Diaspora Drum: Latin America's Arab cohort stirs support for Palestinians

Bolivia severed diplomatic relations with Israel last week to protest Israel’s military strikes in Palestinian Gaza. Chile, Colombia and Honduras recalled their ambassadors to Israel.

It was a reminder that Latin America, especially governments on the left, usually sides with Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — which last month erupted into full-throttled war after militants from Hamas, which rules Gaza, massacred more than a thousand Israeli civilians, and Israel responded with a bombardment of Gaza that in turn has killed thousands of civilians there.

Latin Americans tend to share a geopolitical underdog identity with Palestinians. And many also see the dispute as an opportunity to stick a finger in the eye of the U.S., Israel’s staunchest ally and a power still widely regarded in Latin America as imperialista.

But there’s another important reason — one you can hear, for example, in Arab-infused pop culture hits like the song “Ojos Así” by Colombian megastar Shakira.