Cooling Relations

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Is support for Israel fading in Latin America where left-of-centre leaders have taken office in recent years?

On Nov. 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution establishing two states, one Arab and one Jewish, on the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine; thirteen of the then 20 Latin American member nations voted in favour and 18 supported Israel’s admission to the UN in May 1949.

Guatemala recognized Israel three days after its establishment in May 1948, and the other Latin American countries followed suit in 1948 and 1949. But developments in the international arena during the 1960s and 1970s led to a lessening of support for Israel of these countries, mainly at the UN and its affiliated bodies. Leftist regimes in Peru, Chile, Nicaragua, and, most significantly, Cuba, adhered to the nonaligned movement, where radical Arab states pursued anti-israeli policies.

PINK TIDE

The Arab-Israeli war in 1973 saw further erosion. Three Latin American states broke diplomatic relations with Israel: Cuba in 1973, Guyana in 1974, and Nicaragua in 1982. In the UN General Assembly in November 1975, five Latin American and Caribbean states (Brazil, Cuba, Guyana, Grenada, and Mexico) supported Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism and questioned the moral ground for Israel’s existence.

Things turned around in the 1990s, especially after the demise of the Soviet Union, which had been a major factor in the growth of antizionism.

By the early 1990s Israel had 18 embassies in Latin America and hosted 17 Latin American missions.

However, a so-called “pink tide” has seen left-of-centre leaders take office in recent years in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, and Peru. Some of these newly elected governments, who oppose Israel’s policies on the Palestinians and are critical of its continued control of the West Bank, are becoming less friendly to the Jewish state. There has been increased support for the Palestinian cause, particularly in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, home to many citizens of Palestinian Arab origin.

Brazil-Israel relations had improved significantly during the right-wing presidency of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018. In December 2019, Brazil opened a trade office in Jerusalem. Israel viewed Bolsonaro as a new ally.

“I congratulated him on his victory,” tweeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A few weeks later, the Israeli leader flew to Brazil to attend Bolsonaro's inauguration.

CLOSE TIES

Now things have changed. The recent victory of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as president will see greater support for the Palestinian cause. He supports unilateral Palestinian statehood, including Ramallah’s bid to become a UN member.

In 2010, during his previous term in office, Lula became modern Brazil’s first head of state to come to Israel. However, he refused to visit the grave of Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, in Jerusalem. Days later, though, he laid a wreath at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s grave in Ramallah. Lula also had close ties with Iran, hosting former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and visiting Tehran.

Running for office again in June last year, Lula stated that “Palestinians deserve our full attention and solidarity.” And he dismissed Brazil’s ambassador to Israel, Gerson Menandro Garcia de Freitas, a Bolsonaro appointee, just days after his inauguration.

Chile is home to the largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East and this is also reflected in its policies. Gabriel Boric Font, who was elected the country’s president in 2021, at first refused to accept the credentials of the new Israeli ambassador, Gil Artzyeli, last September.

According to reports this was because of his anger at Israeli military operations in Gaza a month earlier. Artzyeli had been scheduled to present his credentials to Boric as a formality, but the Chilean government informed him that the ceremony had been cancelled because of Israel “killing children in Gaza.”

'BIZARRE' BEHAVIOUR

Subsequently, Chilean Foreign Minister Ximena Fuentes Torrijo apologized to Director-general Alon Ushpiz of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

As well, Israel summoned Chile’s ambassador Jorge Carvajal to Jerusalem for a reprimand, calling Chile’s behaviour “bizarre and unprecedented.”

Boric has a tense relationship with Chile’s 18,000 Jews and has encouraged them to lobby for Israeli territorial concessions.

On the other hand, Palestinian officials and supporters welcomed Boric’s announcement Dec. 21 at a ceremony with Palestinians that his country will open an embassy in the West Bank.

Colombia’s new president, Gustavo Petro, elected last year, has blamed Israel for the brutal suppression of Communist insurgents and individuals in his country during the Cold War.

“The state of Israel discriminates against Palestinians like the Nazis discriminate against Jews,” he also asserted.

The current wave of leftwing governments sweeping Latin America bodes ill for Israel politically.

 

 

 

 

Baltic States Worry About their Russian Populations

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

The Baltic provinces of Estland, Livland and Kurland, which correspond to present-day Estonia and Latvia, were incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 18th century.

Along with Lithuania, they gained their independence when tsarist Russia fell apart after the First World War. In 1940 Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin seized them. The Nazis conquered all three in 1941 but Moscow regained them in 1944, and they would remain Soviet republics until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Baltic states found it easy to rejoin the west, and they are members of the European Union and NATO. Today, they are also front-line states bordering the Russian Federation.

But they also contain significant ethnic Russian populations, who settled in these countries while they were under Soviet domination. The national and political loyalties of these communities continues to remain an issue.

This is especially the case with respect to the majority Russian-speaking border cities of Narva in Estonia, split by the Narva River from the Russian city of Ivangorod, and Daugavpils in Latvia, located near Belarus and some 120 kilometres from the Russian border. Should war come, would their inhabitants be a “fifth column?”

Ethnic Russians make up about a fourth of Estonia’s population; around 36 per cent of Narva’s 60,000 residents have Russian passports. Estonia last April banned the display of symbols that have been embraced in Russia as signs of support for the Ukraine invasion, like the letter Z and the ribbon of St. George, an emblem of the Russian military.

As well, Russian nationals in Estonia will have their firearms confiscated by the police if they refuse to hand them over voluntarily under a law announced last September. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas asserted that due to the “current circumstances,” Russians “with weapons in their hands are a threat to the security of Estonia.”

Estonian President Alar Karis has said his government’s approach to television has been key in fighting Russian propaganda in his country. Estonia has increased funding for its own national TV stations, restricted access to Russian-language propaganda outlets, and made some Western TV stations free to the public in recent years. Estonia’s state broadcaster has its own Russian-language service, ETV+, which reflects the government’s position.

Latvia, where about 33 per cent in the country speak Russian, has engaged in similar media efforts, with President Egils Levits citing encouraging poll results of a study by the Riga-based SKDS Public Opinion Research Centre suggesting that a large majority of Russian speakers, though they cherish the Russian culture and language, “feel a sense of belonging in Latvian society.” 

Still, in November Latvia’s Education Ministry announced plans to replace Russian with a European language as the second foreign language taught in schools. In December, Russia’s television channel TV Rain was shut down, accused of showing content that supports Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. It was also fined for displaying a map in which Crimea was shown as part of Russia’s territory.

The Baltic states were part of the USSR for almost half a century, and the Soviet era remained omnipresent. Tanks, statues, and monuments to Red Army soldiers fighting Nazi Germany during the Second World War were everywhere.

The Ukraine war inflamed debates about what to do with USSR-era monuments. Though the Baltic countries decided to remove these reminders of Soviet rule, not all inhabitants agreed-- especially not the Russian-speaking minorities.

Last August, Estonian authorities removed a contentious monument of a Soviet tank outside Narva. This was opposed by the local population, which considered it part of the city’s identity. The monument was moved to the Estonian War Museum, some 200 kilometres north of the capital, Tallinn. Six more Soviet-era monuments were also removed. Prime Minister Kallas explained that “A tank is a murder weapon, it is not a memorial, and those same tanks are killing people on the streets of Ukraine right now.”

In Latvia, many felt that the 80-metre-tall Soviet Victory Memorial in the capital Riga was no longer tolerable, but for large parts of the country’s Russian-speaking population it still bore a great significance. It was built in 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, but the monument became the subject of long-standing controversy concerning the historical memory of the world war and the legacy of Soviet rule.

Latvian lawmakers in 2021 approved a law ordering the dismantling of all monuments seen as glorifying the Soviet regime by Nov. 15. Some 69 objects fell into this category. Last August the Victory obelisk was demolished.

In Lithuania, there has also been a heated debate around the country’s Soviet-era monuments. In late November, the dismantling of a monument erected in 1984 to commemorate the victory of the Soviet army began. The Antakalnis memorial complex, covering more than two hectares, is Lithuania’s most recognisable memorial to Soviet soldiers. It consists of six soldiers, each standing more than six metres high.

Vilnius authorities had intended to remove the monument by Nov. 1, but the work was temporarily halted at the request of ethnic Russians. It has been the site of a celebration each May 9 to mark the Soviet Union’s victory in the Second World War.

The place of ethnic Russians in the Baltic region remains a touchy subject.