A court in Valencia dismissed a lawsuit against an artist and an art collective for displaying a “piece of art” depicting an X-mas tree with a Star of David at its top and a swastika at its base, with the heads of children with bleeding bullet holes hanging on the tree.

The display, with its antisemitic tropes linking Jews to the murder of babies, a hint to blood libels of the past, shocked the Jewish community in Spain. The lawsuit was filed by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) and the Movement Against Intolerance (MCI) after the artwork was displayed at the 2024 Fallas festival as a representation of the “genocide” that Israel allegedly committed in Gaza.

The lawsuit states that the “‘piece of art’ portraying an X-mas tree in which the traditional star that crowns the tree been replaced by a Star of David, the symbol of the Jewish people, with a base in the form of a Nazi swastika, and the beheaded skulls of dead babies with gunshot wounds hanging from the tree is an ‘affront to Jews’ and ‘constitutes a hate crime against the Jewish people.'”

The judge ruled that freedom of expression outweighs any other value and that the public exposed to the work understands that the art “is about criticism in a ‘certain context.'”

The ruling stated that the artwork “does not exceed the limits of freedom of expression of an artistic work protected by the Spanish constitution,” adding that the court disagrees with the prosecution’s claim that the artwork is a form of hate speech.

The art collective and artist were emboldened by the verdict, with the collective even issuing a statement saying: “Our group was falsely accused of a hate crime against the Jewish people. Freedom of expression prevailed over the propaganda maneuver that was attempted to be created around us. We will continue to criticize war, climate denial, and social injustice. We will continue to use satire as a legitimate means of criticism.”

The Spanish freedom of expression and antisemitic tropes are on display again at the 2025 Fallas Festival, with a “piece of art” depicting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in what appears to be a Nazi uniform, with a menorah symbol on his left arm, a Magen Dovid on his belt buckle, holding Hitler’s Mein Kampf book in one hand and a bomb with an American flag pointing downwards in the other. Under his feet is a small girl among the ruins of houses, holding a Palestinian flag and crying to be rescued. The “artwork” is inscribed with the words: “Stop the genocide in Gaza.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)