Amparo Rubiales resigns from the presidency of PSOE Sevilla to "resolve the controversy" after calling Bendodo a "Nazi Jew"

The controversy over his insults on social networks to the general coordinator of the Popular Party, Elías Bendodo, has ended up costing the president of the Sevillian PSOE and one of the historic socialist leaders who were still on the front line in that formation.. Amparo Rubiales has not resisted the pressure, both internal and external, after calling Bendodo a “Nazi Jew” and then a “Nazi” on her Twitter profile and refusing to rectify and apologize.

The PSOE of Seville has communicated this Thursday, on the same social network where the insults were spread, Rubiales' resignation from the position he had been occupying, a position without executive power but with a high symbolic content. The decision would have been made by Rubiales herself, according to the official version of the Sevillian PSOE, although since the controversy broke out the discrepancy with her party had been evident, which had repeatedly asked her to excuse herself, ignoring her.

According to this official version, he has now taken a step back and leaves the leadership of the party “to settle the controversy created as a result of his tweet and after the PSOE of Seville asked for a rectification” that has not arrived. “We appreciate your availability and work at this stage,” continues the statement released by the Sevillian PSOE.

“The leadership of the PSOE of Seville is totally disassociated from the statements that the socialist Amparo Rubiales has made in a personal capacity on its social networks. The party leadership considers these statements absolutely rejectable and has requested a rectification from Amparo Rubiales,” said the Sevillian PSOE in statements to Europa Press.

Rubiales called Elías Bendodo a “Nazi Jew” last Saturday. On Wednesday, the general coordinator of the PP answered him by degrading such a description, at the same time that the PP called for his “immediate” dismissal and that the Spanish Jewish associations condemned the “anti-Semitism” of those words.

Until moments before presenting his resignation, Rubiales not only has not completely withdrawn his insult, but has insisted this Thursday on calling Bendodo a “Nazi”. This is the tweet that the leader has written to, presumably, rectify: “Someone's religion, origin or ethnicity should never be used for political criticism even if, as in my case, the intention was to point out a serious inconsistency. My apologies and correction: Bendodo is a Nazi.”

At the insistence of Rubiales, the PP announced that it was going to present a complaint for “hate crime” this Thursday in an investigative court in Seville, so that “the appropriate measures are taken before an action that cannot be consented to or tolerated in a society like the Spanish one that has fought to banish this type of attack,” the popular said in a statement.

It must be specified that Bendodo is Jewish, which adds a plus of intentionality to Rubiales' words. Associations against anti-Semitism claim that calling a Jew a “Nazi” trivializes the genocide carried out by the Hitler regime against the Jews of Europe during the Second World War.

“Calling someone a Nazi undermines the criminal dimension that Nazism entailed,” said the Platform against Anti-Semitism, which has called Rubiales' first comment “contemptible” for “using the origin, tendencies, belonging, religion, etc., of an opponent to make political criticism”.

And the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain has assured that “it is anti-Semitism since Bendodo's Jewish origin is pointed out when no other politician is identified with his origin or religion.”

After Rubiales' insistence on calling Bendodo a “Nazi”, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has asked the PSOE leadership to dismiss this historic socialist and feminist. “Attitudes like this cannot have a place in politics and I know that the majority of socialist militants do not share them. It is unheard of that this person continues in the PSOE,” Feijóo tweeted.. “Our society is tired of those who sow hatred and confrontation. All my support for Elías Bendodo”, he added.

Rubiales' outburst (“it is really the speech of a Nazi Jew”) responded to some statements by Feijóo's number three, who had described Pedro Sánchez as a “cheat” for wanting “that the Spaniards cannot go to vote”, in reference to the date chosen for the general elections, July 23, in full summer vacation.