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MADRID (JTA) — Ada Colau, Barcelona’s left-wing mayor who made headlines for breaking off the town’s long-standing relationship with Tel Aviv, was unseated in Sunday’s municipal elections after eight years in energy.
She was defeated by Xavier Trias, the right-wing candidate from the Junts social gathering, a former mayor who Colau had beforehand unseated in 2015.
Colau, identified prior to now for backing the boycott, divestment and sanctions motion in opposition to Israel, brought on a media stir final February when she opted to dissolve the dual metropolis pact between Barcelona and Tel Aviv. The Catalan capital had been twinned with the Israeli metropolis for 25 years.
Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in a written letter, Colau wrote in February that round 4,000 constituents had petitioned her to “condemn the crime of apartheid in opposition to the Palestinian individuals, help Palestinian and Israeli organizations striving for peace, and nullify the twinning contract between Barcelona and Tel Aviv.”
The transfer was met with sharp disapproval by the Federation of the Jewish Communities of Spain, which condemned the transfer as “refined antisemitism.”
Shortly after, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, the mayor of Madrid who gained reelection final weekend, provided to twin the Spanish capital with Tel Aviv.
“It will be an honor to be twinned with Tel Aviv,” he wrote in February.
Political figures on the appropriate in Spain, together with Martínez-Almeida, a member of the Individuals’s Celebration, have been making diplomatic and industrial overtures in the direction of Israel in recent times. Regardless of his proposal, the Madrid authorities has not introduced particular plans for actualizing a twin metropolis relationship.
Beforehand a housing rights activist, Colau has cited “the recurring human rights infringements in opposition to the Palestinian inhabitants and non-adherence to United Nations resolutions” as her reasoning for the Israeli boycott.
Round 3,500 Jews dwell in Barcelona as of 2022.
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