Poster celebrating solidarity between Palestine and Colombia.
On 9 October 2023, Gustavo Petro, the primary leftwing president of Colombia, wrote on X (previously Twitter): ‘Focus camps are strictly prohibited by worldwide regulation, and people answerable for them could be charged with crimes in opposition to humanity.’ Two days earlier, Petro had identified the disparity within the West’s therapy of the ‘Russian occupation of Ukraine’ and the ‘Israeli occupation of Palestine’. The primary sentence of Bogotá’s press launch, printed on the morning of 8 October, had known as for ‘dialogue between Israel and Palestine’. Colombia condemned Hamas’s atrocities in opposition to Israeli civilians however didn’t describe them as ‘terrorist’ atrocities. It denounced assaults in opposition to Palestinian civilians in the identical breath.
When Israeli defence minister Yoav Galant introduced the siege of Gaza on 9 October, explaining that Israel was preventing ‘human animals and we’re appearing accordingly’, Petro retorted, ‘Democratic nations should stop the resurgence of Nazism in worldwide politics. Each Israelis and Palestinians are human beings who should adhere to worldwide regulation. If this continues, it could solely result in a holocaust.’ In response, Gali Dagan, the Israeli ambassador in Bogotá, steered that Petro go to Auschwitz focus camp with him. ‘I’ve already been there … and now I’m observing it being copied in Gaza,’ the Latin American president, nonetheless on Twitter, replied. ‘If we’ve got to droop our relationships with Israel, we are going to droop them… The president of Colombia won’t be insulted,’ he warned, as a rejoinder to Israel’s threatening summons to Colombia’s ambassador, through which Petro was described as ‘hostile’ and ‘antisemitic’ (X, 15 October). On 10 November, dealing with the depth and scale of the bloodbath, and following the bombing of a number of Gazan hospitals, Petro introduced that his authorities’s authorized groups have been getting ready proceedings in opposition to Israel in worldwide courts. On 13 October, he introduced on X that Colombia would current ‘proposals to the United Nations for Palestine to be accepted as a full member state’.
This stance stands out in a world neighborhood the place proclamations of unconditional assist for Tel Aviv rub shoulders with timid requires moderation, however it isn’t uncommon in Latin America.
When, on 31 October, Israel bombed the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Colombia was not the one nation within the area to recall its ambassador from Tel Aviv. Belize and Chile did the identical, and Bolivia went as far as to sever its diplomatic relations with Israel — President Evo Morales (2006-2019) had already severed them in 2009, however after the 2019 coup d’état in opposition to him that they had been reestablished by the dictator Jeanine Añez. Two days later, it was the flip of Honduras to recall its ambassador. Cuba and Venezuela, which reduce diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv a very long time in the past, are condemning Israel extra typically and within the strongest phrases. ‘We must always take away Arab international locations from the Arab League and change them with Chile, Bolivia, Colombia…’ concluded Taoufiq Tahani, honorary president of the France Palestine Solidarity Affiliation (AFPS), on 1 November 2023 on X.
Larger restraint from Argentina
Argentina has been extra restrained attributable to its giant Jewish neighborhood – 9 Argentine nationals have been victims within the 7 October assault and 21 have been taken hostage by Hamas. The nation condemned Israel’s bombings, together with Peru and Mexico. Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina have introduced deliveries of humanitarian support to Gaza. Even Venezuela, nonetheless in dire financial straits, has despatched a 30-tonne cargo.
Latin America is house to a big Palestinian diaspora estimated at between 600,000 and a million folks; Chile accommodates the most important Palestinian neighborhood exterior the Center East (350,000 to 400,000 folks). All of the international locations on the continent besides Panama have recognised the state of Palestine. Mexico is barely completely different in not having finished so, although it has a Palestinian ambassador, Mohamed Saadat, and a consultant of its personal in Ramallah.
Till this battle, most Latin American international locations maintained diplomatic relations with Israel. One exception was Cuba, which, after ten years of hesitation (unreservedly condemning the oppression of the Palestinians whereas contemplating the existence of Israel official given the historic struggling of the Jews), lastly determined to interrupt off relations in 1973 and even despatched troops to the Golan Heights to assist Syrian forces in the course of the Yom Kippur conflict. Even earlier than the Cuban revolution, the island was the one nation on the American continent to oppose the partition plan for Palestine in 1947, and to protest the dispossession of the Palestinians. Since 1992, Israel has systematically voted alongside america in opposition to all United Nations Normal Meeting resolutions condemning the American embargo on Cuba. Within the newest vote, on 2 November 2023, for the thirty first consecutive yr, an amazing majority of 187 international locations voted to raise the embargo. Two voted in opposition to: the US and Israel. One abstained: Ukraine.
As for Venezuela, in 2009 former president Hugo Chávez severed ties with Tel Aviv after a year-long conflict in Gaza killed greater than 1,000 Palestinians. He known as out the ‘double requirements’ of American coverage that accused Venezuela of supporting terrorism, whereas supporting that of Israel. Chávez additionally accused the Mossad of attempting to kill him and Israel of financing the Venezuelan opposition. Ten years later, when opponent Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela in 2019, Israel opened an embassy for him in Tel Aviv. That very same yr, the Venezuelan authorities accused a bunch of ‘Israeli terrorists’ of taking part in planning the assassination of President Nicolás Maduro.
In a tweet on 15 October, the Colombian president talked about the Israelis Yair Klein and Rafael Eitan, accusing them of getting ‘unleashed the bloodbath and genocide in Colombia’. ‘At some point, the military and authorities of Israel will ask us for forgiveness for what their males did in our nation,’ Petro wrote. As a part of longstanding safety and defence cooperation between the varied rightwing governments of Colombia and Israel, Israeli military instructors skilled the Colombian military particular forces brigade (EJC). Rafael Eitan, described in Israel as a Mossad ‘spy grasp’, is accused of being behind a plan orchestrated by former Colombian president Virgilio Barco Vargas (1986-1990). As particular advisor to the Barco, Eitan is suspected of getting deliberate the bloodbath of greater than 6,000 members of the Patriotic Union get together, based in 1985 by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Communist Celebration as a part of a peace plan.
‘Christian Zionism’ is rising
In 2001 the Colombian justice system sentenced Klein, a former lieutenant-colonel within the Israeli military who heads up a bunch of mercenaries serving drug traffickers, in absentia to 10 years and eight months in jail for ‘instruction, coaching in terrorist army techniques, methods and procedures, aggravated by being dedicated with mercenaries, and conspiracy to commit against the law’. He’s additionally accused of coaching loss of life squads, the well-known United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), serving giant landowners and political figures from the Eighties. These have been accused of huge abuses in opposition to civilians, killing 70,000 folks and displacing greater than three million between 1985 and 2005. Klein is spending his retirement in Israel, which refuses to extradite him. He claims his exercise in Colombia was beforehand permitted by the Israeli and Colombian governments.
Israel can also be wielding its political affect in Latin America via the evangelical motion, a pressure of Protestantism which counted 133 million followers there in 2020. Assist for Israel is a central plank of evangelicalism, for spiritual causes: in accordance with evangelicals, a situation for rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem with a purpose to enable Christ’s return is for all Jews to dwell within the land of Israel. This ‘Christian Zionism’ has grown to an unprecedented dimension in recent times and has appreciable affect within the area. The evangelical motion additionally enormously contributed to the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018. Might Bolsonaro’s political significance clarify present Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s hesitancy?
Brazil’s perspective relating to the conflict in Gaza has typically been stunning, contemplating Lula’s document of internationalist dedication. Becoming a member of a refrain of Western nations, Brazil instantly denounced Hamas’s ‘terrorist’ assaults, whereas advocating for negotiations in direction of a two-state resolution, an avenue for peace that has reached an deadlock, however that almost all Latin American international locations are reclaiming as a method to attempt to escape the cycle of violence. It is because Brazil, which had the rotating presidency of the Safety Council in October, is a candidate for a everlasting seat. On 18 October, it proposed a timid decision (predictably blocked by the same old US veto) requesting ‘humanitarian pauses’, as Israel bombed besieged Gazan civilians, whom Tel Aviv was depriving of water, meals, electrical energy and gasoline after 16 years of blockade, three wars and the stifling of all sections of society. The textual content of the decision condemned ‘all violence and hostilities in opposition to civilians and all acts of terrorism’, together with ‘heinous terrorist assaults by Hamas’ and the taking of civilian hostages. It didn’t request a ceasefire, although Lula has finished so in statements on X.
However, on 25 October, the Brazilian president started to talk of a ‘genocide’ in opposition to the Palestinian folks in entrance of the press. Brazil was reaching the tip of its presidency of the Safety Council. ‘Adopting a decision on the UN is a troublesome mission, however not unattainable. We’ll work till the tip to get there,’ stated a Brazilian negotiator quoted in Le Monde (27 October). ‘Till the tip’, specifically 31 October, the date on which the Brazilian president, who had achieved nothing, reprimanded Hamas with out naming the group immediately. ‘Are the irresponsible individuals who waged the conflict mourning the deaths of those kids? Are they feeling the load of issues?’ he requested on X, 24 days into Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Is the worth of the popularity from the ‘worldwide neighborhood’ this excessive?
