2023-10-16 07:11:57
After a week of war without condemning the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel and showing unrestricted support for Palestine, President Gustavo Petro faces the worst diplomatic crisis of his Government: a fight that has already generated the first Israeli sanction and that threatens to a total suspension of foreign relations.
And is not for less. In these eight days of Hamas’ incursion into Israeli territory, Petro has called Israel “genocidal”, “murderer” and even “Nazi”, adjectives that do not belong to a head of state and that, of course, are already They put in check the binational relationship that has borne positive fruits for both nations during the last five decades.
Although tensions began on October 7, when the war broke out and Petro decided to immediately support Palestine, the most aggressive decision occurred this Sunday with the announcement that Colombia would send “humanitarian aid to Gaza,” the border city that has been receiving attacks from Israel in response to the initial attack by Hamas.
As an additional affront, the head of state called for a General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, UN, with which he seeks collective sanction from the member countries for the violation of International Humanitarian Law in the Gaza Strip and the murder of hundreds of innocent Palestinians who are denouncing leaders around the world.
With all this, Israel’s response was a harsh slam of the door on trade relations that came from a high command of the Government and with a threatening tone.
“On the instructions of Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, the deputy director general for Latin America in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Amb. Jonathan Peled summoned the Colombian ambassador to Israel, Margarita Manjarrez, for a reprimand conversation, following the hostile and anti-Semitic statements of the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, against the State of Israel, during the last week (…) As a first measure, Israel decided to stop security exports to Colombia,” reported Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat.
It is worth remembering that Israel supplies Colombia with Galil rifles, which are used by the Colombian Armed Forces. Israel even provided Colombia with the patent for Indumil to manufacture them with Israeli parts. Kfir planes, anti-aircraft batteries, tanks and radars, drones, Spike-type missiles used in harpy helicopters, armored vehicles, ammunition, mortars and maritime systems, among others, also come from there. That would be the first thing that Israel would withdraw from Colombia.
But that crisis was not enough for Petro and he counterattacked with a worse ultimatum: “If we have to suspend foreign relations with Israel, we will suspend them,” and he concluded: “We do not support genocides.”
In fact, the head of state took that reaction personally and said in a challenging tone that “the president of Colombia is not insulted.”
Losing a great ally
The truth is that President Petro is not facing a personal fight, but is putting at risk a very fruitful relationship for Colombia with a powerful ally before the world and before the United States, Colombia’s historical strategic partner.
For the expert Mauricio Perfetti, former director of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane), and expert in foreign economics, the loss would be incalculable taking into account the FTA and the technological and innovation advances in which Israel has no competitor in the world.
“It is a country to which Colombia exports coffee, coal, flowers and aeronautical parts. That is why it is a greater loss, because anything that means for the country to export less is a bad economic result. Add to that the fact that the country’s external debt has been growing. The damage is serious (…)”, asserted Perfetti. And former Minister of Commerce and Finance José Manuel Restrepo agrees with this, who was one of Colombia’s key negotiators for the FTA that is currently in force and which is in danger of a possible suspension of foreign relations. According to him, Israel is the country with the highest export growth rate, “more than 200% annually” and, in addition, it is a strategic ally in national defense issues.
“A good part of the technology that our Defense actors use comes from Israel and therefore it is a leading actor on this front. Not only in terms of providing, but also in services and consulting regarding security,” he said.
In concrete figures, Dane reported that Colombia exported 375 million dollars to Israel between January and August 2023, which represents 1.15% of total exports. Already in more global figures, the Bank of the Republic estimated that Foreign Direct Investment from Israel during the last 10 years was 33 million dollars, “a figure that is not inconsiderable,” as Restrepo says.
Do not condemn Hamas
Now, Petro’s failure in all this is not to support the population of Gaza, which, as the world community has denounced, is going through one of the worst crises in its history due to Israel’s “excessive” attacks (see box below). ). The mistake, rather, has been not condemning the Hamas attacks and categorizing them as terrorists, a decision that has been made by important Human Rights authorities such as the UN and Human Rights Watch and presidents around the world, including leftists like Gabriel Boric. , president of Chile, and Pedro Sánchez, Spanish president.
“When President Petro condemns the operations of the Israeli Army in Gaza, he speaks an obvious truth. These are massive violations of the rights of an entire population. Where it has been wrong is that in the first act, the terrorist attack against Israel, also including the civilian population, repeatedly omitted an equivalent condemnation. A biased, deliberately unilateral and unsustainable treatment,” analyzed former peace negotiator and senator Humberto de la Calle (see full interview on pages 10-11 of this edition).
#Petro #put #relations #Israel #check