Zeinab Sabbah, the Palestinian dancer used in Israel’s flamenco video against Spain

Zeinah Sabbah lives in the flamenco-loving neighborhood of Sacromonte in Granada, Spain. She moved to Spain after fleeing Syria in 2013. She was born in the Syrian city of Daraa in 1990, but was forced to leave the country due to the war. Her parents experienced a similar situation half a century earlier: the two Palestinians were expelled from their homeland and moved to Syria in the 1960s.

Sabbah, 34, settled in Granada, learning flamenco and Spanish. Three years ago, she recorded a video of herself dancing flamenco with a fellow dancer. The idea was to promote the dance form, she told EL PAÍS. On Sunday, this footage was used by the Israeli Foreign Ministry in a new video attacking Spain for its decision to recognize the Palestinian state. The video — which mixes images of Hamas attacks with Sabbah dancing flamenco — was described as “scandalous” by Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares. For Sabbah, it is “very sad.”

Sabbah arrived in Spain without knowing flamenco. “Five years ago, I was learning to dance,” she tells EL PAÍS. And two years later, she recorded the video. She found out that it was used in Israel’s video from friends, she says, who sent her a link. “It’s you, what are you doing there?” they asked her. She couldn’t believe it. “They didn’t know I was Palestinian, that’s for sure,” she says.

The video was in an image bank and no one had asked her or the fellow dancer for permission to use it. Nor was the owner of the video, Javier Sanchez, contacted. Sanchez, who spoke to the Spanish TV network La Sexta about Sabbah and the video, said that “the last thing you expect is for someone to use something related to the art of your city and combine it with terrorist acts.”

Sabbah, who works as a flamenco dancer and in the hospitality industry, says she is upset with how her video was used by Israel, but is mostly upset “with what is happening in Palestine.” “Whatever distress I feel is nothing compared to what is happening there and what people there are going through,” she says. “My [suffering] is nothing compared to theirs, that’s why I’m almost ashamed to talk about it,” she adds.

The dancer is also angry because, she says, Israel has made fun of Spain’s culture to criticize the country, even though it is completely unrelated. Israel also posted videos targeting Ireland and Norway, the other two countries that have officially recognized the Palestinian state. Each video mixes national stereotypes of the country with images of Hamas.

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