The rupture of the twinning with Tel Aviv decided by the mayoress of Barcelona not only supposes a controversial decision, due to the way in which it was adopted, without going through the plenary session. Or for not differentiating the policy of a State that violates the rights of Palestinians with the personality of a city that turns out to be the most open in Israel. It constitutes a step back in the so-called city diplomacyof which the Catalan capital had been a pioneer since the time of Pasqual Maragall. In accordance with the foundations of this sub-state diplomacy, the arguments put forward by Ada Colau to suspend the tripartite agreement between Barcelona, Tel Aviv and Gaza should serve the opposite, that is, to strengthen the ties between the three cities. The mayor maintains that the repression exercised by the Israeli government against the Palestinians and the lack of compliance with the rights that they have recognized by the United Nations is the reason for the suspension. With that, contravenes what is the very essence of the links between municipalities, its ability to overcome the limits that constrain relations between governments. The so-called city diplomacy was devised precisely as a way of bypass state interests and the flagrant human rights violations they commit, such as Israel’s systematic occupation of Palestinian land.
It is surprising that a political formation like the Comuns, which aspires to be recognized for granting city councils a specific role on the international scene, has allowed itself to be carried away by such a short-term vision that it is impossible to separate it from the pre-election times who lives in Barcelona More than acting in defense of the Palestinians, what Colau has done has been to sacrifice an opportunity, however small, to intervene in favor of dialogue through the tripartite agreement signed with Gaza and Tel Aviv in 1998. The mayor has thrown away a long tradition of cooperation based on the role that cities acquire in a globalized world that erodes the role of nation states to the benefit of other actors.
Adding an alleged request by the mayor of Gaza to break relations with Tel Aviv, or exhibiting the understandable applause of many Palestinians fed up with Israeli politics does not help to get to the bottom of the issue. If relations between cities had to be subordinated to State policies, Barcelona would have had to suspend the relations with Isfahan, an Iranian city where a soccer player recently faced a death sentence for defending the freedom of women in his country. It is paradoxical that Ada Colau’s decision coincides with the attitude of Likud, which has been against, from day one, the agreement signed by the mayor of Tel Aviv. Recent history has shown that the absolute isolation of regimes that violate human rights does not have the desired effects. To favor them in Israel and Palestine, and defend those who are in favor of the coexistence of two states, respecting the agreements of the international community, it is always better to promote cultural, social and economic cooperation between cities than look for a few moments of notoriety cutting all ties.