Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida offered on Thursday Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai to form a twin city partnership after Barcelona announced it was suspending its own agreement with the Israeli city. In a video posted on Twitter, conservative Martínez-Almeida said, “It’s a great occasion to show Tel Aviv, and by extension all of Israel, that Madrid remains clear on which is the correct side to stand on. Clear that we need to strengthen our relations with a democracy, a state of law, like Israel. We won’t go along, won’t agree with any behavior which smells of antisemitism. This has no place in our society.” 

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Barcelona’s Mayor Ada Colau claimed that more than 100 organizations and over 4,000 citizens demanded she defend the human rights of Palestinians.

“For this reason, as mayor, I have written to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to inform him that I have suspended temporarily the institutional relationship between Barcelona and Tel Aviv,” said Colau, arguing that Israel was guilty of “apartheid” and the “flagrant and systematic violation of human rights.” 

In her letter to Netanyahu, Colau wrote that her office was asked in a petition by Barcelona residents to “condemn the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, support Palestinian and Israeli organizations working for peace, and break off the twinning agreement between Barcelona and Tel Aviv.”