In mid-October 2023, the Internet circulated news about a sharp step taken by the authorities of a South American country towards a diplomat from Israel. We checked whether this incident actually took place.

As reported, Colombia decided to expel the Israeli ambassador as a result of a diplomatic scandal involving the President of the South American country Gustavo Petro. He allegedly compared the measures that the Israeli government took against the Gaza Strip after the Hamas attack with the actions of the Nazis at Auschwitz, in response to which the Middle Eastern state suspended all transactions with Colombia. Then Petro said: “If we have to suspend international relations with Israel, we will suspend them. We do not support genocides,” after which the country’s envoy was ordered to leave Bogota. A severance of diplomatic relations between the two states was also reported.

The news was widely disseminated on October 16–17 in Telegram - in particular, in the channels "Ax Live"(906,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Dmitry Nicotin"(389,000), Colonelcassad (326,000), "Pozdnyakov 3.0" (302,000), "Uncle Slava" (231,000) and "Newsach / Dvach"(196,000). The expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Colombia was also reported by some Russian-language media from different countries: Russian “Red Spring", Armenian portal News.am, Syrian agency SANA and Iranian edition ParsToday.

October 7, 2023, the radical Hamas movement (recognized as a terrorist organization in a number of countries) caused a series of missile attacks on Israeli territory. At the same time, militants penetrated into the border settlements of this country, where killed hundreds of civilians, and more than 220 hostages taken away to the Gaza Strip. In response, Israel began bombing this Palestinian territory and preparation to a ground operation in the region, while Hamas continued to shell Israeli cities. At the time of writing this analysis of the authorities in Jerusalem reported about 1,400 dead for its part, the Hamas-controlled government in Gaza about more than 5,000 killed Palestinians.

October 9 Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant announced on introducing a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip - electricity, fuel and food stopped flowing there, limited water supply. “We are fighting animals in human form and will act accordingly,” stated Galant. This decision was condemned, in particular, by human rights organizations Human Rights Watch And Amnesty International, as well as the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell. The humanitarian situation has worsened due to migration hundreds of thousands of people to the southern part of the region, where they were not prepared for such a flow of refugees.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has been active on his X (formerly Twitter) account throughout the current war in the Middle East. criticizes Israel's response to the Gaza Strip, or rather, draws attention to their humanitarian consequences. The most striking was his reaction to the words of Defense Minister Galant about the Palestinians as “animals” who “will have no electricity, no water, no fuel.”

“This is what the Nazis said about Jews. Democratic peoples cannot allow Nazism to re-establish itself in international politics. Both Israelis and Palestinians are people subject to international law. If this hate speech continues, it will only lead to the Holocaust” - so October 9 Petro commented Galant's statement. The next day he also compared the Gaza Strip with the concentration camps of the Third Reich and the Warsaw Ghetto.

On October 15, Colombian Ambassador to Israel Margarita Manjarres called to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and, according to department spokesman Lior Hayat, made it clear that Petro’s comments were surprising, constituted “support for Hamas atrocities” and incited anti-Semitism. As a first response, Israel suspended military exports to Colombia. This is a rather sensitive step - a Middle Eastern country was Bogota has been one of the main suppliers of combat aircraft, surveillance equipment, and assault rifles since the 1990s.

Criticism from the Israeli Foreign Ministry did not reassure Gustavo Petro. On the same day he stated: “If we have to suspend international relations with Israel, we will suspend them. We do not support genocides." He also accused the citizens of Israel of unleashing genocide in his country many years ago, meaning alleged involvement military instructor Yair Klein and presidential adviser Rafael Eitan to some crimes during the years civil war in Colombia.

In turn, Colombian Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva collapsed with criticism of the Israeli ambassador to this country, Gali Dagan (who reposted statement by his Foreign Ministry) and accused him of an arrogant attitude towards President Petro. "Ashamed! At the very least, apologize and leave,” Leyva wrote on October 16.

It was this phrase of the Colombian politician that was perceived as announcement Israeli Ambassador persona non grata. A few hours later, Minister Leyva published a new tweet in which clarified, that he did not speak about the expulsion of Dagan, but only called on his colleague to have common sense and respect for President Petro. The head of the Colombian Foreign Ministry also statedthat relations with Israel will continue if that country so desires.

19 October President Gustavo Petro published a photo from his meeting with Gali Dagan and Alvaro Leyva, in which all three are smiling. However, at the time of writing this analysis, no statements have been made by the Israeli authorities about the possible lifting of the ban on arms exports to Colombia. In any case, the widely circulated news about the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador is just the result of a misinterpretation of an emotional comment made by the foreign minister of a South American country.

Cover photo: embassies.gov.il