Far-left Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of committing “genocide” through Israel’s self-defense operations against the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas.
“Mr. Netanyahu, you will go down in history as genocidal. Dropping bombs on thousands of innocent children, women, and elderly people does not make you a hero,” Petro wrote in a social media post late Saturday, local time. “You stand next to those who killed millions of Jews in Europe.”
“A genocide is a genocide no matter if you have a religion or not,” he continued. “Try at least to stop the massacre.”
Petro — a former member of the Marxist M19 guerrilla, a group that Petro himself has claimed had some of its members train with pro-Palestinian paramilitary forces in Libya in the past — had Colombia break its diplomatic ties with Israel in early May, a decision Hamas reportedly celebrated.
The Colombian far-left president made the accusation against Netanyahu in response to a post the Israeli prime minister made on Saturday in which he stated that Israel would not be “lectured by an antisemitic supporter of Hamas.”
Netanyahu’s post followed public calls from Petro on Friday for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“Netanyahu will not stop the genocide, which implies an international arrest warrant from the Criminal Court,” Petro said on Friday. “The Security Council must begin to consider the establishment of a peacekeeping force in the territory of Gaza.”
Petro has almost single-handedly destroyed more than six decades of goodwill between his country and Israel, cultivated by an uninterrupted streak of conservative presidents in Colombia before Petro. In the months following the October 7 siege of Israel by Hamas, Petro has relentlessly attacked Israel, issuing antisemitic statements on both social media and in public speeches repeatedly condemning Israel for responding to Hamas. The Hamas atrocities of October 7 left more than 1,200 dead and resulted in the abduction of about 250 people, of which an estimated 130 remain in captivity.
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Petro’s condemnations of Israel culminated with the far-left president ordering Colombia to cut its ties with Israel on May 1 during the Colombian government’s official “May Day” events, a holiday that celebrates communism.
“Here, in front of you, the government of change, the President of the Republic, informs that tomorrow, diplomatic relations with the state of Israel will be broken for having a government, for having a president, a genocidal one!” Petro said during his May Day speech.
On Saturday, Petro denied supporting Hamas in a social media post in which he stated that “Semites should not be the architects of genocide because they suffered it.”
“Just as the genocide of the Jewish people in Nazi Europe is inadmissible, so is the current genocide against the Palestinian people,” the message read. “I am not a supporter of Hamas because I am a supporter of republican, plebeian, and secular democracy.”
“My democratic, republican, plebeian, secular, and religious principles lead me to reject the barbarism committed by Netanyahu, which is called genocide and anti-humanity,” the message continued. “Neither anti-Semitic nor anti-human. If Gaza dies, humanity dies.”
Petro claimed “responsibility” for a non-binding resolution the United Nations General Assembly recently passed asking the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) to reconsider granting full membership status to “Palestine.”
Petro began his ongoing condemnation of Israel shortly after the start of Israel’s self-defense operations against Hamas in October 2023. At the time, Petro accused Israel of turning Gaza into a concentration camp the likes of Auschwitz, comparing Israel’s actions to those of Nazi Germany.
“If I had lived in Germany in 1933, I would have fought on the side of the Jews, and if I had lived in Palestine in 1948, I would have fought on the Palestinian side,” Petro said at the time. “Now the neo-Nazis want the destruction of the Palestinian people, freedom, and culture. Now the democrats and progressives want peace and freedom for the Israeli and Palestinian people.”
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Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.