In the town of El Burgo, Spain, a seven-meter effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, packed with fourteen kilograms of fireworks, was detonated before cheering crowds during the traditional Easter “Burning of Judas” celebration. The explosion was spectacular. The diplomatic fallout may prove more so.
Israel condemned the event as “appalling anti-Semitic hatred” and accused Spain of “systemic incitement.” Spain’s ambassador was summoned for a formal reprimand. Israel subsequently removed Spain from the US-backed coordination center overseeing the Gaza ceasefire. Madrid, for its part, rejected the antisemitism accusation outright.
The question at the center of this confrontation is not new, but it has rarely been posed this starkly: is burning an effigy of a head of state the same as expressing hatred toward an entire ethnicity? And who possesses the authority to make that determination?
The Tradition
The Burning of Judas is an Easter tradition practiced across Spain and parts of Latin America for generations. Effigies are constructed of public figures, stuffed with explosives, and detonated in town squares. The targets have historically included politicians, celebrities, and controversial figures from across the political spectrum. Mayor Maria Dolores Narvaez of El Burgo noted that the tradition has featured other world leaders in previous years without generating diplomatic incidents.
This context matters. The tradition is not specifically about Israel, Judaism, or the Middle East. It is a folk practice in which communities select figures they view as deserving of symbolic censure, construct oversized representations of them, and blow them up in a festive atmosphere. That Netanyahu was chosen this year reflects the depth of public anger over the war in Gaza. It does not, on its own, establish that the anger is rooted in ethnic hatred rather than political objection.
The Accusation
Israel’s response treated the event as self-evidently antisemitic. The language was unequivocal: “appalling,” “systemic incitement.” The framing collapsed the distinction between criticism of a political leader and hostility toward the Jewish people, a conflation that has become increasingly central to Israel’s diplomatic strategy in response to international opposition to the Gaza campaign.
This framing poses a genuine problem for political discourse. If burning an effigy of the Israeli prime minister is automatically antisemitic, then virtually any forceful public expression of opposition to Israeli government policy becomes susceptible to the same charge. The effect, whether intended or not, is to place Israeli political leadership beyond the reach of the forms of protest that are routinely directed at every other government on earth.
Would the burning of an effigy of Vladimir Putin be called anti-Russian hatred? Would the burning of an effigy of an American president be treated as an attack on all Americans? The question answers itself, and the asymmetry is worth examining honestly.
The Broader Rupture
The effigy incident did not occur in a vacuum. Spain had already permanently withdrawn its ambassador from Israel, a severe diplomatic step that signaled a fundamental break in relations. Israel’s decision to remove Spain from the Gaza ceasefire coordination center represents a further escalation, one that has practical consequences for the management of the conflict.
The trajectory is clear. Spain, under its current government, has positioned itself as one of the most vocal European critics of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Israel has responded by treating Spain not merely as a critic but as a hostile actor engaged in incitement. The space for diplomatic nuance between these two positions has effectively collapsed.
The Question That Remains
At its core, this dispute is about a boundary that the international community has never satisfactorily defined: where does legitimate criticism of a state end and bigotry against a people begin? Israel insists there is no meaningful distinction when it comes to the kind of visceral, public hostility on display in El Burgo. Spain insists that folk traditions targeting political figures are exactly that, and that shielding any head of state from symbolic protest by invoking the suffering of an entire people is a form of political manipulation.
Both positions contain elements of sincerity. But the practical effect of Israel’s framing is that Netanyahu, a politician facing criminal charges in his own country, becomes more protected from international criticism than any other leader on earth. Whether that outcome serves the interests of combating genuine antisemitism, or whether it ultimately undermines that effort by stretching the definition past recognition, is a question that deserves more honest engagement than either side is currently willing to provide.
