CD (Portland) — Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau this week announced that her city is cutting ties with Israel and ending its symbolic 25-year-old “twin cities” relationship with Tel Aviv over the Israeli government’s violent anti-Palestinian policies, in particular its “crime of apartheid.”

Colau said at a press conference that the city council came to its decision in response to campaigning by more than one hundred rights groups and 4,000 residents, who urged her to cut ties with the country.

In a letter to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leftist mayor said her constituents had called on her to “condemn the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, support Palestinian and Israeli organizations working for peace, and break off the twinning agreement between Barcelona and Tel Aviv.”

She added that she is “temporarily” suspending Barcelona-Israel relations “until the Israeli authorities put an end to the system of violations of the Palestinian people and fully comply with the obligations imposed on them by international law.”

“We cannot be silent,” wrote Colau.

The letter and Colau’s announcement to the press come two weeks after an Israeli military raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank killed at least nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman. So far this year, more than one Palestinian has been killed by Israeli forces on average each day.

Colau said groups in Barcelona began urging her to cut ties with Israel after an eleven-day air assault on the Gaza Strip in May 2021.

Nongovernmental groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israel-based B’Tselem have accused the Israeli government of imposing policies on Palestinians that are tantamount to those of white South Africa’s former Apartheid system.

Michael Lynk, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, also denounced Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid” last year.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions National Committee (BNC), one of the groups which helped push the Barcelona City Council to hold Israel accountable, applauded Colau’s move.

“Barcelona has become the first city council to suspend ties with apartheid Tel Aviv in solidarity with the Palestinian people, a move that is reminiscent of the historic and courageous city councils that pioneered cutting links with apartheid South Africa,” BNC said in a statement.

Ada Colau became the first female mayor of Barcelona in June 2015, having formerly been one of the founders of Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, a grassroots organization that takes direct action to stop evictions and campaigns for housing rights.

Originally published at Common Dreams. Republished by cc by-sa 3.0. Edits for style and content.

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