan independence movement), and Spain has continued buying from Israel and allocating defense contracts to Israel even after the October 7th attacks. It is very difficult to track the concessions of public contracts such as buying weapons, but some contracts have been known. For example, on November 24th 2023, Spain bought 287.5 million € of missiles from Israel. This is not unusual: between 2011 and 2021, it is publicly known that Spain bought war material from Israel for at least 268 million €, but experts say that the real number could be two or three times as much.
Spain has also continued allocating concessions to Israel. For example, on December 15th 2023 Spain allocated a contract worth over 576 million € to Israel for a rocket launcher programme. On November 22nd, Spain allocated another another Israeli company to provide missiles for 237 million € at the same time as the Spanish army bought Israeli inhibitors for 1.4 million €. The very next day, November 23rd, Spain signed another military allocation to Israel for 82,600€. The following week, Spain signed yet another allocation with a different Israeli military corporation for 3.7 million €.
Spain also allows Israeli weapon manufacturing companies to produce weapons through their branches located in Spain. This way, Israeli weapons make their way to markets with which Israel doesn't have diplomatic ties but Spain does, like Saudi Arabia. And since Spain is a member of NATO, Israeli weapons produced in Spain are approved according to NATO standards and access it easily. In the same way, these Israeli weapons manufacturers also access European Union defense funds through their branches in Spain. (source).
As I said, I saw a lot of positive posts around when Albares said Spain was going to embargo, but I haven't seen any post about how they didn't do it. I also (personally) haven't seen anything on international media, and barely anything on Spanish media, which is already busy with the PSOE covid material corruption scandal. So I share this in the hope of helping put pressure on Spain to cut all ties with Israel immediately.
SHAME ON EVERYONE WHO GIVES ISRAEL THE MATERIAL AND MONEY THAT WILL BE USED TO MASSACRE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. SHAME ON SPAIN, NORWAY, AND FINLAND.
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Cartoons from the 80's had a lot of anti-drug/anti-drinking messages, with plots surrounding the consequences. I saw these when I was really, really little, so some of the lessons probably stuck.
Even though I've been drunk, I've never driven. I knew not to way back when I was a kid, because media pounded into our heads not to do that, and I have real life and family examples of what happens if you do.
I've also never smoked anything, or done any drugs because I never really wanted to. Truth be told, the lessons were probably in my subconscious (along with real life examples of what happens) helping me make the right judgement calls.
It obviously didn't work with every Millennial, but it got through to a few of us.
This cartoon even tackled prescription drug abuse, and how it negatively affects people and those around them. It also hit on issues of elderly loneliness, how little lies can lead to big problems, owning up to your responsibilities (wherein Henry Bigg -yeah, the human - leaves a baby he volunteered to babysit with the Littles so he could play touch football with his friends across the street and fire breaks out because of the actions of an unsupervised baby. And also Plot.).
80's cartoons went hard with these messages.
This cartoon from my childhood I'm binge watching, The Little's, had a good idea at the end of one of the episodes that showed the dangers of being drunk, how it effects people and themselves, and drunk driving with an incident that almost killed one of the Littles:
A contract between kids and their parents.
Both parties write up a contract that states that kids will call their parents to come pick them up rather than driving, or getting a ride with someone who could be drunk, or otherwise compromised.
Parents agree to go pick them up; no questions asked. Period.
Not a bad idea, honestly.
If I had kids, I'd probably do this. It gives the kids freedom to go out and have fun with friends, while also giving both a sense of trust that the other will abide by the contract.
Trust from both sides is insanely important.
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