Bolivia has become every Palestinian supporter's hero since its move last week to declare Israel a terrorist state. On social media, many Palestinians expressed their desire to emigrate to the South American country, with Palestinian supporters arguing that the Latin American country has done what they believe Palestine's Arab neighbours have failed to do. In protest against the Israeli war on Gaza, in which more than 1,600 people are believed to have been killed and thousands injured, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, declared Israel a “terrorist state” and cancelled a 1972 agreement that allowed Israelis to travel to Bolivia without a visa. “Israel is not a guarantor of the principles of respect for life and the elementary precepts of rights that govern the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of our international community,” Morales said. In July, Morales filed a request with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to prosecute Israel for “crimes against humanity.” Bolivia's strong support for the Palestinian cause was not new, however, as the country had earlier severed its relations with Israel in 2009 on the back of another attack on Gaza. While Bolivia's official stand was the strongest, it was not the only country to condemn Israeli actions. The majority of Latin American countries made strong statements and several recalled their ambassadors for consultation. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, four of the five full members of the Mercosur trade bloc with which Israel has a free-trade agreement, issued a statement during their summit last week in Caracas condemning the “disproportionate use of force by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, which in the majority affects civilians, including children and women.” “We urge an immediate lifting of the blockade that is affecting the Gazan population, so that the free movement of people, food, medicine and humanitarian aid can flow freely in and out, both by land and sea,” the statement said. It added that “the international community needs to be called upon to exert the proper pressure that is in favour of an immediate and durable ceasefire, as well as the prompt restoration of peaceful dialogue as the only solution to this difficult conflict.” Even before the Mercosur statement, there was condemnation from ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, a bloc launched in 2004 including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and some small Caribbean islands. Some countries, among them Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Chile and Peru, recalled their ambassadors for consultation. Others had already cut relations with Israel some years back, including Nicaragua in 2010, Venezuela in 2009 and Cuba in 1973. Egyptian political scientist Mustafa Kamel Al-Sayyed said that in many parts of Latin America centre-left parties have come to power through elections and these parties show solidarity with peoples fighting for their freedom from foreign occupation. “It is a matter of principle. Anti-imperialism has strong roots in Latin America,” Al-Sayyed said, adding that the higher level of development of these countries makes their people more willing to take a stand against the political and economic hegemony of the west. Regarding Israel's free-trade agreement with the Mercosur economic bloc, Al-Sayyed said that he doubted that this was strong enough to affect foreign policy. Cecilia Baeza, a lecturer in international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Brazil and co-founder of RIMAAL, a research network on Latin America and the Arab world, voiced a similar view. She said that the region's “left turn [the coming to power of the leftist parties] in the mid-2000s certainly contributed to rendering Latin American governments much more sensitive to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.” In the past few years there has been a growing convergence between Latin American countries on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, especially since 2008 when almost all the countries of the region issued strong statements against the Israeli attack on Gaza, she added. “In 2010-2011, the Latin American wave of recognitions of the state of Palestine confirmed this trend.” However, Baeza stressed that “this is the first time in Latin America history that there has been such a convergence across party lines on an extra-regional political issue. “At the South American level, dissension comes from Colombia, the only country in the region not to have recognised the state of Palestine. At the Latin American level, Panama is another important source of blockage.” Support for Palestinians over the last few years has taken the form not only of statements, but also high-level visits to the Palestinian Territories, such as the visit of the Brazilian president in 2010, and donations. Baeza said that between 2006 and 2012, the amount donated by Brazil to Palestinians had reached around US$30 million. Brazil is now the largest contributor to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) among the BRICS countries, the bloc of emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. However, she contended that without the vitality of solidarity movements in support of Palestine, some Latin American governments would not have been as pro-active as they are. “Those movements, including Arab organisations, labour unions, indigenous and black movements, and grassroots organisations, have been urging governments to go beyond merely symbolic condemnations of the Israeli assault on Gaza,” she said. “The withdrawals of some of the Latin American ambassadors to Israel are partly their victory.” In Chile, the solidarity movement with Palestine benefits from strong support among legislators, thanks to the Chile-Palestine Inter-parliamentary Group, a coalition of MPs from both left- and right-wing parties. With 46 members in the House of Deputies, which has a total membership of 120, it is currently the largest of the bi-national friendship groups. Baeza said that the Arab diasporas, particularly the Palestinian diaspora, huge in Chile, Honduras, and El Salvador, also played an important role. “At more than half a million Latin Americans of Palestinian descent, they are the largest Palestinian diaspora outside the Arab world,” she said, explaining that the majority of these people were the descendants of the pre-Nakba generation of migrants that had joined the upper and upper-middle classes of the host societies. Baeza agreed that Israel was not a significant trading partner for the Mercosur countries. Although some economic interests were at stake, in particular with Brazil and Chile which were engaged in military trade and cooperation with Israel, this did not tell the whole story. Maintaining economic ties with Israel had been a way for South American countries to compensate for their political rapprochement with the Arab world, and with Palestinians in particular. “The Framework Agreement on Trade between Mercosur and Israel was signed in 2005, the same year as the launching of the South America-Arab countries (ASPA) Summit in Brasilia,” she said. However, Mercosur also signed an FTA with the Palestinian Authority in 2011, the first between the Palestinian Territories and a bloc of nations outside the Arab world.
