Solidarity with Palestine replaces pro-Israel tilt as leftwingers take office in South America

Special Solidarity with Palestine replaces pro-Israel tilt as leftwingers take office in South America
Sections of Chile’s 500,000-strong Palestinian diaspora rally outside the Israeli Embassy to call for an end to Gaza operations. The country’s newly elected president is building closer ties with Palestine. AFP take part in a protest outside the Israeli Embassy against Israel’s military operations in Gaza and in support of the Palestinian people, in Santiago on May 19, 2021. - Chile is the fourth largest destination for Palestinian communities and the first outside the Middle East. (AFP)
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Updated 10 January 2023
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Solidarity with Palestine replaces pro-Israel tilt as leftwingers take office in South America

Solidarity with Palestine replaces pro-Israel tilt as leftwingers take office in South America
  • Inauguration of sympathetic Lula government in Brazil follows announcement of a planned Chilean Embassy in Palestine
  • Hopes rise of changes in regional stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after departure of rightwing governments

SAO PAULO, Brazil: Chile’s announcement that it will open an embassy in Palestine, and Brazil’s new government abandoning its predecessor’s pro-Israel foreign policy, have raised hopes in Latin America about changes in regional stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Just one day after left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office on Jan. 1, Brazil announced a radical shift in its diplomacy.

New Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira mentioned the Palestinian issue in his inauguration speech, saying Brazil will “resume its traditional and balanced stance kept for over seven decades” and support the solution of two states “completely viable, safely coexisting side by side with internationally recognized borders.”




Lula, the 77-year-old Brazilian leader, took office on Jan. 1. He already served as president from 2003 to 2010. (AFP)

Latin America has been sharply divided over Israel and Palestine for most of the past half-century.

Conservative regimes focused on shared Judeo-Christian values, trade relations and military cooperation with Israel, while the left espoused nationalism, anti-colonialism, the struggle for freedom, and a shared history with the Palestinian diaspora.

On Jan. 5, during a UN Security Council meeting to discuss Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, Brazil’s delegation said the act was “profoundly alarming” and could increase violence in the region.

That was a major transformation in Brazilian policy given that rightwing former President Jair Bolsonaro was a staunch ally of Israel and even planned to move his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

He abandoned the idea after protests from Arab countries that jeopardized Brazilian trade with the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Brazil’s new diplomacy was proclaimed just a fortnight after Chile’s left-wing President Gabriel Boric disclosed his plan to transform his nation’s representative office in the Palestinian city of Ramallah into an embassy.

He revealed his intention during a Christmas celebration on Dec. 21 at Club Deportivo Palestino, a social sports organization created by Palestinian immigrants in 1920.

For years, communities in Latin America have come together to denounce Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

The strong solidarity with Palestine on the continent has put pressure on governments to denounce Israel’s actions.

Chile has the world’s largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East, comprising an estimated 500,000 people.




A mosque in Brazil was illuminated with the Palestinian flag during an appeal to end violence. (AFP)

“We can’t forget a community that’s suffering from an illegal occupation, a community that’s resisting, a community that’s having its rights and its dignity violated every day, and that this is absolutely unfair,” Boric said

The following day, Chile’s Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola reaffirmed the embassy plan but did not provide a timeline.

Experts see Boric’s decision as an invitation to other Latin American countries to follow suit. “That was not only an action aiming to intensify relations between both countries (Chile and Palestine) and to fully recognize the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, it was also a gesture that can be imitated by other regional leaders,” Palestinian-Chilean political analyst Jaime Abedrapo told Arab News.

He said Chile’s Foreign Ministry had been gradually advancing toward such a plan over the years, and broad segments of society support Boric’s announcement, including right-wing politicians.

“We must emphasize that the Chilean-Jewish community recognized the measure’s legitimacy,” Abedrapo added.

In his opinion, the fact that Brazil is adhering again to Lula’s agenda for the Middle East is greatly relevant given the country’s importance in Latin America.

INNUMBERS

Palestinian diaspora in Latin America:

• 500k in Chile.

• 250k in Honduras.

• 200k in Guatemala.

• 70k in El Salvador.

• 70k in Brazil.

The election of Lula and other left-wingers on the continent is seen as an auspicious moment for the adoption of measures that could benefit the Palestinian people.

“Why did Boric announce his plan now? Because there are propitious conditions for it,” Ualid Rabah, president of the Palestinian Arab Federation of Brazil, told Arab News. “Even before Lula took office, his political stance on Palestine and Israel had already impacted the Latin American diplomatic scenario.”

Rabah compares the current situation with 2010, when then-President Lula recognized the State of Palestine along the 1967 borders. Other Latin American countries followed suit.

“Boric had the political sensibility to realize that and to take action,” Rabah said, expressing his belief that Lula will consolidate policies that he launched during his two tenures (between 2003 and 2010) and that were frozen afterward.

They include four cooperation agreements signed between Brazil and Palestine in 2010 concerning free trade, education, culture and technology.

“Those deals were obstructed by extremists, including Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro (Jair Bolsonaro’s son), during the process in Congress,” Rabah said. “We had to work hard to see them approved now. I’m sure Lula will ratify them.”




Lula of Brazil and Gabriel Boric (left) of Chile personify the new pro-Palestine leadership in Latin America. (AFP)

Such agreements will increase the exchange of people and goods between the two countries and strengthen their relationship.

Chileans and Brazilians involved with the Palestinian cause wish to see more progress in the next few years.

Abedrapo said he is hoping for “coherent and consistent steps,” including the establishment of a Chilean Embassy in Bethlehem or Jerusalem. “That would have a great symbolic impact,” he added.

Rabah said he and other activists are pressing Brazil’s government to assume “a clear voice against (Israeli) apartheid in Palestine.”

He added: “We want the Brazilian government to cut ties with Israeli companies and institutions directly or indirectly involved in the invasion of territories in Palestine, for instance.”

But Reginaldo Nasser, a foreign relations professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, said although Boric’s and Lula’s measures will bring progress, hoping for great transformations now is unrealistic.




Pro-Palestine activists painted the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires during a protest; left: (AFP)

“Lula had an ambiguous relationship with Palestine, given that during his earlier administrations he promoted important initiatives for Palestinians but also intensified his country’s relations with Israel,” Nasser told Arab News, adding that real change “requires more than symbolic measures.”

He said: “Brazil bases its diplomacy on international law, but Israel goes far beyond that and places settlers to dominate a region.”

In Nasser’s opinion, Brazil’s government should understand that there is no symmetry between Palestine and Israel but a situation of colonialism.

“If Brazilian policies don’t take that into consideration, nothing can really change. Brazil will remain acting like Israel’s partner,” he said, adding that pro-Israel pressure will be strong in Brazil, and Latin America as a whole, if more steps are taken.

“The costs of going against Israel’s policies are high. That’s why Palestinians have been alone for so long in the international arena,” Nasser said.


Guests, diplomatic missions evacuated from Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel due to fire - Al-Arabiya

Guests, diplomatic missions evacuated from Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel due to fire - Al-Arabiya
Updated 21 sec ago
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Guests, diplomatic missions evacuated from Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel due to fire - Al-Arabiya

Guests, diplomatic missions evacuated from Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel due to fire - Al-Arabiya

All guests and diplomatic missions have been evacuated from Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel that houses a number of Gulf Arab envoys due to a fire, Saudi-owned Al-Hadath and Al-Arabiya television stations reported early Wednesday.

An official at Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed hotel said guests were evacuated to garden area as precautionary measure due to a small fire in the kitchen that has since been controlled.

-More to Follow


Iraq wants to overcome dispute with Kuwait over maritime waterway, PM says

Iraq wants to overcome dispute with Kuwait over maritime waterway, PM says
Updated 27 September 2023
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Iraq wants to overcome dispute with Kuwait over maritime waterway, PM says

Iraq wants to overcome dispute with Kuwait over maritime waterway, PM says
  • Kuwait’s prime minister has described the Iraqi court ruling on the waterway as containing “historical fallacies,” calling on Iraq to take “concrete, decisive and urgent measures” to address it

Iraq is keen to overcome a dispute with Kuwait on maritime navigation in the Khor Abdullah waterway between the two countries, Iraq’s prime minister said on Tuesday.
In comments carried by Iraq’s state news agency, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said the country wants a solution that does not conflict with its constitution or with international law.
Iraq respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kuwait and is committed to all its bilateral agreements with countries and to the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, a statement from the prime minister’s media office said on Tuesday after Al-Sudani’s meeting with the state’s administration coalition.
“Such crises are resolved through understanding and reliance on rationality, away from the language of emotion and convulsive populist statements that only produce more crises and tension,” Al-Sudani was quoted as telling his cabinet.
Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court ruled this month that a bilateral agreement regulating navigation in the waterway was unconstitutional. The court said the law ratifying the accord should have been approved by two-thirds of parliament.
The countries’ shared land border was demarcated by the United Nations in 1993 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but it did not cover the length of their maritime boundaries. This was left for the two oil producers to resolve.
A maritime border agreement between the two nations was reached in 2012 and ratified by each of their legislative bodies in 2013.
Kuwait’s prime minister has described the Iraqi court ruling on the waterway as containing “historical fallacies,” calling on Iraq to take “concrete, decisive and urgent measures” to address it.


More than 100 dead, 150 injured in Iraq wedding inferno

More than 100 dead, 150 injured in Iraq wedding inferno
Updated 8 min 33 sec ago
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More than 100 dead, 150 injured in Iraq wedding inferno

More than 100 dead, 150 injured in Iraq wedding inferno
  • The fire ripped through a large events hall after fireworks were lit during the celebration

NINEVEH, Iraq: More than 100 people were killed and 150 injured in a fire at a wedding party in Hamdaniya district in Iraq’s Nineveh province that left civil defense searching the charred skeleton of a building for survivors into the early hours of Wednesday.

Nineveh Deputy Governor Hassan Al-Allaq told Reuters that 113 people had been confirmed dead, with state media putting the death toll at at least 100, with 150 people injured.

The fire ripped through a large events hall in the north-eastern region after fireworks were lit during the celebration, local civil defense said, according to state media.

“We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didn’t got stuck. Even those who made their way out were broken,” said Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno.

Video from a Reuters correspondent at the site showed firefighters clambering over the charred wreckage of the building, shining lights over smoldering ruins.

Preliminary information indicated that the building was made of highly flammable construction materials, contributing to its rapid collapse, state media said.

Ambulances and medical crews were dispatched to the site by federal Iraqi authorities and Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, according to official statements.

Eyewitnesses at the site said the building caught fire at around 10:45 p.m. local time (1945 GMT) and that hundreds of people were in attendance at the time of the incident.


Morocco calls for resumption of Western Sahara talks

Morocco calls for resumption of Western Sahara talks
Updated 27 September 2023
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Morocco calls for resumption of Western Sahara talks

Morocco calls for resumption of Western Sahara talks
  • Permanent representative to UN calls for solution to ‘fabricated regional conflict’
  • ‘Climate change continues to represent the biggest challenge to humanity in the globe’

NEW YORK: Morocco’s permanent representative to the UN on Tuesday called for a resumption of negotiations over the situation in Western Sahara.

Speaking on the final day of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, Omar Hilale said Morocco is resolute in finding a solution to the “fabricated regional conflict” as an aid to promoting peace and stability in the region and Africa more widely. 

“Morocco continues to support the efforts of the UN to relaunch roundtables with the same format and the same participants, especially Algeria, the main party to this conflict, in line with its Security Council resolution 2654,” he added.

“We reaffirm, the solution can only be politically realistic and practical, based on consensus. The initiative for autonomy as part of the toolkit of Morocco’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty remains the solution to this regional conflict. There’s no alternative.”

The Western Sahara conflict dates back to 1975, after the withdrawal of colonial occupier Spain, sparking a 15-year war between the Algeria-backed Polisario Front and Morocco for control over the territory.

A 1991 ceasefire deal brought fighting to an end, with Morocco in control of 80 percent of the resource-rich desert region and the Polisario Front clinging to hopes of a UN-supervised referendum on independence provided for in the deal.

Alongside calling for further work on bringing an end to the near half-century conflict, Hilale provided an update on efforts being undertaken by Moroccan authorities to respond to the devastating earthquake that struck at the start of the month.

“We’ve faced the repercussions of this earthquake, which led to the death of 3,000 people and injured 5,700 others, alongside grave material losses, but we face these repercussions with determination, seriousness and solidarity,” he said.

“We established an inter-ministerial committee to develop an urgent program for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of affected areas, and located about $12 billion for this program from our budget for the next five years.

“This shows climate change continues to represent the biggest challenge to humanity in the globe. This is why today, more than ever, there’s a need to promote prevention, resilience, and international cooperation as part of the international community’s priorities.”


25 dead in fierce new fighting in Deir Ezzor

25 dead in fierce new fighting in Deir Ezzor
Updated 27 September 2023
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25 dead in fierce new fighting in Deir Ezzor

25 dead in fierce new fighting in Deir Ezzor
  • Forces loyal to Assad regime clash with Kurdish-led troops in eastern Syria

JEDDAH: At least 25 people have died in two days of fierce clashes between fighters loyal to the Assad regime and Kurdish-led forces in the Dheiban area of Deir Ezzor province in eastern Syria.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said they had “driven out the regime gunmen who had infiltrated the area” after gun battles erupted on Monday.
At least 90 people were killed in the same area this month in 10 days of fighting between the SDF and armed Arab tribesmen.
Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the latest clashes erupted when pro-regime fighters crossed the Euphrates river, which separates their positions in southwestern Deir Ezzor from the SDF in the northeast. It said 21 of the dead were regime loyalists and three were SDF fighters. A woman was also killed.
The SDF said the loyalist fighters had crossed the Euphrates “under cover of an indiscriminate bombardment”of its positions. The SDF responded by bombarding the right bank of the river, which is controlled by regimetroops with support from Iran-backed militias.
The Kurds form a majority in the core areas of SDF control in northeastern and northern Syria. But in several areas that they captured in their campaign against Daesh, Arabs form the majority.
According to the Observatory, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria, some of the Arab fighters who fled to government-held territory after the previous clashes took part in this week’s assault.
The SDF was Washington’s main Syrian ally in its fightback against Daesh, which culminated in the militants’defeat in their last Syrian foothold on the left bank of the Euphrates in 2019.