Colombia’s President Petro threatens to cut ties with Israel over war in Gaza
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro is threatening to cut diplomatic ties with Israel after Israeli authorities froze security exports to the South American country over his comments comparing Israel’s government to the Nazis and his failure to quickly condemn the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants on southern Israel.
“If we have to suspend foreign relations with Israel, we suspend them. We do not support genocides,” Petro said on Sunday evening on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“You don’t insult the president of Colombia,” he said, replying to a statement on X by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Lior Haiat, criticizing the Colombian president’s remarks as antisemitic.
Haiat announced that as a “first measure,” Israel decided to stop security cooperation with Colombia. Israel has provided Colombia with missiles, drones, military planes, helicopters and other security material. The two countries also have a free trade agreement since 2020.
On Monday, the Colombian foreign affairs minister, Alvaro Leyva, told the Israeli ambassador, Gali Dagan, to apologize for his “senseless loutishness” in dealing with Petro.
“Shame. Minimum make excuses and leave,” he said on X. He later clarified Colombia was not expelling the Israeli ambassador and that diplomatic relations would continue “if that country so wishes it.”
Shortly after Hamas militants launched a murderous rampage on towns, kibbutzim and military bases in southern Israel on the morning of Oct. 7, killing at least 1400 people and taking another 199 hostages, including women and children, Petro, an avid social media user, started sharing comments in support of what he referred to as the Palestinian cause. He published photos of Palestinian children killed by Israel’s military response in Gaza and said: “Terrorism is killing innocent children, whether in Colombia or Palestine.”
In the first 24 hours after the attack, he did not condemn Hamas’ deadly assault. The United States lists Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Speaking of Israel, he said that “democratic peoples cannot allow Nazism to reestablish itself in international politics” and that “no democrat in the world can accept Gaza being turned into a concentration camp.”
Israel called in Colombia’s ambassador for consultations on Sunday to deliver “a reprimand concerning the hostile and antisemitic statements against the State of Israel made last week by the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro,” Haiat said.
“Israel condemns the President’s statements, which constitute support for the horrific acts of Hamas terrorists, inflame antisemitism, harm representatives of the State of Israel, and threaten the safety of the Jewish community in Colombia,” the spokesperson added.
Petro has not been alone in voicing concerns about a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where Israel’s bombing campaign following Hamas’ attack has killed at least 2,808, most of them women and children, according to a statement by the Gaza Government Press Office on Monday.
While vowing full support for Israel, the Biden administration has increased calls on Israel to respect international war law and is pushing for ways to deliver urgent aid to about two million civilians caught in Gaza without food, water and medical supplies as the bombing intensifies and Israel gets ready to launch an invasion.
Critics of Petro
But critics both inside and outside Colombia say Petro, a leftist president with a guerrilla past, has failed to condemn Hamas’ attacks in stronger terms, in the process sparking a diplomatic crisis with one of the United States’ closest allies.
The most important fallout from his social media remarks, at times filled with obscure references to Hitler when speaking about Israel, is that it risks damaging Colombia’s close partnership with the United States, said Francisco Santos, a former Colombian ambassador to the United States.
Petro’s “radical” remarks “directly affect relations with our first trading partner and our biggest ally, the United States,” Santos said. “We have seen a president who tweets as an activist without taking into account international relations and the importance of the moment, and who is showing a lack of sensibility in the face of all the deaths and the massacres.”
Petro’s remarks have already drawn condemnation from the United States.
“We strongly condemn President Petro’s statements and call on him to condemn Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, for its barbaric murder of Israeli men, women and children,” Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, with the office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism said on X.
Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio accused Petro’s rhetoric of inflaming antisemitism. Israel’s embassy in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, was vandalized last week with offensive graffiti, including a swastika.
“Now must be a time of moral clarity, not drawing false equivalencies to justify an unjustifiable position,” said Florida Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who heads the House subcommittee that allocates funding to the State Department. “It is shameful that the Colombian president’s sympathies seem to lie with the terrorists rather than their victims.”
Domestically, Petro is also fielding intense criticism for his position on the conflict, which he addressed on social media on Monday, saying he does not support Hamas and calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He also said Colombia will send humanitarian aid to Gaza.
This story was originally published October 16, 2023 at 5:13 PM.