Spanish soccer star Lamine Yamal is so good that some people call him the best player in the world even though he is only 18 years old. The Barcelona club he plays for just won Spain’s La Liga title — something I wouldn’t have known had it not been for the action he took during the victory celebration that made international headlines.
Yamal, who was born in Spain to a Moroccan father, waved a Palestinian flag during an open-top bus parade in Barcelona on May 11.
I have no idea whether Yamal thought his action was particularly brave, but I do know that waving the Palestinian flag is more likely to earn adulation than condemnation in 2026 — especially in Spain. Indeed, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, a true enemy of Israel, immediately came to the soccer player’s defense, proudly stating that “Spain has recognized the state of Palestine.”
There’s only one flag that could have drawn the ire of Sánchez: the Israeli flag. A truly brave act would have been to hold up the blue-and-white Star of David in protest of Spain’s decision to boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest due to Israel’s participation — or Sánchez’s own lament that he doesn’t have nuclear weapons to stop Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
In an age when simply honoring Jewish American Heritage Month on Sesame Street results in a wave of antisemitic hate, proudly displaying the Israeli flag in a country where antisemitism is skyrocketing means accepting real personal danger. An Israeli journalist recently did just that in a report for i24NEWS English on “how anti-Israel sentiment crept into everyday life in Spain.”
Yonatan Rave wanted to see what the man on the street thought about Israel by holding up the Israeli flag in the same city where Yamal plays: Barcelona — a city hit by an Islamist terrorist attack in 2017 that killed more than a dozen people. You’d think Spaniards would have a strong understanding of what Israelis feel when radical Muslims call for the destruction of Israel, since jihadists want to reconquer Spain, once part of al-Andalus — the Arabic name for the land Muslims ruled from 711 to 1492.
Related: The New Reconquest: Spain’s Answer to Collapse
However, aside from one couple who said they loved Israel, all Rave experienced was hate during this dangerous experiment. Here is just some of the abuse hurled at him: “F**k Israel!” “You guys are s**t. Go to your fu**ing mother.” “Israel, sons of bi***es.” “Is Israel a country? No.”
Some of these slurs were accompanied by spitting and vomiting sounds. Very few of the harassers were willing to engage in dialogue. One young woman did, however, telling Rave: “Don’t take out that flag; you’re taunting.” She then issued a challenge while laughing — dare I say, diabolically — with her friend: “Walk with that flag at night. … Go to the Raval neighborhood. Go to Raval. Take the flag there. Because they will stab you there.”
El Raval, an immigrant-heavy community, is featured in the video with people celebrating the approval of the government’s mass amnesty program to legalize 500,000 undocumented migrants. Rave makes the obvious point: “Perhaps another reason for the rise in hatred of Israel is the number of immigrants added to Spain in recent years.” Indeed, several of Rave’s harassers in the video do indeed appear to be immigrants.
Related: With Amnesty Passed, Is This the End of Spain?
There’s a moment in the video that might be overlooked by some, but which I found very significant. While Rave talks to a woman holding a Palestinian flag, a younger woman walks by and kisses it. It’s a blatant display of moral preening, the kind we’re so used to seeing on U.S. campuses from young people who often can’t even identify what bodies of water they are referring to when they chant “From the river to the sea.” Just as you would never see these college students kiss an American flag (let alone wave one), I very much doubt this young woman would ever kiss a Spanish flag.
Another young woman in the video explained that the Spanish media tells everyone they should be against Israel, while an official from the conservative Popular Party said the media accepts Hamas’ lies as fact. Is it any wonder that young people growing up in this media environment and under an anti‑Israel government consider themselves morally justified in hating the Jewish state?
Lest this be dismissed as a purely European problem, consider what’s happening in New York City under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. At recent pro-intifada protests, demonstrators have chanted, “Globalize the intifada,” “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel will fall,” “Death to the IDF,” and “We don’t want two states—we want all of it.” Hezbollah flags have appeared openly at these events.
New Yorkers — and all Americans — should take notice. When the flags of terrorist groups gain greater social acceptance than the flag of a democratic state, something has gone seriously wrong.
Editor’s Note: New York City is now facing the consequences of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist takeover.
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