Chorus of anti-Israel voices gathers at Alex Soros summit in Spain
Attendees included Sen. Chris Murphy, Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazilian President Lula de Silva
Elisa Schu/picture alliance via Getty Images
Alex Soros speaks during the presentation of the European Civil Rights Prize for Sinti and Roma on Oct, 23 2025.
A range of Israel critics, from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) to Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi, were among those gathered in Barcelona, Spain, over the weekend for the inaugural Global Progressive Summit, backed by left-wing philanthropist Alex Soros.
The conference brought together representatives from over 40 countries, offering, according to its website, “a necessary alternative to conservative and far-right forces.” Among its goals, the site says, is “to make progressive solutions visible and credible, proving they are the key to humanity’s prosperity.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, an outspoken critic of Israel who called on Saturday to downgrade EU-Israel relations, hosted the two-day conference, whose American attendees also included Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, with Soros.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent video messages.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose government petitioned the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israeli leaders, Brazilian President Lula de Silva and U.K. Justice Secretary David Lammy were also in attendance.
Tibi is one of the Knesset’s veteran Arab lawmakers and a former advisor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Other prominent attendees included former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh; Neera Tanden, CEO of the Center for American Progress; and Owen Jones, a writer and former advisor to former U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was stripped of his leadership position and ultimately booted from the party over his antisemitic views.
Bringing some ideological diversity to the attendee lineup were Clinton, who has been broadly supportive of Israel in recent years; Tanden, a longtime Clinton confidante; and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, a supporter of Israel and chairman of the Albanian Socialist Party. (Clinton’s longtime aide Huma Abedin is married to Alex Soros.)
Murphy said in his remarks that Trump “is out to end our democracy. We are not on the verge of a totalitarian takeover, we are in the middle of it.”
Lula called on U.N. Security Council members to “fulfill their obligation and guarantee peace,” and “stop this madness of war, because the world cannot bear anymore wars.”
Sánchez spoke about “attacks against the multilateral system, the repeated attempts to undermine international law and the dangerous normalization of the use of force,” an apparent reference to the recent war in Iran.
”They know their vision of how the world should be ordered is falling apart due to the tariffs and wars,” he added.
Soros, one of the progressive movement’s most influential donors and son of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, has also been outspoken against the war in Iran, praising Spain for refusing to allow the U.S. to use bases on its soil and reprimanding other European countries for not doing the same.
Trump has criticized Sánchez for Spain’s recalcitrance regarding the Iran war, including on Saturday, writing on Truth Social: “Has anyone looked at how badly the country of Spain is doing. Their financial numbers, despite contributing almost nothing to NATO and their military defense, are absolutely horrendous. Sad to watch!”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar responded to Sánchez’s call to downgrade relations between the EU and Israel, writing on X that Jerusalem “will not accept a hypocritical lecture from someone who has relationships with totalitarian regimes that violate human rights, such as [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s Turkey and [Nicolas] Maduro’s Venezuela, a government that receives thanks from Iran’s brutal regime and terrorist organizations and has dedicated itself to spreading antisemitism.”
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