Latin American Leaders Stand Up in Support of the People of Palestine
by joshua tucker
Only two Latin American presidents have spoken out in support of Israel’s war on its neighbors.
Less than a month after the October 7, 2023, violent attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians where military members killed 1139 people, Chile’s 37-year-old President, Gabriel Boric, a former student activist, spoke following a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House.
“These Hamas attacks are without justification; they deserve global condemnation, but the response by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government also deserves our clearest condemnation,” Boric told reporters in a clear rebuke of the U.S. President’s support for Israel after his meeting with Biden on November 2, 2023.
“There’s no doubt we can say the response has been disproportionate and is violating international humanitarian law,” he said. “The right of a state to defend itself has limits, and those limits imply respecting the lives of innocent civilians, especially children, and respecting civil humanitarian law.” Shortly before the meeting, Boric recalled Chile’s envoy to Israel.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has resulted in more than 42,252 people killed in Gaza alone, according to the state-run health ministry, and 96,092 people have been injured as of September 28, 2024.
More of the victims are children than are men or women over the age of 18. In addition, more than 10,000 people are reported missing in Gaza. Thousands of bodies are feared to be under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli bombing.
After the conflict had continued to grow for 357 days, spreading to neighboring Lebanon, where Israeli bombs killed nearly 500 people in one day alone, the President of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 27, 2024.
“Nations of the world should support the brave people of Iran who want to rid themselves of this evil regime,” Netanyahu said. “Responsible governments should not only support Israel in rolling back Iran’s aggression, but they should join Israel.”
Not being well received, the Israeli prime minister himself noted that “In the last decade, there have been more resolutions passed against Israel in this hall, in the U.N. General Assembly, than against the entire world combined. Actually, more than twice as many. Since 2014, this body has condemned Israel 174 times. It condemned all the other countries in the world 73 times.
Only two Latin American presidents have spoken out in support of Israel’s war on its neighbors: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Argentinian President Javier Milei. Argentina is home to Latin America’s largest Jewish community, with over 200,000 people. The largest Palestinian diaspora community outside the Muslim world is in Chile, with over 500,000 people.
Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Nicaragua, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, not to mention Spain, have joined more than half a dozen other countries supporting the charges of committing genocide against the people of Gaza that are being brought against Israel in the U.N. International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague in the case first brought by South Africa.
Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, and Cuba have also ended all diplomatic relations with the state of Israel. Opposition to Israel’s war has long taken the form of not only boycotting and divesting from war interests but also sanctioning them. On August 14, 2024, Colombian President Gustavo Petro ended the export of Colombian coal to Israel.
According to the American Journal of Transportation, Israel imports over 50 percent of its coal from Colombia. In the first eight months of last year, Colombian coal exports to Israel were worth over 320 million U.S. dollars, according to Colombia’s national statistics office.
“Since when does our constitution allow the export of products that help a genocidal maniac kill tens of thousands of children,” wrote Colombian President Gustavo Petro. “Does it seem so abnormal to you that in Colombia, a progressive president refuses to trade with genociders?” Mexico’s Senate voted to recognize Palestinian statehood in June 2023, Panama is now the only Latin American country that has not recognized the state of Palestine, as the United States still refuses to do.