Colombia’s decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights marks a dangerous turning point.
By becoming only the second country in the world – after the United States – to endorse Israel’s illegal annexation of Syrian territory, Bogotá has signaled a complete reversal of Gustavo Petro’s foreign policy under new far-right President Abelardo de la Espriella.
However, Colombia is not an isolated case. It reflects a broader, highly aggressive campaign by Israel to systematically dismantle and reverse hard-won pro-Palestine and pro-Arab positions worldwide. In fact, the shift in Bogotá comes alongside dramatic changes in Caracas, where Venezuela’s interim leadership has moved to restore consular ties with Israel after a 17-year freeze.
The same thing is happening in Europe. A prime example is Slovenia, where the newly installed government under Janez Janša removed the Palestinian flag from government buildings and announced its intention to freeze the country’s 2024 recognition of Palestinian statehood and move its embassy to Jerusalem.
Israel knows that its so-called ‘PR problem’ is no longer that of a merely tainted image resulting from occasional negative news coverage. The genocide in Gaza, coupled with genocidal discourse and wars of aggression across the Middle East, means that Israel, this time around, will not easily recover from the damage it has inflicted on its global reputation.
Though some circles, including those purportedly critical of Israel, insist that the problem is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government of extremists, the truth is far more unpleasant for Israel. Indeed, Israel as a country, as a colonial project and as an ideology is increasingly being questioned.
Even some within Israel’s own mainstream media have begun acknowledging the depth of the crisis. “Maybe it’s time to understand that this isn’t just a PR failure, but a moral failure,” prominent Israeli television anchor Yonit Levi said last year. The Washington Post, meanwhile, described Israel as “turning into a global pariah.”
But Israeli leaders, though refusing to acknowledge the potentially irreversible changes in the global mood toward their country and Zionism as a whole, are comforted by two factors: one, continued US – and, by extension, Western – support; and two, directly related to the first, their ability to shift governments’ positions toward Israel through political, diplomatic and other means.
For Israel, the people never mattered; only governments do.
Colombia illustrates precisely why. Israel did not need to reverse Colombian public opinion or undo years of solidarity with Palestine. It only needed a change of government. The election of the unabashedly pro-Israel De la Espriella provided exactly that.
The political consequences were almost immediate. De la Espriella moved to restore full relations with Israel, withdraw Colombia’s support for South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice, resume coal exports and, most consequentially, recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan.
This rapid reversal also gives greater significance to former President Petro’s repeated statements of US and Israeli interference in the election that defeated left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda. Though these accusations remain contested, the outcome itself is unmistakable: a change of government was enough to begin dismantling years of Colombian policy on Palestine and Israel.
The same applies to Venezuela. Many initially viewed the US capture of pro-Palestine President Nicolás Maduro as merely another episode in Washington’s long history of intervention in Latin America. But the speed of Venezuela’s subsequent realignment suggests a broader transformation.
The clearest indication is Caracas’ growing closeness to Tel Aviv. Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with Israel under Hugo Chávez in 2009 over the war on Gaza. Seventeen years later, the two governments have agreed to restore consular services – a significant step toward normalization and a powerful symbol of Venezuela’s changing geopolitical orientation.
Israel’s relationship with much of the Global South has historically been fraught, shaped by its colonial character, military aggression and close alignment with Western power.
Under Netanyahu, however, Israel worked systematically to break that isolation, expanding its influence across Africa, Asia and Latin America as the US-dominated global order began to weaken.
Gaza dramatically reversed those gains, not only in the Global South but worldwide. The challenge now is to make that reversal lasting – and Israel’s recent gains in Colombia, Venezuela, Slovenia and elsewhere temporary.
Keep reading
You must be logged in to post a comment.