Latin America, Hamas and terrorism

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/11/2023 (691 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IN early October, governments in the West were quick to condemn the terrorist attacks by Hamas against innocent Israelis. There was little in the way of equivocation and parsing of words by the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

That was not the case, however, for many countries in Latin America. In fact, there was a mix of sharp condemnation of Hamas and those consciously weaving in support for national liberation movements and embracing a pro-Palestinian position.

Tellingly, Colombia’s leftist government of Gustavo Petro, which recalled its ambassador to Israel in early November, initially issued a press statement that “strongly condemns terrorism and attacks against the civilian population.”

The next day, though, a second statement appeared with no mention of Hamas (as was the case in the first missive) and dropped completely the word “terrorism.”

Populist Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a pointed statement that “unequivocally condemns the unacceptable attacks against the people of Israel… by Hamas and other Palestinian organizations in Gaza.” The press release then goes on to state bluntly: “Any terrorist act constitutes a threat to international peace and security, which calls for the full co-operation of States to prevent and punish them. No cause justifies the use of terrorism.”

Similarly, authoritarian and aggressive Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele directly singled out Hamas for harsh treatment. “As a Salvadoran with Palestinian ancestry, I’m sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians.”

The present left-leaning government of Argentina, the country with the largest Jewish diaspora in Latin America, also elected to issue a toughly-worded press release of “strong condemnation” of the “brutal terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas from the Gaza Strip against the State of Israel.” The neighbouring government of Gabriel Boric in Chile, which has a large Palestinian community, also forcefully condemned the attacks on Israel and expressed “sympathy and solidarity with the Israeli people.”

Recently, Boric elected to recall the Chilean ambassador to Tel Aviv “in the face of the unacceptable violations of international humanitarian law committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.”

In contrast, leftist firebrand Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, without pointing a finger at Hamas or mentioning the word terrorism, “condemns the series of bombings and ground attacks carried out today in Israel starting from the Gaza Strip.” He also called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and for “maximum restraint” by both sides so as to avoid a deadly escalation of the conflict.

Significantly, both Bolivia and Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv after Israel’s 2009 military operations in the Gaza Strip (though a right-leaning government in Bolivia restored diplomatic ties in 2020). The leftist Bolivian government today merely expressed “deep concern” about “violent events” that took place in the “Gaza Strip between Israel and Palestine.” But it has now taken the dramatic step of once again terminating official relations with Israel.

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, for his part, did not condemn the attacks by Hamas outright and settled instead for simply calling for “genuine negotiations” between the two sides. But he did include the following statement on X, formerly Twitter, that the fighting was “the result of the impossibility of the Palestinian people to find in multilateral international legality a space to assert their historic rights.”

Given the long-standing differences over Palestinian statehood, human rights and the occupied territories, Cuba and Israel do not have full diplomatic relations. So it was not altogether surprising that the Cuban government of Miguel Díaz-Canel referred to the current conflict as a “consequence of 75 years of permanent violation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and Israel’s aggressive and expansionist policies.”

Why the differing perspectives, you might ask?

It has a lot to do with the fact that Hamas is viewed less as a terrorist organization and more as a liberation movement for Palestine. Other governments are simply implacable in their solidarity and support for Palestinian independence and self-determination.

In addition, some governments in Latin America and the Caribbean are unable to get past their anti-American dispositions and Washington’s steadfast backing of Israel. There is also a view held in parts of the region that Israel has had a long history of acting repressively against the long-suffering Palestinian people.

It is not surprising, then, that there are a multitude of views on Israel, Hamas and the awful recent attacks on Israeli citizens. The more critical ones are clearly coloured by anti-imperial, anti-U.S. and anti-colonial sentiments.

The fact of the matter is that there are just far too many ideological, historical and personal differences to have all governmental leaders in Latin America sing from the same hymn sheet. And, of course, there is always the domestic political constituencies within each of these countries that shapes their respective positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.