Colombia and Israel are embroiled in a furious diplomatic spat that keeps escalating.
Israel has now suspended security exports to Colombia after the nation’s leader, President Gustavo Preto, compared Israel’s siege of Gaza to the actions of Nazi Germany.
Preto doubled down on his criticism after Lior Haiat, the spokesperson for the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, hit back.
“Israel condemns the president’s statements that reflect support for the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists, fuel anti-Semitism, affect the representatives of the State of Israel and threaten the peace of the Jewish community in Colombia,” Haiat said in a tweet.
In response, Preto doubled down on his stance and suggested that his country may need to suspend diplomatic relations with Israel.
READ MORE: Israel says no to ‘ceasefire’ as WHO warns Gaza will run out of supplies in 24 hours
Colombia uses Israeli-built war planes and machine guns to fight drug cartels – and both countries also signed a free trade agreement in 2020.
“If we have to suspend foreign relations with Israel, we suspend them,” wrote Preto in a response tweet.
“We do not support genocides. The president of Colombia is not insulted.”
He continued: “I call on Latin America to show real solidarity with Colombia. And if it is not capable, it will be the development of history that will say the last word as in the great Chaco war.”
“Neither Yair Klein nor Raifal Eithan will be able to say what the history of peace in Colombia is. They unleashed the massacre and genocide in Colombia,” he wrote.
Preto concluded his tweet by comparing Israel’s aggression to the Palestinian people to Adolf Hitler’s aggression towards Jewish people during World War II.
“From the people of Israel, I demand help in the peace of Colombia and help in the peace of Palestine and the world,” he wrote. “Colombia, as Bolívar and Nariño taught us, is a sovereign and just independent people.”
He continued: “Someday the army and government of Israel will ask us for forgiveness for what their men did in our land, unleashing the genocide. I will hug them and they will cry for the murder of Auschwitz and Gaza, and for the Colombian Auschwitz.”
“Hitler will be defeated for the good of humanity, its democracy, Peace and freedom of the world,” he concluded.
