The Socialist Group in the Senate has focused on the figure of José Antonio Monago to denounce the People’s Party’s attitude in international policy. Specifically, the socialists criticize the “silences” of the current Foreign Affairs spokesperson for the People’s Group in the Senate in the face of the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza and the illegal military interventions by the United States in Iran or Venezuela, in contrast to the PP’s usual harshness in judging other governments. Monago’s stature is not a minor matter.
At sixty years old, and after having been president of Extremadura —the first non-socialist in the region’s history—, he seemed on track for a gradual withdrawal from politics. However, his close friend Alberto Núñez Feijóo has given him a second political life in Madrid, integrating him into the party’s core by appointing him Deputy Spokesperson of the Steering Committee, Foreign Affairs spokesperson in the Senate and president of the National Committee on Rights and Guarantees. An ascent that contrasts with the wear on his image and that now again places him at the center of the debate.
The PSOE emphasizes that this protagonism comes with a striking lack of positioning on key issues. While the PP has been especially combative in denouncing alleged democratic violations in countries such as Venezuela, the socialists believe he is now silent in the face of what they describe as possible war crimes committed by Israel and the United States.
Archives, moreover, reinforce the socialist argument. In April 2013, during his tenure as Extremadura president, Monago inaugurated the Spain-Israel Forum with a statement that is circulating again today: “Israel is the model that most resembles the one we dream for Extremadura.”
But Monago’s weight in Spanish politics cannot be understood without reviewing his recent trajectory, marked by shadows. He rose to power in 2011 with the controversial help of Iván Redondo, and his fall as president in 2015 was preceded by a sharp controversy: the use of public funds to finance numerous trips to the Canary Islands between 2009 and 2011, when he was a senator and had an extramarital relationship there that several media outlets uncovered.
Those travels, linked to his personal life despite his attempts to claim they were for political justifications that he never proved, severely eroded his public image and contributed to his electoral defeat.
Far from retiring, and thanks to Mariano Rajoy’s passivity, Monago continued leading the Extremadura PP, though with a party that was increasingly weakened. In 2019 he stood again as a candidate, in a decision that evidenced the lack of internal life.
That campaign produced another controversial statement: he claimed he would register in Portugal if the PSOE achieved an absolute majority in the region. The socialist Guillermo Fernández Vara eventually obtained that majority, but Monago not only did not fulfill the promise, but attempted to eternalize himself at the helm of the Extremadura PP.
The end of his term in the regional leadership was not free of tensions either. Although he accepted that his exit was inevitable, by decision of Teodoro García Egea, he hoped to install as his successor his trusted man, the mayor of Plasencia Fernando Pizarro. However, the national party leadership, now under Feijóo, imposed another criterion.
Pizarro was invited to step aside to avoid an internal war and Feijóo endorsed the Casadista candidate María Guardiola, who aimed to be a loose verse among the ‘populares’ and has ended up as a political hostage of Vox, with whom she says she shares “feminism.”
The PSOE, the PP, and Vox, and Israel
While Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has positioned himself as a global reference in denouncing Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloody actions, a new report questions the PSOE’s real coherence regarding Israel, which has expelled Spain from the body supervising the ceasefire in Gaza that it has often violated.
The document, prepared by the Centre Delàs for Peace Studies, states that the supposed embargo of the Spanish Government on Israel is, in practice, more a political narrative than an actual break.
Six months after the approval of Royal Decree-Law 10/2025, presented as a decisive measure against the genocide in Gaza, the balance is clear: no relevant contracts have been canceled, there is no real technological disconnection, and relations with the Israeli military industry continue to operate normally.
The report points to three key mechanisms explaining this continuity: legal exemptions, administrative opacity, and the use of intermediaries within the European Union. Although the decree prohibits direct imports of defense material from Israel, it leaves out operations conducted through European third countries, which allows continuing to incorporate Israeli-origin technology through triangulation processes.
Furthermore, the denounces a systematic lack of transparency. The Government has not published a complete list of contracts with Israeli companies, nor has it presented a formal disconnection plan, whose existence the report itself doubts.
Particularly controversial is the clause of “national interest” included in the decree, which has already been used to authorize transfers of military material. This exception permits justifying the continuation of certain operations in the name of employment, industry, or competitiveness, which, according to the report, places economic interests above political and legal commitments to the Palestinian population.
In contrast to the Government’s bold stance, the Spanish right has been exposed by its silences. Isabel Díaz Ayuso has avoided condemning violence against the Palestinian civilian population and has focused her rhetoric on accusing those who criticize Israel of anti-Semitism, even sharing photos with her much-criticized cycling team. For his part, José Luis Martínez-Almeida has kept a low profile for months after his threat to illegally reward Israel.
Similarly, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has chosen ambiguity, avoiding direct confrontation with Israel’s or the United States’ actions, while centering his critique on the Spanish Government. The party’s spokeswoman Ester Muñoz has also sparked controversy by endorsing Israel’s decision to detain a Spanish service member during a traffic stop.
More explicit has been the ultra-rightist Santiago Abascal, who has reduced the conflict to a narrative of fighting Islamist terrorism, omitting any reference to the crimes against the Palestinian and Iranian populations.
