Colombian president: Zionism partially owns international financial capital

"Zionism, strongly supported by international financial capital that it partially controls, prevents peace and unleashes horror on Palestine," said Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

By MICHAEL STARR JANUARY 8, 2025 14:35

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro waves to supporters as they attend a march in support of the reforms on health, retirement, employment, and prisons sectors proposed by his government, in Bogota, Colombia May 1, 2024. Uploaded on 10/5/2024 (photo credit: LUISA GONZALEZ/REUTERS)

Colombian President Gustavo Petro claimed on Monday that Zionism prevented peace in the Levant through its control of international finance.

"Zionism, strongly supported by international financial capital that it partially controls, prevents peace and unleashes horror on Palestine, leading its most radical factions into the trap set by terrorism," Petro claimed in a social media post in a response to criticism of his positions on the war between Israel and Hamas.

Petro claimed on X that in 1948 Palestinians opened their cities and territories to Jews who fled the Nazis with the intention of coexisting, supposedly as they had done with the Jews that had already lived in the Levant.

"Just a few months later, the nationalist influx forged a political current under the newly created state of Israel that led to the violent expulsion of Palestinians from their own homes and villages," claimed Petro. "There was never any justice for the Palestinian people; they were segregated in their own homeland and factions within them had to resort to armed struggle for national liberation."

THEN-PRIME MINISTER Yitzhak Rabin shakes hands with then-PLO chairman Yasser Arafat as then-US president Bill Clinton looks on, at the White House in 1993. Israel’s gestures have been met with violence, not diplomacy, the writer asserts. (credit: GARY HERSHORN/REUTERS)

Petro said that all the progressive peace-oriented actors, which included Palestinian National Authority president Yasser Arafat, were dead and had been replaced by religious radical leadership in Israel and Gaza.

"Peace is a human priority. The progressive movements that still exist in the Arab world, Israel and the United States should seek to meet. Perhaps progressive dialogue in the Middle East could find the paths to peace," said Petro. "Colombia must be ready to help whenever it is asked. Colombia's path inside and outside the country is peace."

Classical antisemitism

Former Israeli Ambassador to Chile and Antidefamation League international affairs senior vice president said on social media that Petro was resorting to a classical antisemitic trope about Jewish control of international finance.

"Anti-Israel obsession and constant distortion of history fuel hatred and perpetuate dangerous myths," said Rosenberg.

Confederation of Jewish Communities of Colombia director Prof. Marcos Peckel said on X Monday that besides the ahistoricity of his comments, the president's May decision to break diplomatic ties with Israel also cut channels for negotiating peace.

"By breaking diplomatic relations with Israel, in addition to many other disadvantages, Colombia was left without dialogue with one of the parties in the conflict," wrote Peckel. "This prevents us as a country and you as president from participating in efforts to achieve peace and reconciliation, while also constituting an obstacle to any humanitarian efforts."

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Simon Wiesenthal Center Latin America said that Petro was telling a story of "good Palestinians" and "bad Jews" despite Palestinian leaders refusing proposals for peaceful coexistence since the Israeli state's inception.