The deputy director general for Latin America of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Jonathan Peled, issued a firm statement regarding recent statements by political leaders in the region about Israel, denouncing them as manifestations of anti-Semitism.
The diplomat, Israel’s ambassador to Mexico between 2015 and 2019, focused especially on the words of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who compared the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks with the Holocaust, an event that claimed the lives of six million of Jews during World War II.
Peled emphasized the distinction between legitimate criticism of Israel and calling into question the very legitimacy of the State of Israel. “It’s one thing to criticize Israel, Israel’s government, Israel’s policies. It is another thing to question the legitimacy of the State of Israel to exist. And, of course, make comparisons with the period of Nazism. For us, they are anti-Semitic statements and we put a very clear red line to where the criticism is legitimate for us,” she stated, in conversation with Radio Biobío.
Asked if President Gabriel Boric had also crossed this “red line,” Peled responded affirmatively, although without going into specific details. “When President Boric has expressed himself in a way that seems wrong to us, we condemn that,” he said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry official reported that a year ago he had a “critical, but constructive dialogue” in Santiago, in which he stated that they agreed to “disagree at times and express our opinions, our criticisms, but always maintaining some type of dialogue.” ”.
“Israel is a country that wants to have relations with all the countries in the world that are willing to have relations with Israel. We do not want to be an isolated country and, therefore, this is how we conduct our foreign policy. AND, When a president makes a statement that seems to us to have crossed or crossed the red line, we express ourselves”concluded Peled.
Tensions between Chile and Israel have intensified in recent months, especially after President Boric called the Chilean ambassador in Tel Aviv, Jorge Carvajal, for consultations, in protest of what he considered “unacceptable violations of International Humanitarian Law” by of Israel in the Gaza Strip.
“Chile strongly condemns and observes with great concern that these military operations – which at this point in their development entail collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza – do not respect fundamental norms of International Law,” Boric declared on that occasion.
Recently, in a hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Chile accused Israel of ignoring the resolutions of international organizations and of systematically violating international law in its relationship with the Palestinian population. The Chilean representative, Ximena Fuentes, highlighted that Israel has demonstrated its intention to control the occupied Palestinian territory indefinitely through various policies, turning the occupation into a de facto annexation.
There was also a diplomatic impasse after President Boric declined at the last minute a meeting with the Israeli ambassador to Chile, Gil Artzyeli, after learning of the death of a 17-year-old boy due to offensives by the armed forces of that country. in the West Bank. That was overcome and the President finally received the ambassador’s credentials.
It is worth mentioning that Belize asked the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) to put an end to Israel’s “flagrant impunity” so that it does not continue to “inflict scars for generations on those who survive this Holocaust” in Gaza, and demanded its withdrawal “immediate, unconditional and total of all” the Palestinian territory.
Belizean diplomat Assad Shoman pointed to the situation in the Gaza Strip, where, he said, “the entire population, of more than 2 million people, is in crisis, facing the worst levels of acute food insecurity” and considered that “this famine is not an accident,” but part of a “planned erasure” by Israel.