Deputy PM ran ‘hate debate’ on Spanish TV
V ONE OF Spain’s four new deputy prime ministers, Pablo Iglesias, hosted a TV talkshow about the “power of the Zionist lobby” in which guests voiced antisemitic conspiracy theories and used anti-Jewish tropes.
In a video of Fort Apache, broadcast in April 2018 by the Iran-funded HispanTV, Mr Iglesias can be seen nodding and smiling as panel members hold forth about how Wall Street is “practically in the hands of Jews” and how the “huge” media power of the pro-Israel lobby “determines” US foreign policy.
The leader of the far-left party Unidas Podemos (“Together We Can”), who was made deputy prime minister for “social rights” in Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s coalition last week, says in the broadcast: “Today we are talking about the power of the Zionist lobby over American politics.”
In her own remarks, journalist selfdescribed “defender of the Palestinian cause” Teresa Aranguren says: “There are a lot of lobbies in the US, it’s a system that works using lobbies…. but where the pro-Israel lobby has influence is in the field of opinion-formation, whether in the New York Times, or Hollywood. The pro-Israel lobby has the power to configure US policies from the inside, to the point where one can ask whether it directs American policy, rather than the other way around”.
Another panel member, Carlos Enrique Bayo, a journalist for Spanish news website Público, remarks during the broadcast: “This lobby obviously has enormous media and communications power — but it also has huge economic power… big financial institutions on Wall Street are practically in the hands of Jews”.
The Anti-Defamation League has stated that “Like its English-language sister station Press TV, HispanTV regularly broadcasts antisemitic and antiZionist conspiracy theories.”
Unidas Podemos, did not answer a JC request for comment.