Latin America Is Showing How To Stand Up To Israel

Bolivia has severed diplomatic relations with Israel, and Colombia, Chile, and Honduras have all recalled their ambassadors. Latin America is leading the way in opposing Israel’s war on Gaza.

by Kurt Hackbarth, Jacobin

As anger increases in the United States, Canada, and Europe over their leaders’ refusal to take a firm stand against the ongoing Israeli atrocities against Gaza, it is Latin America that is leading the way.

On October 31, Bolivia announced that it was severing diplomatic relations with Israel — the first country in the Americas to do so since the beginning of the “al-Aqsa Flood” some three weeks before. In a statement, the nation’s foreign ministry explained that this was “in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive occurring in the Gaza Strip, which threatens international peace and security.” Announcing the decision before the General Assembly of the United Nations, its spokesperson added that Israel is a state “that is disrespectful of lives, of peoples, of international and humanitarian law.”

That same day, President Gustavo Petro announced that he was recalling Colombia’s ambassador to Israel. “If Israel does not stop its massacre of the Palestinian people, we cannot be there,” he tweeted concisely. Petro, indeed, has been one of the continent’s most vocal critics of Israeli actions over the last several weeks. “If we have to suspend foreign relations with Israel, we will suspend them,” he wrote on October 15. “We do not support genocides.” Expanding on the point in a subsequent tweet, he added: “It’s called genocide, and it’s done to remove the Palestinian people from Gaza and appropriate it. The head of the government that commits this genocide is a criminal against humanity. His allies cannot speak of democracy.”