Spain's prime minister sparks outrage over alleged nuclear threat against Israel

The anti-Israel Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, is under fire from Israel and Spaniards alike for his alleged comments to use nuclear weapons against the Jewish state.

Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused his Spanish counterpart of making a "blatant genocidal threat to the world's only Jewish state. Apparently, the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion of the Jews of Spain and the systematic mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust, is not enough for Sanchez."

Juan Caldes, the European advocacy coordinator at the European Jewish Association, told Fox News Digital that, "It is beyond hypocritical and cynical to call Israel a genocidal state when one mentions how unfortunate the fact that Spain doesn't have nuclear weapons to stop Israel. That is the definition of a genocide, when there is a deliberate intent to destroy a specific group (be it ethnic, religious or racial)." 

According to Caldes, "Sanchez's rhetoric and actions show how embedded antisemitism is part of the Spanish government. That being said, it is still important not to conflate it with the majority of the Spanish people who do not hold antisemitic views."

According to statistics from The Jewish Agency for Israel in September, the size of the Spanish Jewish community numbered 12,900 out of a population of just over 49 million. 

Last year Spain experienced "the largest increase in modern history in antisemitic speech, incidents, and attacks, up 321% compared to 2023 and 567% compared to 2022," according to a report by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain.

Fox News Digital reached out to Spain's embassy in Washington and its foreign ministry for comment.