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Latin America Summit on Israel highlights duplicitous stance in the region

April 28, 2015 at 2:51 pm

Besides providing a safe haven for thousands of Cuban dissidents, as well as counter revolutionaries who attempted to overthrow the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro, Miami is currently hosting the Latin America Summit on Israel organised by the Israel Allies Foundation.

The press release publicising the conference is a regurgitation of the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the past few years – the necessity of drawing closer to Latin America as a region that has “many shared values and interests” to Israel. Furthering diplomatic relations between the two regions would “provide opportunities to expand trade and investment and build broader diplomatic support for Israel I international forums.”

Fortunately, not the entire region is willing to entertain such notions. Venezuela under Chavez and Maduro has proved itself time and again in favour of internationalist support for Palestine. Cuba has, historically, also aided the Palestinian revolutionary struggle and was the only country in the region that opposed the UN Partition Plan in 1947. Many countries have declared at least diplomatic support for Palestine.

However, the danger lies in the manipulation of what should constitute Palestine, as well as how the asserted support of these Latin American countries is diluted through continued reliance on Israel with regard to surveillance. In this context, countries such as Chile are providing Israel with further incentives to strengthen its colonial violence, whose tactics and techniques are then exported and used by other oppressive governments against resistance movements and indigenous communities.

Guatemala and Uruguay, two of the countries sending representatives for the summit, have expressed their historical ties with Israel and subsequent support of the self-declared “Jewish state”. Pedro Galvez, the secretary of the Board of the Guatemalan Congress, stated that: “Guatemala recognised Israeli statehood in 1948. Over the last decade, unfortunately, Guatemalan support for Israel has slipped. It’s critical we reverse the trend and strengthen our relationship.”

Similarly, Uruguayan Minister Ruperto Long declared, “Uruguay was one of the eleven members of the United Nations Special Committee that prepared the 1947 Resolution, and welcomed the first Israel embassy in Latin America.” Long then equated colonialism with human rights, adding: “It is unbelievable that after more than 3,000 years the Jewish people have not been allowed to have their own country where they can live in peace. For me, this is an essential human rights issue to fix.”

US Republican Congressman Eliot Engel and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who participated in the summit, presented a cacophony of alleged certainties, distorting the necessity of the Palestinian struggle and clearly exhibiting the power wielded by the US at the UN. While Engel embarked upon a tirade that revisited all the clichés sustaining Israeli propaganda – including the defamation of Hamas – Ros-Lehtinen veered towards diplomatic jargon that stressed the alleged “need to oppose UN anti-Israel resolutions” and deplored decisions taken by Latin America countries to withdraw their ambassadors from Israel – a move she declared “regrettable”.

Predictably, Cuba was also a target during the summit, being touted as “a strategic organiser for Iran in Latin America.” Rhetoric on Cuba from pro-Zionist lobbies has tended to shift according to the premeditated agenda. The recent twinning of Cuba with Iran can also be perceived as another extension of previous decades, when the revolutionary island was at the helm of providing training to the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle.

So far, the Zionist agenda has not brought forth any innovative argument and the summit has provided its participants with an occasion to manifest their ancient diatribes to a select and prejudiced audience. The danger, however, lies within countries that have balanced their professed support for Palestine against continued diplomatic engagement with Israel – tactics that are a reflection of what the Palestinian Authority has, so far, managed to create and uphold in Palestine to the detriment of Palestinians.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.