The meticulous account by the journalists of The New York Times published by l’ARA confirms what was obvious from three hours away: it was Netanyahu who dragged Trump into the war against Iran. The Israeli prime minister enthusiastically sold him a product of the type “What could go wrong?”, tailored to the scattered and capricious attention span of an egomaniacal president. And it worked.

This afternoon, Esquerra's spokesperson in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián, will present in Barcelona his proposal for a broad left-wing front, which he already presented in Madrid in February. He will be accompanied by Irene Montero, from Podem, but neither Oriol Junqueras nor Elisenda Alamany will be there.And they won't be there because they don't agree with Rufián's proposal to unite everything to the left of the PSOE to curb the far-right. Basically, because Esquerra's objective is to replace the socialists in Catalonia, not to position itself to their left. In the same way that for many years, and still now, first Convergència and then Junts occupied in Catalonia part of the space that the PP occupies in Spain, Esquerra has always wanted to get ahead of the PSC, and therefore Junqueras finds, to put it in current terms, that this is not his war, that if Podem or Sumar or Més Madrid have a representation problem, they will deal with it themselves.From here comes the headline of this chronicle, which is that Rufián is once again testing ERC's patience, and to be more precise, Junqueras', who said that he did not spend four years in prison to put Ada Colau as a candidate. The party leadership has seen how Rufián has started to fly solo, has created his own political and personal brand by expressing himself as if he were the critical conscience of the Spanish left, and goes so far as to recall that he lives in the Basque Country and works in Madrid but does not visit Catalonia much. The situation is ironic, because Rufián is a political creation of Junqueras, the personification of an intuition: for Esquerra to enter the metropolitan area of Barcelona, it was necessary to have a candidate who was like the majority of metropolitan voters. The bet was disruptive and it worked. Precisely because of this, Junqueras still needs Rufián with one year to go until the municipal elections. And Rufián obviously needs Esquerra for his project of left-wing synthesis throughout Spain.Meanwhile, this morning President Illa received Minister Puente at the Palau de la Generalitat, amid smiles of complicity. Puente's reluctance with the chaos of Renfe and Adif in Catalonia is shown by the fact that Illa and Puente concluded this meeting taking advantage of the minister's presence in Barcelona because yesterday evening he attended the presentation of the first edition of the Aena literary awards. The Secretary of State who came to live in Catalonia left after a month. The problems that were supposed to be solved in April are now said to be solved in June. Ila's government has discovered that it was not so easy to solve problems through good governance and reconciliation with Spain, thanks to having an allied government in Madrid. Neither with Rodalies, nor with financing, nor with almost anything. Good morning.

Early in the morning, a girl takes her dog out for its morning pee and, indeed, the animal lifts its leg and leaves its present dribbling around the corner and sliding down the paving stone. The girl looks at me with a sort of "So what?", and between her being sleepy and me being in a hurry, the autopilot decides it's too early to start the day with a lecture titled "Since last February, municipal ordinances have established that not diluting dog urine with water is punishable by a fine of up to 300 euros". The sequence ends well, because after a moment another pet owner, who has followed the scene from a distance, rinses the wall and the pavement with the water he was carrying in a small container.

In the end, tonight, Donald Trump has not ended with “an entire civilization”, because Iran and the United States have given themselves another fifteen days. Trump has found a temporary way out of this war without a clear objective and Iran has resisted and put its conditions on the table. Everyone has lost, in fact, we have all lost, but Trump and the ayatollahs will say they have won. The one who continues to go their own way is Israel, which has already said it does not feel concerned by this two-week ceasefire and will continue to attack southern Lebanon. In any case, this morning we have reasons to breathe a little relieved. And if you want to add a point of reflection, do not miss this article by philosophy professor Ferran Sáez Mateu, titled “Trump: how did we get here?”, in which he explains why people vote for him. “Many voters make a decision based on who they believe they are or what subjective threats they perceive”. Closer, three interesting posts, today. The first: the Spanish Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, has not dared to temporarily move Picasso's Guernica to the Basque Country, as the government of Vitoria had requested.Urtasun clings to the technicians' report which says that with the transfer, the painting could be damaged. The most progressive government in history will not take the symbolic step of exhibiting Guernica in the Basque Country. The reason interests us quite a bit: the work could be damaged. Like the frescoes of Sixena, right?Two: the Spanish government wants to change the Constitution to protect the right to abortion. They did it in France, because the extreme right, when it governs, rolls it back, and because in Spain, most abortions are not performed in public healthcare (in Catalonia, yes), but in private ones. The Spanish government will not achieve it, because to change the Constitution, a majority of ⅗ parts is needed, meaning the PP's votes are required, and the PP will not give them the votes. Why is the PSOE doing it? With the real argument of protecting rights, it forces the PP to say no and alienate itself from the female vote and align itself with VOX, with whom, moreover, they are agreeing on regional governments in Extremadura, Aragon, and Castile and León. And the elections in Andalusia are coming.And the third, and very symbolic: yesterday, the Spanish Episcopal Conference presented some details of the visit of Pope Leo XIV, in just two months. The theme of the trip will be “Lift your eyes”, which is exactly what Leo XIV himself will do in Barcelona when he goes out onto Sardenya street to bless from below the cross that has recently culminated the Sagrada Familia.Without the Sagrada Família, the Pope would not have moved from Rome, but if he came, he had to pass through Madrid (no need to explain why) and take the opportunity to make a trip that his predecessor Pope Francis would have liked to make, which is to go to the Canary Islands, a point of arrival for which thousands of Africans risk their lives trying to enter the European Union. No sooner said than done, here is the logo, of a kitsch and outdated design as has not been seen for a long time, in which the Sagrada Família appears in the middle, the Puerta de Alcalá on the left and the sea (which represents the Canary Islands, which surrounds it). And now for the best part. When presenting the trip, the Episcopal Conference says that, in this act of looking up, one finds “the recognition of God as a source of unity (Madrid), beauty (Barcelona), and charity (the Canary Islands)”.Given that you are chosen for some concept, it is fine that Barcelona is associated with beauty, but don't tell me it's not sensational that the recognition of God as a source of unity is Madrid. Madrid, destination unit in the spiritual, too. It is clear that this trip will not escape the same national tension that was already experienced in 1982 with the visit of John Paul II and in 2010 with that of Benedict XVI.Good morning.

When this article appears in print, we will already know if “a whole civilization” has died “this night”. After all, if God made the world in seven days, what could prevent the best president the Earth has ever seen since the appearance of Man from erasing Iran and its thousands of years of history in a single night? Trump's ability to turn everything he touches into shit is exhausting, day and night.

Today is one of those days when you don't even have time to get your bearings. We are waiting for Iran, because Trump seems determined not to give any more ultimatums. Yesterday he said: "We can destroy Iran in one night, and that night could be tomorrow," meaning, this coming dawn. This time it could be for real, because these extended ultimatums are starting to be a joke and because the crude language Trump has used these days shows more desperation than ability to intimidate the ayatollahs' regime, and that makes it even more dangerous. If his threat is fulfilled, the consequences could be catastrophic, almost unimaginable, beyond the deaths, the war crimes he will commit, and the world economy also going up in smoke.To understand how erratic and neronian Trump is, we only need to think that he has the world admiring the NASA trip to the Moon: human beings had never been so far from Earth, and this is extraordinary news and of national and almost worldwide unity, but Trump himself has counter-programmed himself with a war whose meaning he does not know and from which he does not know how to get out. He only knows how to boast about the rescue of the shot-down pilot (a meritorious operation, yes, because if the Iranians had taken a prisoner the political cost for Trump would have been very high), but when you look at it, Iran already has a great hostage, which is the Strait of Hormuz, on which we all depend.Speaking of Hormuz, we highly recommend the reports that our Head of International, Francesc Millan, is currently filing from the Middle East. Yesterday we read about him sailing through the Strait, and today we find him in the ultra-modern and very exposed Dubai.Not everything is misfortune: unemployment has fallen in Catalonia and the number of people who have jobs and are affiliated with Social Security is nearing records. It is good news, which unfortunately does not prevent people from working and not escaping poverty.And yesterday an old acquaintance, Jorge Fernández Díaz, went to trial accused of having participated in the theft of information from Luis Bárcenas that compromised the PP. The Kitchen plot allegedly paid bribes to Bárcenas' driver with money from reserved police funds. On the defendants' bench are one who was a minister, one who was a secretary of state, five commissioners, two inspectors, and two police officers. Rot to the bone of the State, a type of rot we know well, because some of these, starting with Fernández Díaz, appear in all the photos of the patriotic police.And today begins the Koldo case, which affects the PSOE: purchase of masks, contracts, cronyism and favors. Do these two trials have anything in common? Yes, that Fernández Díaz was of Rajoy's utmost trust and Ábalos was of Pedro Sánchez's utmost trust.And we end with a page that makes us think that the nightmare will continue in Rodalies. It is this one signed by Natàlia Vila. As you know, the service is provided with trains from 1990, and now the new ones were supposed to arrive. First they were supposed to arrive last year, then at the beginning of the year, and now they say "in the autumn", and most will be for Rodalies and few will come to Regionals, and they will be delivered over the next 4 years, until 2030. On top of that, some new trains that are already in the testing phase are already covered in graffiti. No further questions, your honor.Good morning.

Although Ayuso is understood when she speaks, this time her new creation –“the culture is universal”– does need translation. What she is saying is that only Madrid is universal and, therefore, the Guernica cannot be lent for nine months to the Basque Country, as requested by the Basque government to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the bombing of civilian populations by Hitler's aviation, an ally of Franco. With the full sentence it becomes clearer: “I think it's provincial, and I think that culture is universal”.

Oye Sherman (Maria Rovira) tells Àlex Gutiérrez that “anything you say out of pure common sense is woke”. In fact, just using the first part of the subject of the sentence could title an article, and even a whole book: “Anything you say”.Literally, what the scoundrels say now. And it is that things are like this: someone says “Good morning” and immediately someone jumps in with “Good morning will be for you, how you can tell you live off the system”, or with “Good morning? Don't you see it's raining?”. We have fully integrated that the cultural battle is played out at every turn and that, today, more important than what is said is who says it. Result: either you stop saying “Good morning”, in which case a voice is lost in the public square, or you continue saying it because you don't give a damn what the bitter ones, the professional offenders, or the haters say, in which case the incentive for debate in the same square is lost.It is also true that it is not the same anything you say as saying anything. If you send a primary message, you can't normally expect an elaborate response. Provocateurs are in their element. You only have to listen to the immense majority of political messages to see that they are constructed to annoy the adversary and not to leave them indifferent, and of course, if you throw a stone with the intention of hitting the mark, there will be a queue to pick it up and throw it back at you.We have lost the taste for considering the argument that tests ours, because this makes us feel insecure and, on the other hand, we have incorporated the taste for reading between the lines, because this makes us feel clever. So we end up overinterpreting any message, and naturally humor and irony have passed on to a better life. Despite everything, and more so today, Easter Monday, may we have a good day.

Racism is widespread. It will take the form of explicit xenophobia or emerge in daily microaggressions, but no society escapes it. Of course, neither does Catalan society, which thinks and lives in Catalan.But the racism in the stands during the Spain-Egypt match is theirs. In Catalonia we know it well. It is the product of Spanish nationalism, of a language and a religion ("Speak in Spanish!

It is true that Europe has benefited greatly from having a large part of its defense outsourced to the budgets of the United States, but Trump could reserve the role of the offended for a better cause. Because for decades, US security has been defended from American bases spread throughout Europe. And because 65% of European defense equipment orders are placed with North American companies, and that amounts to billions that have entered the American coffers and come from European budgets for decades.

Whistles at Egypt's anthem, chants of “Muslim who doesn’t jump!”, insults to Pedro Sánchez and the essential “Spanish Gibraltar!”. What is this if not Torrente going to Cornellà-El Prat yesterday to cheer on the Spanish team?Bring, bring the Spanish team to Catalonia, so that all the Vox voters come out to make racist chants.Racist and stupid. Because, as an Ara reader says today in their comments, “you have to be an idiot to go to see a match of your team, start shouting racist cries and chants, and end up insulting the best player on your own team.” Because, of course, these patriots have forgotten that if there is a player who can decisively contribute to Spain winning the World Cup again one day, it is a player named Lamine Yamal and he is Muslim. Not to mention whistling the Barça goalkeeper and former Espanyol player Joan Garcia on his debut for the national team. And they were not minority chants. At the end of the match, when asked about racism and xenophobia, the coach Luis de la Fuente (the one who applauded Rubiales on the day of “I am not going to resign”) replied that these people, “the further away from society, the better.” Impossible for them to be far away, they are society. They are a fraction of society that has a voice and a vote (Vox in Spain) which is a vote that is very much in line with their voice.

Judging by the chronicles full of admiration from the critics following Rosalía's concerts, the singer continues to turn her performances into milestones of artistic expression at the peak of vocal perfection, musical exuberance, visual spectacularity, and conceptual richness. There's no need to even mention the fans' reaction. In a few days, we will experience the phenomenon at the Palau Sant Jordi, in front of an audience that will already be devoted from the start, but who must be experiencing this avalanche of praise for the artist as the excited anticipation of an unforgettable night.

From this ruling by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia against Catalan (I say “against Catalan” because it seeks to prevent our language from being “armored” in classrooms) a clear conclusion can be drawn: only a state of its own guarantees the legal protection that any official language has in its own territory. It shouldn't necessarily be this way: in a truly plurinational state, Catalan would be as Spanish as Castilian. But that's not the case, and I don't think I'm mistaken if I say it never will be. The only language we have a constitutional duty to know is Castilian. This is proclaimed by Article 3 of the 1978 Constitution, which at the end also states that “the different linguistic modalities of Spain” are a richness “that will be the object of special respect and protection”. Well, it's good that they protect Catalan!  

The Department of Education has said that the court ruling this Monday against Catalan will not lead to any change in the day-to-day running of Catalan classrooms. But it has fallen short: in reality, it will not lead to any change in the day-to-day running of the Catalan language either, because the ruling in question is another chapter in the books that contain three centuries of prohibitions, persecutions, fines, and limitations of Catalan, dictated by Spain.

In an interview yesterday in La Vanguardia, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo stated that Pedro Sánchez is delaying the application of the amnesty to Carles Puigdemont. It is not new. Before, Feijóo had already said that Sánchez has deceived Carles Puigdemont with the amnesty law.

When the generation that lived through the Civil War saw us dawdling with food on the table, they lost patience and would say: "You should have gone through a war." It was a serious expression, laden with anger and frustration. It wasn't the time to answer anything, because that wasn't just another little battle, but the verbalization of the trauma of having known what it is to go hungry.For the moment, most of us continue not to go hungry (though queues can be seen at social centers and churches), but we have been experiencing wars for years now. Large-scale war, and quite close to home, has already become the constant framework within which our lives are unfolding. And the roar of conflicts is felt ever closer. And their effects, in our pockets or spirits, too. The survival kit was much more than advice for alarmists. How long will it be possible to continue leading this dual life, more or less normal and with future plans, if we live surrounded by fires?We are witnessing the atavistic struggle for political and economic power, but with an exponential killing capacity, which mixes war and spectacle, while we become impoverished and our prospects are impoverished. There is a hunger for certainties, for not going backwards, for not being cannon fodder at the orders of obscene politicians. There is a desire for effort to be recognized, for public discourse not to make reality even more obscene, for our children not to be forced to become cynics. There is a desire to ask ourselves who benefits from the return of war, even when it seemed that the last one had been a sufficiently dissuasive warning that the next one could be with stones.

A shiver of patriotism, pride and deep satisfaction runs down the Spanish spine: Eivissa will continue to be Ibiza in Article 69 of the Constitution. The trumpets sound. It is a great triumph for the Popular Party with the invaluable collaboration of the PSOE, which abstained in the vote to save the result of another vote, the one that has given the green light for the island of Formentera to have a senator from now on. Catalan as a return.They call themselves non-nationalists, but there is no one more nationalist under the sun. They say their heart is bigger than yours because it fits two flags (in reality only one is the right one, and the other is decorative), but their brain must be smaller, because it only fits one language. They present themselves as cosmopolitans and, before they have even learned to say Cesc, they get flustered when the Barça goalkeeper, Joan Garcia, called up to the Spanish national football team, explains, when asked by a journalist, that his surname is pronounced in Catalan.In Vinaròs, the City Council wants less Valencian and more Castilian in the streets and shops. Citizen pressure has prevented it, for now. It is a new reminder that the Sénia is the most watched border in southern Europe. Invisible, but watched. They are the ones who say they are in favor of uniting and not separating, but they separate Catalan from Valencian and invent LAPAO. They affirm that borders are a thing of the past, but they spent decades putting borders on TV3. Anyway, no need to continue; we know them by heart. Fighting them is tiring (and very unequal), but it gives Catalan the status of a reason to live and love.

We arrive at Easter, at the school holidays, the departure operations and the monas, stating that the return will be tough. Everything is rising due to the war in Iran, and since the end of the war is not in sight, the damage to our pockets from this inflation will last for a few weeks, at least. Yesterday evening, Trump pulled ten more days of ultimatum deadline out of the hat for the ayatollahs, while he systematically lies every day (and a lot, because he doesn't stop talking) just to prevent oil from continuing to rise in price and the stock markets from continuing to sink. He just keeps saying the war is won, but the Strait of Hormuz continues to be dominated by Iran, and the regime has not fallen. Meanwhile, in Spanish politics, there has been the announced change that could influence the future of the common financing system that applies to us. Yesterday, Vice President Montero resigned to go to Andalusia and his replacement will be Carlos Cuerpo, until now Minister of Finance. A doctor in economics, polyglot, technician, he does not have a PSOE membership card, a man who does not shout, an economist prepared to sit in Brussels or Washington or wherever; nothing to do with the mercurial Montero. And his place at the Ministry of Finance is taken by Arcadi España, a Valencian from President Ximo Puig's circle, who considers himself a federalist, who has often denounced how poorly funded the Valencian Community is, and who will have to move forward, seemingly with conviction, with the new system agreed with Esquerra. They say that in the PSC they are happy with España's appointment. But however federalist and aware he may be of the poor funding of the Valencian Community, can a socialist minister change anything about the distribution of money? This is the big question and the precedents are not precisely reassuring.

We arrive at Holy Week, school holidays, departure operations and the "monas" affirming that the return will be tough. Everything is rising due to the war in Iran, and since the end of the war is not in sight, the damage to our pockets from this inflation will last for a few weeks, at least. Last night, Trump pulled ten more days out of his hat for the ultimatum to the ayatollahs, while he systematically lies every day (and a lot, because he doesn't stop talking) just to prevent oil from continuing to rise in price and stock markets from continuing to fall. He just keeps saying that the war is won, but the Strait of Hormuz continues to be dominated by Iran, and the regime has not fallen. Meanwhile, in Spanish politics, there has been the announced change that could influence the future of the common financing system that applies to us. Yesterday, Vice President Montero resigned to go to Andalusia and his replacement will be Carlos Cuerpo, until now Minister of Finance. A doctor in economics, multilingual, technical, he does not have a PSOE party card, a man who does not shout, an economist prepared to sit in Brussels or Washington or wherever; nothing to do with the mercurial Montero. And his place at the Ministry of Finance is taken by Arcadi España, a Valencian from President Ximo Puig's circle, who considers himself a federalist, who has often denounced how poorly financed the Valencian Community is, and who will have to move forward, seemingly with conviction, with the new system agreed with Esquerra. They say that in the PSC they are happy with España's appointment. But however federalist and aware he may be of the poor financing of the Valencian Community, can a socialist minister change anything about the distribution of money? This is the big question and the precedents are not precisely reassuring.

These days we have learned of two news items that occurred in Catalonia, both very difficult to digest: the abuse of a child, allegedly caused by its parents, and the euthanasia that the woman who had requested it finally received and that her father had been preventing in the courts for almost two years. These are not just any two news items. And, precisely because they attract our attention, we cannot dwell on the morbid and must take them very seriously. And that means avoiding summary judgments without foundation and obvious statements of no interest.