Guess who is applauding Latin American leaders’ latest measures against Israel? Hamas! | Opinion
MADRID — While visiting Spain on a book tour a few days ago, a headline in the daily La Vanguardia caught my attention: “Latin America is the world region that’s most critical of Israel because of its attacks against Gaza.”
It may not be an exaggeration. Last week, no region in the world had as many countries cut diplomatic ties with Israel or call their ambassadors to Tel Aviv for consultations as Latin America. And few other regions have so many presidents who have not explicitly denounced Hamas as a terrorist organization that does not represent Palestinians and that started this latest round of violence.
On Oct. 31, leftist-ruled Bolivia was the first country in the world to break relations with Israel over its war in Gaza. Shortly thereafter, the leftist presidents of Colombia and Chile announced they were recalling their ambassadors to Israel.
The populist governments of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina have also harshly criticized Israel’s military response to the terrorist attack that it suffered a month ago, describing it as disproportionate. The Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan dictatorships have become de facto mouthpieces of Hamas.
The Hamas leadership has even issued a statement celebrating the Bolivian, Colombian and Chilean leaders’ measures and asked Arab states to emulate Bolivia, the Spanish news agency EFE reported on Nov. 1. “We praise the courageous position adopted by the Bolivian government to break relations with the Zionist entity,” the Hamas statement said. It added that such actions “will be immortalized in history.”
What these Latin American presidents conveniently neglect to mention is that Hamas started the war on Oct. 7 by attacking Israel, deliberately killing 1,400 people — including 260 youths attending an electronic music concert — and taking some 240 hostages to Gaza. Many of the hostages are elderly people and infants.
Israel says its counter-offensive that, according to Hamas-ruled Gaza authorities, has left about 10,000 dead, aims to defend itself from Hamas’ attacks, rescue its hostages in Gaza and eliminate the Hamas terrorist group, whose founding charter calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state.
Israel said that the large number of civilian casualties in Gaza is because Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields and hides its military commands in Gaza schools, hospitals and mosques. In fact, one of Hamas’ main military commands is located underneath the Al Shifa hospital, Gaza’s most important health center.
And yet, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has accused Israel of carrying out a Nazi-style “genocide” in Gaza. That’s preposterous: A genocide, according to the dictionary, is the deliberate killing of large numbers of people from an ethnic group or nation, like what the Nazis did when they killed 6 million Jews — almost three times more people than Gaza’s entire population — in World War II.
By comparison, Israel has almost daily asked Gaza civilians to move south, away from the battlegrounds, to avoid civilian casualties. On the contrary, Hamas’ army, estimated to be 30,000 strong, has asked civilians to remain in northern Gaza — to use them as human shields.
Shouldn’t those who criticize Israel’s military response to terrorism also demand that Hamas’ combatants stop hiding behind Gaza’s civilians? Isn’t the Hamas dictatorship partly responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza? Of course, it shares responsibility for the tragedy of civilian deaths.
The most likely explanation of why so many Latin American leaders are taking Hamas’ side is that they want to please their leftist constituencies at home. The issue is far away from home and carries few political or economic costs.
It’s perfectly legitimate to ask Israel to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza as it pursues its legitimate right to defend itself and recover its citizens held hostages. And it’s also fine to accuse Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disastrous right-wing government of having torpedoed a much-needed two-state solution that would allow for creation of a Palestinian state.
But denouncing Israel’s military retaliation while failing to denounce Hamas as a terrorist group that started this round of violence, uses Palestinian civilians as human shields and calls for the elimination of Israel is outrageous. The fact that Hamas celebrated Bolivia, Colombia and Chile’s actions says it all.
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