From Colombia to Venezuela, Palestine is a global litmus test

This month, Venezuela revived consular services with Israel after severing diplomatic relations 17 years ago, while Colombia went beyond, recognising Israel’s sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights it occupied in 1967 and annexed in 1981. Both moves should be read as declarations of ideological alignment.

Venezuela has not yet restored full diplomatic relations, which the late Hugo Chávez severed in 2009 during Israel’s war on Gaza. The recent channel grew out of Israeli assistance following Venezuela’s earthquake. Yet Israel’s foreign minister immediately celebrated it as a diplomatic success.

Colombia’s decision is more obscene. Until Bogotá’s announcement, only Donald Trump’s United States had recognised Israeli sovereignty over the territory. Gustavo Petro had broken relations with Israel in 2024 over the Gaza genocide. However, only days after the right-wing Abelardo de la Espriella took office, his government restored ties and security cooperation with Israel and recognised Israel’s Golan annexation claim.

His incoming foreign minister had already met Gideon Saar in Washington, where they agreed to appoint ambassadors, eliminate visa requirements and move Colombia’s embassy to Jerusalem. De la Espriella had called for Colombia to acquire advanced weapons, drones and technology from Israel and the United States.

David and Goliath

We have just watched the same play in Slovenia. A centre-left government recognised Palestine, sanctioned Benjamin Netanyahu and two far-right Israeli ministers, banned imports of settlements and imposed an arms embargo. When Janez Janša’s conservative government arrived, it scrapped those measures, removed the Palestinian flag from a government building and reopened the door to Israel.

This shift in domestic power in three states—two in Latin America and one in Europe—produced an immediate policy shift towards Palestine. This is hardly a coincidence. Palestine is a global political litmus test.

Whenever the left is rising, the Palestinian flag is rarely far away. It appears at a small anti-racist protest in an American town, at campaigns challenging the power of money and lobbies in congressional races, and among the progressive ultras of Celtic, who have repeatedly defied their club and UEFA to turn the stands green, white, red and black.

It flew in Tahrir Square, where solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada had helped educate generations of Egyptian activists long before the 2011 revolution.

The flag appears because Palestine condenses the central questions confronting every emancipatory movement. Who is the underdog resisting the powers that be? Who is the little David fighting the giant Goliath? Who is entitled to control the land and decide who lives and who dies?

Any person or political movement struggling to change society with a progressive vision starts drawing parallels with other struggles over similar causes elsewhere and begins to understand how they are connected.

Is it a coincidence that Egyptian striking workers on the eve of the revolution accused the riot police of behaving like Israelis when they suspended by force their sit-in around the parliament? Is it a coincidence that Greta Thunberg began fighting against climate change only to swiftly connect the dots and sail to Gaza?

The reverse pattern is equally visible. When reaction, conservatism and fascism advance, Israel’s flag often follows.

Far-right and Israel

Israeli flags have appeared at Tommy Robinson’s anti-migration mobilisations in Britain, including a 2024 rally where the crowd booed a Palestinian flag. For Germany’s AfD and Europe’s far right—certainly some of the worst antisemites on the planet—support for Israel runs high because the admiration is for walls, militarised borders, demographic engineering, and a state organised around ethnic supremacy.

American white nationalist Richard Spencer made the logic explicit when he called himself a “white Zionist”, presenting Israel as a model for the white ethnostate he desired. The far right sees no contradiction between its hatred toward Jews at home and support for Israel. The latter offers a worldview which embodies the far right’s wildest dreams: minorities separated, migrants expelled, and each population confined to its supposed place.

Latin America has seen first-hand this worldview in action. During the Cold War, Israel armed and assisted right-wing regimes fighting revolutionary dissent, from Somoza’s Nicaragua to the Guatemalan military during its counterinsurgency war. It developed lasting security relationships with governments and armed forces in Colombia, Argentina, and elsewhere.

When the US faced legal constraints, Israel stepped in to supply weapons, training and intelligence to its allies. Such a partnership was natural. Israel and the juntas shared a view of popular movements as enemies to be surveilled, displaced or eliminated.

The same logic is at play today. Washington reasserts its domination over Caracas, and a government born from US intervention opens a channel with Israel. A Colombian administration eager to restore intimacy with Trump restores relations with Israel and endorses Trump’s Golan decree.

Janša, another Trump admirer, takes Slovenia to the right and begins dismantling its Palestine policy. In each case, alignment with the United States carries an Israeli entrance fee.

This is why Palestine is more than just a local conflict in the Middle East. A country at the far end of the world that wishes to identify with US imperial power is expected to make peace with Zionism. It buys Israeli weapons, repeats Israeli security narratives, and treats Palestinian rights as disposable. In so many ways, Israel is the quickest and most important gateway into the reactionary club.

Victories for progressive forces are therefore essential to keeping Israel isolated and making its leaders pay a political price for occupation, apartheid and genocide. Every election that defeats the far right, every successful anti-racist mobilisation and every workplace or university that adopts boycott and divestment helps keep Palestine visible.

Latin America shows what happens when power shifts to the right. But power shifts because people actively push it. Palestine remains the flag that tells us who is pushing, in which direction, and towards what kind of world.

Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian scholar-activist in Germany, focusing on the military, policing, and labour.

Follow Hossam on X: @3arabawy

Have questions or comments? Email us at editorial-english@newarab.com

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab.