The Revolutionary Workers’ Current (Corriente Revolucionaria de Trabajadores, CRT), the Spanish affiliate of the Morenoite Socialist Workers’ Party (PTS) in Argentina and Permanent Revolution in France, has published an article on Izquierda Diario hailing the Spanish parliament’s proposal to halt arms sales to Israel as a product of “mobilisation.” It typifies the middle-class politics of pseudo-left tendencies like the CRT, which promote illusions that mass protests can pressure imperialist governments to reverse course and oppose genocide.
Under the title “End of arms trade with Israel? Parliament processes a law against exports to genocidal states,” the article explains that the parliamentary law initiative will ban all arms sales to any country under investigation by the International Criminal Court, explicitly targeting Israel. It seeks to ban exports of weapons, military technology, riot control equipment, and military-use fuels, with tighter inspections at ports and airports.
The initiative was first called by the State Network Against the Occupation in Palestine (RESCOP), which has led mass anti-genocide protests for the past 18 months. RESCOP is politically dominated by the Stalinist Communist Party of Spain and Pabloite Anticapitalistas, linked to the “Left Populist” Sumar coalition currently governing with the social-democratic PSOE, and by the trade unions CCOO and UGT, both aligned with the PSOE-Sumar government.
The proposal was soon taken up by pseudo-left parties such as Sumar and Podemos and submitted in parliament, along with regional nationalist formations including ERC, Junts, and EH Bildu, and backed by the PSOE.
While the proposal cleared its initial parliamentary phase, its future remains uncertain, subject to amendments and behind-the-scenes deals. Even the CRT concedes that the PSOE–Sumar government could have enacted it by decree, just as it did to ram through a record increase in military spending without public debate, but chose not to. The reason is clear: while they wanted to avoid any scrutiny over their unpopular war budget, they welcomed a token debate on “solidarity” with Palestine, during which they would posture as opponents of genocide.
Yet, CRT presents this as proof that persistent protest can force meaningful change. It highlights Catalonia’s closure of its minuscule foreign affairs office in Tel Aviv as another supposed “victory” for the mass mobilisation. CRT writes:
Despite their symbolic gestures and the uncertain future of this bill, the reality is that any significant change within imperialist countries comes from sustained and persistent mobilisation in support of Palestine.
Another example is the closure of the Generalitat of Catalonia’s foreign affairs office in Tel Aviv after ten years of operation, due to pressure from the mobilisations. A measure announced on the very same day that the bill was being discussed in the Spanish Congress. A success of the pro-Palestinian mobilisations, which for years have fought in Catalonia against the existence of this office.
Whether or not basic measures such as an arms embargo by Western governments go ahead continues to depend on internationalist solidarity and mobilisation in favour of Palestine. One cannot place any trust in parliamentary manoeuvres or in international law, which has either supported the occupation or been persistently ignored by imperialist countries when convenient.
Similar illusions are peddled across by pseudo-left forces across Europe. In Britain, the Stop the War Coalition claims “cracks” are appearing “in the monolithic establishment support for Netanyahu,” mooting a “reset” in the Keir Starmer Labour government’s “approach” with Israel and of how “Even Donald Trump appears to have realised that uncritical support for Netanyahu is unsustainable.”
But the imperialist complicity in the Gaza genocide is material, financial, logistical, and ideological. Spanish, European, and US imperialism have armed, financed, defended, and justified the Zionist regime in its decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people. Since 7 October, these powers have given a green light for the mass murder of over 53,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the destruction of every university, hospital, and major civil institution in the strip, and the forced starvation of its civilian population.
Madrid has proceeded with brazen hypocrisy. It repeatedly made token gestures—pretending to halt arms exports, verbally recognising a nonexistent Palestinian state, supporting South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice, or calling for Israel’s exclusion from cultural events like Eurovision—while continuing to arm Israel.
Between October 2023 and March 2025, Spain exported 88 arms shipments worth €5.3 million to Israel, including ammunition and drone parts, despite an alleged suspension. It awarded over €1 billion in contracts to Israeli arms firms. Spanish ports remain key transit hubs for weapons bound for Israel. This underscores the rank hypocrisy behind PSOE–Sumar’s “solidarity” with Gaza.
By claiming imperialist governments can be pressured into halting genocide, the CRT works to tie the working class to the imperialist state. Brazenly indifferent to mass outrage, this state serves the interests of the ruling class. Spain supports Israel not out of sentiment but strategic interest as Israel is a key proxy for Western imperialism in the Middle East.
The recent rhetorical shifts among European governments are not driven by public outrage but by geopolitical necessity. As the WSWS noted, “The joint statement issued by the UK, France and Canada on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is not opposition to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. It is an attempt by Prime Ministers Sir Keir Starmer and Mark Carney and President Emanuel Macron to provide themselves with an alibi for mass murder and ethnic cleansing.”
Amid growing tensions with Washington, the Ukraine war crisis, and fear of domestic unrest, European powers are adjusting course. They are not seeking to defend Palestinians, but to salvage their credibility and create an alibi for their of collusion with genocide, made even as their weapons shipments are offloaded in Israel.
Protests will not stop Israel’s genocidal campaign, described by far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as a plan to “conquer, cleanse and stay,” aiming to forcibly displace Palestinians under the “Trump plan.” Netanyahu has said the war will end only when Gaza is disarmed and the Trump framework fully implemented.
The lesson of nearly two years of genocide is clear: protest marches alone are not enough. Neither appeals to the PSOE–Sumar government nor moral outrage can halt the slaughter. What is needed is the political mobilisation of the international working class, aimed not at pleading the imperialist state, but at waging an uncompromising political struggle against it.
The CRT works to block such a development. By promoting the idea that the state can be pushed to “do the right thing,” it chains opposition to bourgeois politics and the very structures complicit in the genocide. Indeed, CRT claims that the main force that can push this pressure are the trade union bureaucracies, CCOO and UGT, which actively support the PSOE–Sumar government and have remained silent on Spain’s arms exports.
In fact, the union bureaucracies are now open cheerleaders of Spain’s military spending increases. UGT Secretary General Pepe Álvarez justified this by calling for European “strategic autonomy,” calling for increased arms production and a defence tax on European citizens.
These forces are driven by profit, power, and imperialist dominance. The question facing workers is how to stop the Gaza genocide and the broader imperialist offensive in the Middle East, as well as on the interconnected fronts: Ukraine, where NATO is waging a proxy war against Russia, or the Pacific, where the US and its allies are surrounding China with military bases.
Only the international unification and mobilisation of workers and youth against the Gaza genocide and imperialist war on Iran can halt a deepening third world war. Mass opposition must be freed from the debilitating influence of parties that try to tie workers and youth to imperialist governments. Amid the mass protests against the genocide that have erupted in America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the only way forward is fighting for a Trotskyist perspective against pro-imperialist parties like Podemos, Sumar and the CRT.