Spain styles itself as Israel's most fervent adversary, but its sanctions are far from comprehensive
As criticism of Israel’s genocide continues in Gaza and governments across the Americas and Europe have remained largely muted, Spain has stepped into the vacuum as one of the most vocal critics of the country in the West.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for multilateral measures to end the arms trade with Israel, including a push to suspend the EU–Israel Association Agreement.
It is also the only EU country to have formally recalled its ambassador and, back in October 2023, announced it was halting arms sales to the country.
According to a report by the Delas Centre for Peace Studies in Barcelona, military imports from Israel persisted after October 2023, amounting to €36.7m ($41.9m) by February 2025 under HS code 93 (arms and ammunition) and 8710 (tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles).
In fact, “Spain has never imported more than after 7 October 2023,” the report claimed.
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This shifted on 23 September 2025, however, when Sanchez approved a law imposing an arms embargo against Israel and the prohibition of imports from the occupied Palestinian territories.
Now “it is no longer merely a matter of withholding new licences, but of establishing a general legal rule of prohibition”, explained Eirene de Prada, a professor of international law and member of Juristas por Palestina (Lawyers for Palestine).
But between pre-existing contracts, explicit exceptions and gaping loopholes, the law is only as strong as its weakest point.
“In other words, the government has engaged in doublespeak,” De Prada told Middle East Eye.
“At a rhetorical, discursive, and symbolic level, it sends a strong message regarding the arms embargo while, in practice, it has exploited loopholes in the Royal Decree-Law to continue doing business with Israel.”
Feasible option
In Spain, a royal decree-law is an emergency legislative measure meant to address situations of "extraordinary and urgent need" which must be approved by parliament within 30 days.
Royal Decree-Law 10/2025, approved on 8 October 2025, asserts that, “given the exceptional nature of the situation described [in Gaza], the government considers it urgent and necessary to adopt extraordinary measures to prohibit the transfer of defense and dual-use materials that Israel is using against the civilian population”.
'This initiative is considered a great success for the mere fact that it has been done'
- Alejandro Pozo, Delas Centre for Peace Studies
“This initiative is considered a great success for the mere fact that it has been done,” said Alejandro Pozo, an investigator at the Delas Centre for Peace Studies in Barcelona.
“It sets a precedent and conveys the message that, with willingness, an arms embargo on Israel is a feasible option."
However “contracts that were already granted, have not been changed” and “the law allows for exceptions, in certain cases, when the Spanish authorities deem it is justified", he added.
In fact, an exception was applied just three months after the law was passed when, according to a recent Delas report, “the government authorised the transfer of ‘certain defense and dual-use material’ related to four aeronautical projects led by Airbus, citing the ‘significant industrial and export potential’ of said projects.”
This included an anti-missile protection system manufactured by Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer complicit in the Gaza genocide.
After all, “what Israel needs from Spain is not weaponry” said Pozo. “What they need are markets to make domestic acquisition cheaper and the military occupation feasible.”
Spain can also legally import and export defence equipment via other EU countries and purchase equipment from Israeli companies based inside the EU.
Legally defined as acquisitions and sales, the law does not apply in these cases yet these constitute a significant amount of Israeli weapons in Spain, explained Pozo: “They are produced in Spain by Israeli companies, by Spanish subsidiaries of Israeli companies or by Spanish companies with licences from Israeli manufacturers.”
As such, “What should be targeted is not the means by which weaponry reaches Spain or Israel, but the money which is directly or indirectly channelled to the Israeli war machine,” he told MEE.
“Sanctions should be more similar to the European ones placed on Russia, to target Israeli interests comprehensively.”
'Economy of genocide'
Of course, Spain is not the only critic of Israel conversely embroiled in what UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese coined the “economy of genocide".
Since the Colombian ban on coal exports to Israel took effect in August 2025, South Africa, Israel’s alleged adversary at the International Court of Justice and a co-founding member of The Hague Group, has become its main supplier.
The South African Trade Minister Parks Tau even argued that sanctioning Israel without multilateral UN sanctions “would violate the World Trade Organisation principle of non-discrimination and would open the country to legal challenge”.
“It would be logical to assume that he is correct, however he is not,” said Professor Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg.
Pointing to an ICJ finding from July 2024, upheld by the UN General Assembly, that explicitly obligates all nations to end complicity with fuelling the illegal occupation of Palestine, he told MEE: “That is a very strong, formal UN signal that you can discriminate [against Israel]. In fact you should.”
The South African government has every capacity to end its complicity in Israel’s genocide through a category called “dangerous exports” and it would not require any new laws, said Bond.
“The coal could be switched off immediately,” he told MEE.
Even in Colombia, where the ban on coal exports was instrumental, ending long-standing imports is a more complex endeavour.
In fact, despite President Gustavo Petro announcing that his government would stop purchasing Israeli arms and reduce military cooperation in February 2024, Colombian Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez told Congress that existing contracts, including those to maintain the country’s Israeli-built Kfir fighter jets, would be honoured.
The Colombian Armed Forces also continues to rely on the Israeli-made Galil rifle which, alongside its historic use by the Israeli military in Palestine and Lebanon, was used extensively to quash left-wing insurgents during the Colombian Civil War.
In an effort to cut these bloody bonds, in November 2025, Colombia signed a €3.1bn contract with the Swedish company Saab for 17 Gripen E/F fighter jets.
They are due to be delivered between 2026 and 2032, thus replacing the Israeli Kfirs. Furthermore, in May 2026, Petro unveiled a locally made rifle to gradually phase out the Galil but, similarly, this transition will take an estimated five years to complete.
Symbolic gesture
In both Spain and Colombia, the future of the anti-Israel policy is vulnerable to reversal under future administrations.
In Colombia, President-Elect Abelardo de la Espriella has already proposed “greater collaboration with Israeli defence industries” once he enters office in August 2026. With regards to coal, his commitment to expanding extractive mining also threatens the durability of Petro’s export ban which, passed by presidential decree, is not legally enshrined.
Comparatively, the Spanish decree-law “holds the status of law, granting it greater formal solidity”, said De Prada.
Nonetheless, a future administration could, with a parliamentary majority, opt to substantially reform or overturn it altogether.
Alternatively, “the government could weaken it in practice through a broad interpretation of the ‘general national interests’ clause, authorising exceptions on a recurring basis, or through less rigorous administrative enforcement”, she explained.
In other words, if a new government is formed by the centre-right Partido Popular (People’s Party) or the far-right Vox in 2027, they “could eliminate the embargo easily” confirmed Pozo. “Not necessarily because they need Israeli weaponry, but most likely as a symbolic political act.”
Since October 2023, Partido Popular and Vox have explicitly condemned President Sanchez’s approach to Gaza.
Both voted against the decree-law in October, with Vox reiterating Israel’s so-called right to self defence and accusing the Spanish government of creating a “smokescreen” in order to “cover up the corruption that surrounds the government, its party and the Sanchez family".
The case of Colombia, where a newly elected right-wing leader is readying to renew relations with Israel at warp speed, should serve as a warning sign for Spain’s current administration.
After all, “if there is a genuine political will to maintain a policy of isolation in the long term, it is necessary to adopt measures that are more robust,” De Prada told MEE.
“Ultimately, the next step should be to shift from a limited and reversible embargo policy to a comprehensive and stable policy of non-cooperation, non-assistance, and non-recognition, subject to effective mechanisms for parliamentary oversight, administrative transparency, and traceability.”
Until then, the disparity between symbolic gestures and concrete actions, rhetoric and praxis, is egregious.
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