On 9 October 2023, Gustavo Petro, the first leftwing president of Colombia, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): ‘Concentration camps are strictly prohibited by international law, and those responsible for them can be charged with crimes against humanity.’ Two days earlier, Petro had pointed out the disparity in the West’s treatment of the ‘Russian occupation of Ukraine’ and the ‘Israeli occupation of Palestine’. The first sentence of Bogotá’s press release, published on the morning of 8 October, had called for ‘dialogue between Israel and Palestine’. Colombia condemned Hamas’s atrocities against Israeli civilians but did not describe them as ‘terrorist’ atrocities. It denounced attacks against Palestinian civilians in the same breath.
When Israeli defence minister Yoav Galant announced the siege of Gaza on 9 October, explaining that Israel was fighting ‘human animals and we are acting accordingly’, Petro retorted, ‘Democratic nations must prevent the resurgence of Nazism in international politics. Both Israelis and Palestinians are human beings who must adhere to international law. If this continues, it can only lead to a holocaust.’ In response, Gali Dagan, the Israeli ambassador in Bogotá, suggested that Petro visit Auschwitz concentration camp with him. ‘I’ve already been there … and now I’m observing it being copied in Gaza,’ the Latin American president, still on Twitter, replied. ‘If we have to suspend our relations with Israel, we will suspend them… The president of Colombia will not be insulted,’ he warned, as a rejoinder to Israel’s threatening summons to Colombia’s ambassador, in which Petro was described as ‘hostile’ and ‘antisemitic’ (X, 15 October). On 10 November, facing the intensity and scale of the massacre, and following the bombing of several Gazan hospitals, Petro announced that his government’s legal teams were preparing proceedings against Israel in international courts. On 13 October, he announced on X that Colombia would present ‘proposals to the United Nations for Palestine to be accepted as a full member state’.
This stance stands out in an international community where proclamations of unconditional support for Tel Aviv rub shoulders with timid calls for moderation, but it is not unusual in Latin America.
When, on 31 October, Israel bombed the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Colombia was not the only country in the region to recall its ambassador from Tel Aviv. Belize and Chile did the same, and Bolivia went so far as to sever its diplomatic relations with Israel — President Evo Morales (2006-2019) had already severed them in 2009, but after the 2019 coup d’état against him they had been reestablished by the dictator Jeanine Añez. Two days later, it was the turn of Honduras to recall its ambassador. Cuba and Venezuela, which cut diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv a long time ago, are condemning Israel more often and in the strongest terms. ‘We should remove Arab countries from the Arab League and replace them with Chile, Bolivia, Colombia…’ concluded Taoufiq Tahani, honorary president of the France Palestine Solidarity Association (AFPS), on 1 November 2023 on X.
Greater restraint from Argentina
Argentina has been more restrained due to its large Jewish community – nine Argentine nationals were victims in the 7 October attack and 21 were taken hostage by Hamas. The country condemned Israel’s bombings, along with Peru and Mexico. Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina have announced deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Even Venezuela, still in dire economic straits, has sent a 30-tonne shipment.
Latin America is home to a large Palestinian diaspora estimated at between 600,000 and one million people; Chile contains the largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East (350,000 to 400,000 people). All the countries on the continent except Panama have recognised the state of Palestine. Mexico is slightly different in not having done so, though it has a Palestinian ambassador, Mohamed Saadat, and a representative of its own in Ramallah.
Until this conflict, most Latin American countries maintained diplomatic relations with Israel. One exception was Cuba, which, after ten years of hesitation (unreservedly condemning the oppression of the Palestinians while considering the existence of Israel legitimate given the historic suffering of the Jews), finally decided to break off relations in 1973 and even sent troops to the Golan Heights to support Syrian forces during the Yom Kippur war. Even before the Cuban revolution, the island was the only country 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 the United States against all United Nations General Assembly resolutions condemning the American embargo on Cuba. In the latest vote, on 2 November 2023, for the 31st consecutive year, an overwhelming majority of 187 countries voted to lift the embargo. Two voted against: 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 war in Gaza killed more than 1,000 Palestinians. He called out the ‘double standards’ of American policy that accused Venezuela of supporting terrorism, while supporting that of Israel. Chávez also accused the Mossad of trying 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 same year, the Venezuelan government accused a group of ‘Israeli terrorists’ of participating in planning the assassination of President Nicolás Maduro.
In a tweet on 15 October, the Colombian president mentioned the Israelis Yair Klein and Rafael Eitan, accusing them of having ‘unleashed the massacre and genocide in Colombia’. ‘One day, the army and government of Israel will ask us for forgiveness for what their men did in our country,’ Petro wrote. As part of longstanding security and defence cooperation between the various rightwing governments of Colombia and Israel, Israeli army instructors trained the Colombian army special forces brigade (EJC). Rafael Eitan, described in Israel as a Mossad ‘spy master’, is accused of being behind a plan orchestrated by former Colombian president Virgilio Barco Vargas (1986-1990). As special advisor to the Barco, Eitan is suspected of having planned the massacre of more than 6,000 members of the Patriotic Union party, founded in 1985 by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Communist Party as part of a peace plan.
‘Christian Zionism’ is growing
In 2001 the Colombian justice system sentenced Klein, a former lieutenant-colonel in the Israeli army who heads up a group of mercenaries serving drug traffickers, in absentia to ten years and eight months in prison for ‘instruction, training in terrorist military tactics, techniques and procedures, aggravated by being committed with mercenaries, and conspiracy to commit a crime’. He is also accused of training death squads, the famous United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), serving large landowners and political figures from the 1980s. These have been accused of massive abuses against civilians, killing 70,000 people and displacing more than three million between 1985 and 2005. Klein is spending his retirement in Israel, which refuses to extradite him. He claims his activity in Colombia was previously approved by the Israeli and Colombian governments.
Israel is also wielding its political influence in Latin America through the evangelical movement, a strain of Protestantism which counted 133 million followers there in 2020. Support for Israel is a central plank of evangelicalism, for religious reasons: according to evangelicals, a condition for rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem in order to allow Christ’s return is for all Jews to live in the land of Israel. This ‘Christian Zionism’ has grown to an unprecedented size in recent years and has considerable influence in the region. The evangelical movement also greatly contributed to the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018. Could Bolsonaro’s political importance explain current Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s hesitancy?
Brazil’s attitude regarding the war in Gaza has sometimes been surprising, considering Lula’s record of internationalist commitment. Joining a chorus of Western nations, Brazil immediately denounced Hamas’s ‘terrorist’ attacks, while advocating for negotiations towards a two-state solution, an avenue for peace that has reached an impasse, but that most Latin American countries are reclaiming as a means to try to escape the cycle of violence. This is because Brazil, which had the rotating presidency of the Security Council in October, is a candidate for a permanent seat. On 18 October, it proposed a timid resolution (predictably blocked by the usual US veto) requesting ‘humanitarian pauses’, as Israel bombed besieged Gazan civilians, whom Tel Aviv was depriving of water, food, electricity and fuel after 16 years of blockade, three wars and the stifling of all sections of society. The text of the resolution condemned ‘all violence and hostilities against civilians and all acts of terrorism’, including ‘heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas’ and the taking of civilian hostages. It did not request a ceasefire, though Lula has done so in statements on X.
Nevertheless, on 25 October, the Brazilian president began to speak of a ‘genocide’ against the Palestinian people in front of the press. Brazil was reaching the end of its presidency of the Security Council. ‘Adopting a resolution at the UN is a difficult mission, but not impossible. We will work until the end to get there,’ said a Brazilian negotiator quoted in Le Monde (27 October). ‘Until the end’, namely 31 October, the date on which the Brazilian president, who had achieved nothing, reprimanded Hamas without naming the group directly. ‘Are the irresponsible people who waged the war mourning the deaths of these children? Are they feeling the weight of things?’ he asked on X, 24 days into Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Is the price of the recognition from the ‘international community’ this high?
