Colombian President Gustavo Petro standing in front of the flag of Colombia and giving a speech at a podium. File photo.
The United States (US) once again confirmed itself as the main defender of Israel’s genocidal actions, in the face of any criticism of the crimes it is committing against the Palestinian people. This time, it has attacked Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who it has accused of being anti-Semitic for his statements against the Zionist entity’s genocide in Gaza.
The US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt, once again criticized the Colombian leader for his firm stance against the actions of the occupying regime against the Palestinian people, which Petro and many other world leaders have described as genocide.
Lipstadt said in a post on social media, “President Gustavo Petro’s continued rhetoric normalizes anti-Semitism. We cannot accept it, we cannot tolerate it. We must condemn these harmful narratives.”
.@StateSEAS: La continua retórica del presidente colombiano @petrogustavo normaliza el antisemitismo. No podemos aceptarlo. No podemos tolerarlo. Debemos condenar estas narrativas dañinas. https://t.co/eocLsPnITy
— US Embassy Bogota (@USEmbassyBogota) September 21, 2024
The US official’s interventionist statements were accompanied with another post by the US embassy in Bogota in which it translated Lipstadt’s statements.
Lipstadt added in another post, “Comparing any current action, particularly by Israel, with the systematic annihilation of the Nazi extermination camps is deeply offensive. Legitimate concern for human rights in Gaza must be separated from erroneous and anti-Semitic historical references.”
The Colombian head of state did not take long to respond, and through social media replied to the US diplomat: “Madam ambassador. The Palestinians are Semites according to the Bible, since the word Semite designates the descendants of Shem and their language,” said Petro, who pointed out that it is the Zionist entity that is being anti-Semitic with its actions in Gaza.
Señora embajadora. Los palestinos son semitas de acuerdo a la biblia, dado que la palabra semita designa a los descendientes de Sem y su lengua.
Por tanto es antisemita matar niños y niñas arrojando bombas en Gaza y no oponerse a ello. Lo más antisemita que hay hoy es repetir el… https://t.co/ShIwVX5Lho
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) September 21, 2024
He added categorically that, “It is anti-Semitic to kill children by throwing bombs in Gaza and not to oppose it,” after which he again used figures such as Adolf Hitler or referenced the Jewish Holocaust to compare it with the inhumane massacre that the Zionist entity is currently committing in the Gaza Strip and allover the region, including Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
Petro was blunt when he declared in the same post that “I am not anti-Semitic, do not confuse but respect me. I am not anti-Jewish, I believe in freedom of religion and if I had been born in that era I would have given my life in the armed resistance against the Nazis.”
The Colombian president concluded his response to the attack by the US government by focusing on those responsible for the current Palestinian Holocaust: “Mr. Netanyahu and his government, the criminal charged by international justice, is not Semitism, it is Nazism.”
(Últimas Noticias) by Randolf Borges
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/MCM
