Aymara women march holding posters with a message that reads in Spanish; "Bolivia condemns genocide in Gaza. Palestine, resist" during a rally against Israel's offensive in Gaza, in La Paz, Bolivia, Friday, Aug. 8, 2014. Picture by Juan Karita AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.
This past October, Chile’s political right won dozens of mayoralties in local elections, trouncing the governing center-left coalition. In the same month, the right-wing evangelical bishop Marcelo Crivella became the mayor of Rio de Janeiro. Over the past year, a number of other Latin American elections have similarly resulted in victories for the right, signaling that the “pink tide” of left-wing governments in the region is receding. This turn to the right does not bode well for the Palestinian cause, with such leaders as Crivella, whose first trip as mayor was to Jerusalem, openly supporting Israeli interests.
This is a significant change from the recent past. While for decades Latin American governments were generally friendly toward Israel, this shifted in the 2000s when many of these governments, both progressive and less progressive, showed a stronger sense of solidarity with Palestine through such actions as recognition of a Palestinian state and condemnation of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. Such solidarity marked a “golden decade” of Latin American-Palestinian relations.
