The rise of pro-Israel diplomacy in Latin America is staggering. From renewing diplomatic relations to rekindling trade, newly elected right-wing leaders are more interested in forming strategic alliances than upholding international law.
This marks a departure from the political “pink-tide” that guided many Latin American countries in solidarity with Palestine after October 2023.
Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Cuba and Belize all intervened in support of South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), while Colombia went one step further, placing a total ban on coal exports to Israel and terminating its bilateral free trade agreement.
On 31 January 2025, Colombia, Cuba, Bolivia, and Honduras also became founding members of The Hague Group. In response to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and occupation of the West Bank, they committed to “coordinated legal and diplomatic measures in defence of international law and solidarity with the people of Palestine”.
But in the aftermath of right-wing presidential victories, Bolivia and Honduras have both withdrawn from The Hague Group, and Chile and Honduras have returned their ambassadors to Israel.
The new president of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, is ready to renew ties with Israel by ramping up security coordination, resuming coal exports, and withdrawing from The Hague Group.
This week, the new right-wing government also recognised Israel’s claim to the occupied Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967, becoming only the second country to do so after the Trump administration in 2019.
“To learn about international experiences that have yielded results will be fundamental to strengthen our security policy and our penitentiary system,” De La Espriella posted on 10 August, days after entering office.
“Israel will find in Colombia a friend and a determined ally in the fight against terrorism and organised crime.”
In longtime pro-Palestine Venezuela, meanwhile, Israel and Caracas this week agreed to resume consular relations after diplomatic ties were cut in 2009. This comes in the wake of the US’ military capture of Nicolás Maduro in January, marking a striking shift in Caracas’ foreign policy.
A new alignment in Latin America
Bolivia and Honduras’ withdrawal from The Hague Group on 4 March 2026 revealed the limitations of non-aligned movements in the absence of political will.
“The Hague Group was an important, organised response from states that were tired of waiting for countries in the UN Security Council to act,” María Alejandra Gómez, a legal researcher at Law for Palestine, told The New Arab.
At that time, the US had already utilised its veto power in the UNSC to block four ceasefire resolutions in Gaza.
Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, will renew ties with Israel by ramping up security coordination, resuming coal exports, withdrawing from The Hague Group, and recognising Israel’s annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. [Getty]
“Every single state in the world is bound to prevent and punish genocide, regardless of what treaties they have signed,” she explained to The New Arab. “The Hague Group only did what it was obliged to do.”
Nonetheless, “the enforcement of international law is always subject to the political will of states, so if they change governments, they tend to change their stance,” Gómez said. “This is a structural problem with international law; it is not just about The Hague Group.”
In fact, months before their withdrawal, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar and his Bolivian counterpart Fernando Armayo had already signed an agreement to renew diplomatic relations.
Similarly, on 3 June, Honduras and Israel signed an addendum to their pre-existing cooperation agreement. With a renewed focus on agriculture, water management, health, education and security, Israel’s Ambassador to Honduras Nadav D Goren called it “another milestone in the bilateral relationship between Israel and Honduras”.
Chile’s turn towards Israel
On 3 August, the new right-wing governments of Chile and Honduras returned ambassadors to Israel nearly three years after they were recalled by former presidents Gabriel Boric and Xiomara Castro.
The appointment of Chilean Ambassador Gabriel Zaliasnik, a self-proclaimed “proud Zionist”, by President José Antonio Kast, was unequivocally denounced by the Palestinian community of Chile.
In June, they described the decision as “contrary to the national interest, incoherent with Chile’s history of defending international law, and deeply offensive to the hundreds of thousands of Chileans of Palestinian origin”.
“Today, relations between Chile and the State of Israel have been normalised across all sectors,” Nelson Hadad, a Chilean lawyer and former ambassador to Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, told The New Arab. “The outlook is very bleak.”
In fact, “during a recent World Health Organisation vote, Chile, for the first time, abstained from supporting measures regarding public health and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians facing starvation in the Gaza Strip,” said Hadad.
The rise of new right-wing governments in Latin America reverses recent diplomatic solidarity with Palestine under more left-wing leaders. [Getty]
Such pro-Israel foreign policy is particularly daunting in Chile, home to the largest Palestinian community outside of the Middle East and North Africa.
Last week, upon visiting relatives in Beit Jala, a Chilean-Palestinian named José Nicolás Khamis was detained at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
“He was interrogated for 36 hours without the right to a defence or to call a lawyer,” said Hadad. “Ultimately, he was accused of being involved in far-left, communist terrorist activities and was subsequently deported on national security grounds.”
These security concerns were “false and baseless,” said Hadad. As such, “this constitutes a serious violation of diplomatic reciprocity between the two nations and reflects a clear bias against Chileans of Palestinian or Arab origin”.
Enter ‘El Tigre’
With even more vigour than his neighbours, Colombia’s President Abelardo De La Espriella, who calls himself ‘El Tigre’, has pledged to nullify his predecessor’s anti-Zionist legacy.
Before winning the elections in June, he proposed an “unprecedented offensive against organised crime in Colombia based on strengthening strategic alliances with the United States and Israel”.
Dubbed “a second Plan Colombia”, an homage to the 1999 US-Colombian military project to combat drug cartels and destroy left-wing guerrilla groups, it emphasises Israel’s value as “a leader in artificial intelligence applied to defence, drone surveillance systems, cybersecurity, and military training”.
After all, the State of Israel “is doing what must be done to defend its people,” declared De La Espriella during an interview in June. “And that is exactly what I am going to do to defend Colombia.”
Since then he has pledged to resume coal exports and leave The Hague Group, to withdraw Colombia’s intervention from South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ, to terminate plans to establish a Colombian consulate in Ramallah, and recognise the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
He has previously outlined plans to relocate the Colombian embassy to Jerusalem, flagrantly disregarding the city’s divided status under international law.
Unsurprisingly, one day before he entered office on 7 August, Gideon Sa’ar was right by his side.
“I had the privilege of meeting him in his office in Barranquilla,” wrote Sa’ar, describing their discussion about “the immediate establishment of diplomatic, security, and economic relations.”
“The golden age in relations between Colombia and Israel begins today,” he confirmed.
The battle moves beyond governments
Given former President Gustavo Petro’s outspoken opposition to Israel, this realignment is momentous.
As co-founder of The Hague Group, Colombia and its keffiyeh-donning leader had highlighted the fundamentality of political will when enforcing international law.
His most brazen act of solidarity occurred at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2025, when he proposed invoking UN Resolution 377 A, also known as Uniting for Peace, to “establish a peacekeeping force” to defend Palestine.
But “it was not just the will of the president,” pointed out Gómez, describing the impact of public pressure from activists and civil society. In fact, “it is not just about the states of The Hague Group. Activism all over the world will enable states to take more coherent action towards Palestine”.
Latin American domestic courts provide another essential avenue to uphold international law, regardless of a government’s political position or a president’s personal interests.
“Their impartiality enables us to force governments to comply with their international obligations,” Gómez told The New Arab.
“For example, when the government of Argentina, under President Javier Milei, invited Benjamin Netanyahu to visit, the Prime Minister of Israel had to cancel his trip because Argentinian courts were [preparing] to issue an arrest warrant.”
Similarly, “in Colombia, we have something called the constitutional bloc which means that many international laws are considered to be incorporated into our constitution,” said Gómez. This gives them the same credence as constitutional laws, she explained.
Meanwhile, despite the difficulties, The Hague Group has continued to gain momentum. With 40 states in attendance at its most recent conference, this was the largest gathering since its founding.
“Participants reaffirmed the paramount importance of the Charter of the United Nations and the international legal order as the foundation of peaceful and just relations among states and peoples,” read the official statement.
With Colombia ready to withdraw, abandoning its role as co-chair, “The Hague Group must find ways to reinvent itself,” said Gómez.
In that process, “the role that activists and citizens will play in order for there to be more accountability in the international arena is going to be transcendental”.
Ana Maria Monjardino is an independent journalist and writer from London
Follow her on X: @ammonjardino
Edited by Charlie Hoyle