Why is Isabel Díaz Ayuso one of the most significant voices in her party that refuse to minimally criticize Netanyahu or Gaza's massacre, when Feijóo himself did it in Congress this Wednesday and 82% of Spaniards say they are horrified? Why does it maintain the thesis that the fault of the killing is only Hamas, against what more and more countries and organisms such as the UN say?
The president of the Community of Madrid-as well as the mayor of the city, José Luis Martínez-Almeida-has always had a political inclination for the Israel of Netanyahu in the form of public recognitions and political decisions favorable to a specific group of Jewish entrepreneurs and powerful people in Madrid: the promoters and employers of the Jewish Hispanic Foundation (FHJ).
On the list, Alicia Koplowitz, businesswoman, Marquise and one of the wealthiest women in Spain. His niece Alicia Alcocer, daughter of Esther Koplowitz and president of Cementos Portland Valderrivas; the lawyer Javier Cremades, president of the homonymous law firm; Juan Luis Cebrián, former president of Hurry, Juan Ignacio Entrecanales Franco, Executive Vice President of Acciona, involved in Amaños in Research in the plot Santos Cerdán, or the musician Nacho Cano.
Based in the Salamanca neighborhood of the capital, this private entity was founded in 2016 by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, just graduated from the Ministry of Justice. The FHJ was the gold brooch for a star measure that also promoted the minister: The automatic acquisition of Spanish nationality For descendants of the Jews who were expelled from Spain. This Jewish Foundation is a private and different organism from the Jewish community of Madrid, which represents some 15,000 Jewish citizens living in the capital.
As he picked up in his day The Boe, Gallardón was accompanied as vice president David Hatchwell (today president of the FHJ), considered a Zionist, owner of EXCEM – a giant of the consulting, real estate, cement, cybersecurity – in addition to Sheldon Adelson's right hand in his adventure of setting up a Las Vegas type casino in Madrid, a project that ended up failing. Little prodigal in interviews, in which he has given foreign media has expressed his vision of the conflict, with no criticism of the media used by Netanyahu (whom he made Donations for its electoral campaign in 2014, as the country reported) and against Pedro Sánchez –of whom he said he was using the situation for his interests-. It also loads against the “Spanish radical left financed by Iran”, in addition to being presented as “Mentor” of President Ayuso on Argentine television. He has described as “genocide” the terrorist attack of Hamas of October 7, 2023 in an interview with Okdiario, but does not condemn Israel's massacre in Gaza, as many Jews have done in Israel or the world. One of the last, actress Hannah Einbinder at the Emmy Awards.
Parallel strategy with Ayuso
Hatchwell is too ACOM co -founderAssociation that has denounced “political organizations and parties” who have promoted the exclusion of the Israel-Premier Tech team from the return to Spain, a complaint that the judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz is studying if he admits to process. In the political sphere he has received the support of President Díaz Ayuso, who announced this Thursday that the gold medal will be awarded to the organizers of the event, in addition to personally to greet the Israeli team, financed by the Netanyahu government and whose mission is to make marketing of the country.
Hatchwell has always had a good relationship with Madrid governments and the PP, starting with the support of Gallardón and ending by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, which announced in 2024 a temporary assignment to the FHJ of a public building of 2,000 square meters for 30 years. There the Hispanic Museum (In competition with the Sephardic Museum of Toledo), in one of the most sought -after roads of the capital, Castelló Street, and in a building of high historical value, whose facade and other elements are protected.
To the contest to rent this space, which Before it housed an electric substation from Metro de Madrid Today in disuse, only this museum offer was presented, a single bidder for that public contract. The Foundation will pay 60,000 euros per rent, but the first three years established a lack and will not pay anything until 2027.
“Aware of our legacy, we have acted,” President Ayuso said in January 2024. The opening has been delayed since the first date planned by 2025 and now its premiere is set in March 2027.
The current regional government has facilitated with this assignment the dream that Hatchwell pursues and its foundation for years: to have a huge and modern Jewish cultural center to “publicize the immense cultural heritage left by Judaism in Spain,” says its website. An objective that was attempted in 2020 and did not work. That year, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida-also one of the last PP politicians to condemn the human rights attack in Gaza and who refuses to qualify it as a genocide- He decided to yield to that same foundation a municipal space of 3,000 square meters on the Paseo del Prado – the occupied and self -managed space – that had been evicted a few months before. Despite the announcement, the transaction ended up declining because the Foundation did not present the necessary documentation.
In December 2023, after the attacks of Hamas and with the bombings of the civilian population of Gaza on all the covers, the mayor made the decision to grant the medal of the city of Madrid to Israel. After two hard reports of the chroniclers of the town, he rectified to give it to “the Jewish community of Madrid”, since these awards must have connection with the city.
Another name that links Ayuso with Hatchwell is the musician Nacho Cano, an intimate friend of the president and patron of the Foundation. In addition, Hatchwell is the producer of some of the most expensive shows of the artist, such as Malinche, and became part of his board of directors in the Malinche The musical Spain society. At that time, Cano tried to lift an Aztec pyramid that would house a theater directed by him, something that José Luis Martínez-Almeida accessed. Neighborhood protests prevented the plans from curdling.
In addition to that friendship triangle and its sympathy with the Foundation, President Ayuso He has always been very close to the Jewish people In general, also before October 7, 2023. In 2020 he announced that he would modify the secondary school to add content on the Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula.
Last October, Yom Kipur was attended by Yom Kipur organized by the Jewish community of Madrid at the Beth Yaacov synagogue, in tribute to the victims of the Hamas terrorist attack, and has been especially close to the interests of the FHJ and its president. For example, he made godmother in the presentation of a documentary of the Foundation, always by the hand of Hatchwell, whose public position over Gaza is practically identical to that of the president.
eldiario.es has contacted the FHJ to speak with its president and to request information about the new museum and the relations of the Foundation with the presidency of the Community of Madrid without having received, for the moment, response. Presidency of the Community of Madrid has not wanted to assess the connection between Ayuso and the FHJ: “The president's position on Gaza has made it very clear in many occasions. There is nothing more to add about it.”