Editing Francisco Franco (section)

=== Treatment of Jews ===
{{Further|Francoist Spain and the Holocaust}}
Franco had a controversial association with Jews before and during World War II. He made [[antisemitic]] remarks in a speech in May 1939, and made similar remarks on at least six occasions during World War II.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/was-franco-the-good-fascist-1.62863 |title=Was Franco the 'good' fascist? |date=23 November 2015 |author=Robert Philpot |work=The Jewish Chronicle}}</ref> Franco believed in the existence of a "Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy",<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/all/far-from-helping-jews-franco%27s-regime-was-implacably-hostile-3Cbfl1pUc6mV7OzYeYMMVg | title=Far from helping Jews, Franco's regime was implacably hostile|work=The Jewish Chronicle|author=Robert Philpot | date=6 July 2023}}</ref> and he deliberately framed the Spanish Civil War as a conflict against Jews and Bolsheviks.<ref>[https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-dictator-franco-built-his-regime-vilifying-the-jews-then-tried-to-hide-it/ How dictator Franco built his regime vilifying the Jews, then tried to hide it] Times of Israel.  JP O'Malley. 5 September 2023.</ref> In 2010, documents were discovered showing that on 13 May 1941, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite web |date=22 June 2010 |title=WWII document reveals: General Franco handed Nazis list of Spanish Jews |url=http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/wwii-document-reveals-general-franco-handed-nazis-list-of-spanish-jews-1.297546 |work=Haaretz}}</ref> Franco supplied [[Reichsführer-SS]] Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' [[Final Solution]], with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain.<ref name="ReferenceA" />

Contrarily, according to ''Anti-Semitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution'' (2005):

:Throughout the war, Franco rescued many Jews. ... Just how many Jews were saved by Franco's government during World War II is a matter of historical controversy. Franco has been credited with saving anywhere from approximately 30,000 to 60,000 Jews; most reliable estimates suggest 45,000 is a likely figure.{{sfn|Levy|2005|p=675}}

Preston writes that, in the post-war years, "a myth was carefully constructed to claim that Franco's regime had saved many Jews from extermination" as a means to deflect foreign criticism away from allegations of active collaboration with the Nazi regime.{{sfn|Preston|2020|p=342}} As early as 1943, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concluded that the Allies were likely to win the war. [[José Félix de Lequerica y Erquiza]] became Foreign Minister in 1944 and soon developed an "obsession" with the importance of the "Jewish card" in relations with the former Allied powers.{{sfn|Payne|2008|p=232}}

Spain provided visas for thousands of French Jews to transit Spain en route to Portugal to escape the Nazis. Spanish diplomats protected about 4,000 Jews living in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. At least some 20,000 to 30,000 Jews were allowed to pass through Spain in the first half of the War. Jews who were not allowed to enter Spain, however, were sent to the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp or deported to [[Vichy France|France]]. In January 1943, after the German embassy in Spain told the Spanish government that it had two months to remove its Jewish citizens from Western Europe, Spain severely limited visas, and only 800 Jews were allowed to enter the country. After the war, Franco exaggerated his contributions to saving Jews in order to improve Spain's image in the world and end its international isolation.{{sfn|Levy|2005|p=675}}{{sfn|Avni|1982}}{{page needed|date=June 2022}}{{sfn|Alpert|2009}}<ref>{{Cite web|title=Spain|url=https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206034.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308174931/https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206034.pdf|archive-date=8 March 2021|website=yadvashem.org}}</ref>

After the war, Franco did not [[international recognition of Israel|recognise Israeli statehood]], and maintained strong relations with the [[Arab world]]. Israel expressed disinterest in establishing relations, although there were some informal economic ties between the two countries in the later years of Franco's governance.<ref>{{Cite journal|volume=37|title=Spanish–Israeli Relations and Systemic Pressures, 1956–1986: The Cases of GATT, NATO and the EEC|journal=Historia y Politica|first=Guy|last=Setton|pages=334–5}}</ref> In the aftermath of the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967, Franco's Spain was able to utilise its positive relationship with Egyptian President [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] and the Arab world (due to not having recognised the Israeli state) to allow 800 [[Egyptian Jews]], many of Sephardic ancestry, safe passage out of [[Egypt]] on Spanish passports.<ref name="forward">{{cite web|url=https://forward.com/culture/374948/how-spain-saved-egypts-jewish-population-after-the-six-day-war/|title=The Angel Of Cairo: How A Spaniard Saved Egypt's Jews|work=The Forward|date=19 June 2017|access-date=15 May 2019|first1=Jeffrey|last1=Boxer}}</ref> This was undertaken through Francoist Spain's Ambassador to Egypt, [[Ángel Sagaz Zubelzu]], on the understanding that emigrant Jews would not immediately emigrate to [[Israel]] and that they would not publicly use the case as political propaganda against Nasser's Egypt.<ref name="forward"/> On 16 December 1968, the Spanish government formally revoked the 1492 [[Alhambra Decree|Edict of Expulsion]] against Spain's Jewish population.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/12/17/archives/1492-ban-on-jews-is-voided-by-spain-1492-ban-on-jews-is-voided-in.html|title=1492 Ban on Jews Is Voided by Spain|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=17 December 1968|access-date=15 May 2019|first1=Richard|last1=Ederspecial}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-this-day-spain-lifts-the-expulsion-1.5377424 |title=This Day in Jewish History 1968: Spain Revokes the Expulsion of the Jews |last=Green |first=David |date=6 December 2015 |website=Haaretz |quote=Although technically the Inquisition had been dismantled with the passage into law of Spain’s constitution of 1869, which abolished religious discrimination, it was not until this 1968 legislation that the regime under Francisco Franco explicitly invited Jews to come and openly practice their faith in Spain.}}</ref>

Franco personally and many in the government openly stated that they believed there was an international conspiracy of Freemasons and Communists against Spain, sometimes including Jews or "[[Judeo-Masonry]]" as part of this.{{sfn|Bautista Delgado|2009|pp=303, 321–322}} While under the leadership of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government explicitly endorsed the [[Catholic Church]] as the religion of the nation state and did not endorse liberal ideas such as [[religious pluralism]] or [[separation of Church and State]] found in the [[Spanish Constitution of 1931|Republican Constitution of 1931]]. Following the Second World War, the government enacted the "Spanish Bill of Rights" (''Fuero de los Españoles''), which extended the right to private worship of non-Catholic religions, including Judaism, though it did not permit the erection of religious buildings for this practice and did not allow non-Catholic public ceremonies.{{sfn|Rein|2013|pp=17–18}} With the pivot of Spain's foreign policy towards the [[United States]] during the [[Cold War]], the situation changed with the 1967 Law on Religious Freedom, which granted full public religious rights to non-Catholics.{{sfn|Rodgers|2002|p=337}} The overthrow of Catholicism as the explicit state religion of Spain and the establishment of state-sponsored religious pluralism would be realised in Spain in 1978, with the new [[Constitution of Spain]], three years after Franco's death.