Latin America in Israel’s crosshairs
Latin America in Israel’s
crosshairs
By: Jamal Juma’
coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid
Wall Campaign,
www.stopthewall.org
Does South
American politics move forward in constructing a new
continental and global order based on democracy, human
rights and mutual solidarity or will it fall pray to Israeli
strategies that undermine the emancipation of Latin America
and the Global South?
The Israeli minister
of foreign affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, has wrapped up a
10-day tour through South America, the first of its kind for
over two decades. His trip was aimed at launching a new
direction for Israeli foreign policy, which is to turn more
and more to the subcontinent. The people of Brazil and
Argentina have met him with loud street protest, denouncing
him as an emblem of Israeli racism, fascism and colonialism.
People have refused to play the quiet host to members of a
regime that for over sixty years has kept Palestinian
refugees from returning to their homes, oppressing the
remaining population and developing ever more extreme forms
of repression and apartheid. The brutal massacre and siege
in Gaza at the beginning of this year, and the ongoing
construction of the Wall and settlements are but two of the
issues which are adding to the gradual perception of Israel
as a pariah state by ordinary people across the world.
However, the conflicting interests between South America and
Israel go beyond solidarity with Palestine. Israel’s new
South America policy forces the continent to make
fundamental choices regarding its own aspirations and
geopolitical alignments.
Israel’s
recently strengthened interest in the region is partially
motivated by the tightening avenues in Europe and North
America, its traditional allies. Politically, even a
conservative prime minister such as the French Sarkozy has
advised the Israeli government to dismiss Lieberman in
favour of a more presentable figure. At an economic level,
21 % of Israeli exporters have announced losses due to
European boycotts. To offset this, Israel has recently
developed much more vital and strategic interests in South
America as well as Africa than in the past.
Until recently, Israel’s support for neo-liberalism and US intervention on the continent has been mainly aimed at ingratiating the Zionist regime with the US administration, on whose political and financial backing they depend. This allowed Israel to limit the influence of the Latin American liberation movements, who retained a strong attachment to the Palestinian struggle. For Israel, a colonial state built on the expulsion and ongoing repression of the indigenous population, the rise of anti-colonial and emancipatory forces anywhere of the world constitutes a potential threat to the very paradigm it is built on.
During decades of
US military intervention and backing to fascist governments
and dictatorships throughout the continent, Israel was there
to help training paramilitary and the death squads of the
dictatorships. Among others, Israeli operatives helped train
right-wing Nicaraguan Contras, provided intelligence and
small arms to the Guatemalan regime that killed over 200 000
people, razed villages and displaced over a million more –
just as Israel had done with the Palestinians. This has
opened a large market for Israeli arms and intelligence
industries, but rarely it was accompanied by a comprehensive
policy in trading agreements.
This is
changing radically now. In times of global economic crisis
and contracting markets in Europe and North America, where
the first successes of the boycott movement have begun to
compound Israel’s difficulties, finding new trading
partners becomes crucial. Large scale expansion of markets
in the Arab and Muslim world is ruled out. Even where
governments are coaxed into discontinuing boycotts and
sanctions, such as in Egypt or Jordan, public consensus
effectively bars Israeli investments, services and products
from penetrating the markets.
Latin America, and especially the Mercosur countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, are a potential life buoy for Israeli products and services. It is therefore no surprise that Lieberman has during his tour of the continent reiterated over and over again the need for the Mercosur to ratify the free trade agreement with Israel, signed in 2008. In addition, he is holding extensive meetings in each of the countries with the local business communities in order to push for further economic co-operation with Israel.
While for Israel South
America has gained a renewed significance, for the people in
the continent, Israel has nothing new to offer. Israeli arms
and military training are still killing Latin Americans
across the continent. Colombia is probably the biggest
recipient of Israeli arms and training. "I learned an
infinite amount of things in Israel, and to that country I
owe part of my essence, my human and military achievements,"
admits Colombian paramilitary leader and indicted drug
trafficker Carlos Castao. Even in countries like Brazil,
Israel is still actively involved in the repression of the
people. Amnesty International and other human rights
organizations have staged a campaign asking the state of Rio
de Janeiro to stop using the Caveirão, the armoured
transport vehicle imported from Israel, to kill
indiscriminately, to intimidate whole communities and to
mount operations involving the excessive use of force. While
the entire American continent has isolated the current
regime in Honduras, after the overthrow of the legitimate
president, the leader of the coup has announced Israeli
backing to his government. Several commentators have
highlighted that in the months before the coup, the Israeli
embassy was the scenario of intense diplomatic movement with
important representatives of the opposition, including
Micheletti.
Worse, Israeli diplomacy
is designed to effectively block South America’s strategic
and long standing efforts to develop South-South relations,
such as the creation of the Mercosur, the establishment of
the Bank of the South and diplomatic efforts to create
special relationships such as the IBSA (India, Brazil, South
Africa) initiative. The strengthened relations with the Arab
world and the energy producers of the Middle East are
strategic ties which may allow the global South to play a
stronger role in world politics and to create a more just
world order. Israeli diplomatic efforts are working counter
to all these projects. The scarecrow of Middle Eastern, and
especially Iranian, influence, deployed once again by
Lieberman is aimed to break up these important new ties of
economic cooperation between the OPEC and other energy
producing states. This is compounded by explicit calls to
curtail South American unity. The virulent efforts to
blackmail most of the member states of the ALBA would, if
successful, fragment the integration among the countries and
economies of the continent.
In fact, Lieberman’s visit to South America, and Israel’s new foreign policy strategy, force a choice on the governments and people of South America, which goes far beyond solidarity with Palestine: Does South American politics move forward in constructing a new continental and global order based on democracy, human rights and mutual solidarity or will it fall pray to those that are working against the emancipation of Latin America and the Global South?
The protests during Lieberman’s visit clarify where the people stand. They show that those that have built a colonial state on the destruction of the Palestinian people and have driven apartheid to most brutal excesses can never be allies and partners of democratic and progressive countries. In fact, the choice of countries on Lieberman’s agenda has probably not been so difficult – not many other South American states would have hosted the racist minister. Only in Brazil, Peru and Colombia the heads of state have accepted to meet with Lieberman. This gives President Lula a problematically ambiguous position – the leader of a progressive government ready to rally with those that are engaged in ongoing ethnic cleansing in Palestine and have financed and promoted the repression of the Latin American people. We hope that the recent victories won by the people of Latin America will translate into a will to impose popular demands on the governments that today still welcome Lieberman.
Palestinian civil society has repeatedly expressed its demand to South American states –not to ratify the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Israel, a treaty that will finance the oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Even leaving the moral and political implications regarding Palestine aside, the treaty offers no meaningful economic profit for Latin America. Free trade with a tiny economy largely bereft of resources, such as Israel’s, would aid an insignificant number of South American businesses and workers.
The ratification of the FTA with Israel is the yard stick by which the world should measure South American politics. Accepting it, any rhetoric of human rights, democracy and common causes is exactly this – empty words which do not put any pressure on Israel; refusing it, South America can open a new chapter in the history of co-operation among the global South, and the struggle for Palestinian emancipation – a world in which sixty-year-old hollow promises are at last backed by concrete action.
ENDS