Bernie Sanders has invited the secretary of international relations of the far-left Spanish political party Podemon to join him on the campaign trail, as he attempts to influence the Democratic Party platform.
Paul Bustinduy was reported as joining Sanders on July 22nd.
Podemos recently came third in Spain’s elections, but its recent history has been troubled by antisemitism. Its party affiliate in Madrid tweeted:
“ ‘How do you fit five million Jews in a SEAT 600 [a car]?’ Answer: ‘In an ashtray.’”
Zapata, the author of the tweet, initially apologised saying that it had been taken out of context, resigning several days later, but without being the subject of any formal action from his party.
The party is also supportive of the BDS movement, which disproportionately singles out the Jewish state to be boycotted, as well as various other anti-Israel measures. The Hudson Institute describes the party as “explicitly anti-Semitic”.
However, most disturbingly, Podemos has explicitly defended El Jueves, a far left magazine that has consistently published unambigiously antisemitic content. The Podemos leadership have signed a petition which calls for El Jueves to be exempted from possible hate crime complaints against it. The content in El Jueves has frequently included “anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic cartoons” writes Yves Coleman. The magazine also “likes to play with the stereotypes of the Jew as a scheme, swindler and liar” and often depicts Jews with “either payots, long beards, a wide-brimmed hat and a black coat or an IDF military uniform”.
One cartoon depicts President Obama taking money from Jews, playing on the antisemitic conspiracy theory of Jewish control in politics, and is captioned “stay out of Spain, Obama”.
They also used the SS logo to imply that Israel is run by Nazis, which is explicitly described as antisemitic in the EUMC working definition of antisemitism.