The other as mirror: Spanish newspapers and anti-Jewish mythology

A content analysis of three main Spanish newspapers - the moderately leftist "El País", the conservative "ABC", and the centrist liberal "El Mundo" - reveals the persistence of antisemitic and anti-Israel motifs. These include description of Israeli "terror" against Palestinians and comparison of Israelis with Nazis; Jewish greed, racism, and desire for world influence; a materialistic approach to the Divine (in the case of "ABC"); and all-powerful lobbying around the world. However, public opinion in Spain has reasons to feel empathy with Jews and Israelis: in addition to Spaniards and Jews both being victims of Islamist terrorism and in need of allies to fight it, the memory of the centuries-long struggle against the "Moors" also plays a role. Thus, anti-Jewish and pro-Jewish motifs may appear together, and the same newspaper can both admire and condemn the "Jewish lobby". Surmises that a conspicuous rise of antisemitic discourse in Spain has occurred due to the suppression of undesirable memories, from Spanish colonialism in the Americas and Africa to the crimes of the Franco regime. The subject of the Holocaust has made its way into national discourse only recently; after all, Franco's Spain was an ideological ally of the Nazis. Under conditions of "forced silence" concerning their own past, the Spaniards project their historical sins onto a mythical Jewish "other".