After the terrible massacre carried out by Hamas terrorists in Israel, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has made more than 100 posts on X (formerly Twitter) using invalid statements to speak out against Israel's right to defend itself. We interviewed Marcos Peckel, the director of the Confederation of Jewish Communities of Colombia, to find out his opinions on the president's statements.
Regarding Petro's position that Palestine should not be attacked, Peckel believes that "Israel has the right to self-defense." The international relations professor warns that Israel "has the right to eliminate the danger and permanent threat that Hamas represents from Gaza ... And the right to self-defense extends to dismantling that structure that allows Hamas to carry out these types of attacks, and that is what Israel is already doing, and that is what it is going to do in the coming days, weeks and months."
When asked what message he would send to the Colombian president regarding his remarks in defense of Palestine, which included comparing what is happening in the Gaza Strip with what happened in Nazi concentration camps, Peckel said: "I would like to think that it will stop, I would call on the president to be moderate with his tweets."
The director of the Confederation of Jewish Communities of Colombia recalled that Palestinians in Gaza have been held hostage by Hamas since 2007, when the terrorist group took control of the Gaza Strip and ousted the legitimate government. "Hamas uses the population as human shields, and that is the situation that Palestine has to pay for, because Hamas blends in with the civilian population. Their places to launch rockets are in mosques, schools, residential neighborhoods, in hospitals. ... At the time of the attack, the leaders were hiding, but those who commit the attacks are in places with civilian populations."
We also asked him about how he thinks this war will develop: "Whether or not something happens in the north, it will depend on Iran, Iran is the one giving the orders here. Iran is interested in sabotaging the rapprochement that is taking place between Israel and Saudi Arabia ... We are talking about months, because Israel has to complete the task, it cannot leave the task unfinished as it has done in the past.
