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Barcelona mayor severs ties with twin city of Tel Aviv, citing Israeli ‘apartheid’
(JTA) — Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau has announced that the city is no longer twinned with Tel Aviv, citing claims that Israel is guilty of “apartheid,” as well as “flagrant and systematic violation of human rights.”
Barcelona and Tel Aviv entered the relationship in 1998 — when both cities jointly signed a “twin city” agreement with Gaza City. Colau’s decision comes less than a year after Barcelona launched two linked campaigns — “Shalom Barcelona” and “Barcelona Connects Israel” to appeal to Jewish and Israeli tourists interested in exploring their heritage. Last summer, the city opened up the world’s first Michelin-starred kosher restaurant. .
The decision also comes less than a year after Barcelona suspended a twinning relationship with St. Petersburg in protest of to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“More than 100 organizations and over 4,000 citizens have demanded that we defend the human rights of Palestinians and for this reason, as mayor, I have written to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to inform him that I have suspended temporarily the institutional relationship between Barcelona and Tel Aviv,” Colau, a left-wing politician who has been mayor of Barcelona since 2015, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The Federation of the Jewish Communities of Spain condemned the decision, which it called “sophisticated antisemitism.”
In her letter to Netanyahu, dated Wednesday, Colau wrote that the petition from her constituents requested that her office “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.”
The proposal to end the twinning relationship was brought to the mayor’s office and the Barcelona City Council by a group called End Complicity with Israel, which has allied itself with also aligns with other social organizations focused on anti-racism, LGBTQ rights, and feminist advocacy. The proposal was initially on the agenda for a Jan. 27 plenary meeting of the council, but was postponed because the debate coincided with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The debate was rescheduled for Feb. 24, but groups supporting the proposal demanded a quicker response from the mayor’s office.
The Federation of the Jewish Communities of Spain, the official representative of the Spanish Jewish community, had spoken out recently against the decision.
“We are concerned about the boycott campaign you are leading under the slogan ‘Barcelona says no to apartheid,’” the group said in a statement directed at the mayor. “Barcelona and Tel Aviv are open and welcoming societies, leading cities that attract startup investments and tourism. We call on the city council to allow Barcelona to continue to build bridges of harmony and avoid promoting a discourse of rejection and isolation.”
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The post Barcelona mayor severs ties with twin city of Tel Aviv, citing Israeli ‘apartheid’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.