Israel as the scapegoat for a Spanish train tragedy - opinion

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, however absurd they may be. They can believe the Earth is flat or even suspect that Jews sank the Titanic (per the classic “Iceberg, Goldberg, what's the difference?” joke).The problem begins when unhinged notions make their way onto public television, where conspiracy theories acquire the appearance of legitimate political analysis. And that is precisely what happened in Spain.On October 28, two high-speed trains collided near Urda, in the province of Toledo, killing, as of this writing, 69 people. As the country struggled to absorb the tragedy, families waited for news of their loved ones, and investigators began examining what had gone wrong, an old and convenient suspect emerged: Israel.On RTVE, Spain's publicly funded broadcaster, guest commentator José Miguel Villarroya suggested a possible Israeli connection to the disaster.Villarroya, a historian and commentator known for his hostility toward Israel and nostalgia for the GDR (German Democratic Republic), alleged that a French company responsible for carrying out railway safety testing is linked to Israeli capital.He also invoked supposed threats by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Spain. The implication was unmistakable: Israel might somehow have been behind the catastrophe.There was, of course, no evidence. But who needs evidence when the suspect is Israel?El Televisero, a digital news site published by HuffPost Spain, maintained that presenter Jesús Cintora had…