Gaza Is Causing Diplomatic Rifts in the Western Hemisphere
The Organization of American States’ pro-Israel stance may erode its legitimacy in the region.
Throughout the Israel-Hamas war, Latin American and Caribbean countries have been at the forefront of global efforts to stop the bloodshed in Gaza and defend the human rights of Palestinians. More governments in the region have recalled ambassadors or severed ties with Israel due to the war than in any other region, including the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa. Officials in roughly half of Latin American and Caribbean countries have described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocidal, and some have taken steps to pressure the Israeli government to end its indiscriminate military operations there.
Colombia, for example—among the most outspoken critics of Israel in Latin America—has suspended its weapons purchases from and halted coal exports to the country, which previously accounted for more than 50 percent of Israel’s annual coal supply.
Yet despite this strong regional stance, the Washington, D.C.-based Organization of American States (OAS)—the primary forum for multilateral dialogue in the Western Hemisphere—has not echoed these sentiments. This divergence will further erode the OAS’s legitimacy in the region and may drive countries to other deliberative bodies where the United States holds less influence.
On Oct. 7, 2023, OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro condemned the killing of about 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas militants, labeling the attack as an act of terrorism and affirming that “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
Since then, as the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza has risen to more than 40,000 people, Almagro has said nothing about the need to protect the human rights of Palestinian civilians. He has been silent about the loss of thousands of Palestinian children’s lives, Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip, the enclave’s worsening starvation, and reports of torture by Israeli forces against Palestinian prisoners. This stands in sharp contrast to his counterpart at the United Nations, António Guterres, who has also repeatedly called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
Almagro’s exclusive support for Israel’s self-defense not only clashes with one of the OAS’s proclaimed principles of defending human rights. It also highlights a significant disconnect between the organization’s leadership and the voting positions held by the majority of its member countries. Of the three resolutions on Israel-Palestine considered at the U.N. General Assembly in the past 11 months—one for a humanitarian truce, another for a cease-fire, and a third backing Palestine’s bid for full U.N. membership—only three OAS nations opposed the first two, and two opposed the third. The United States was the only OAS member to oppose all three resolutions.
During the Cold War, the OAS helped legitimize oppressive regimes, such as the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, by holding its 1976 Annual Meeting in the country’s capital, Santiago. The OAS also aligned with other anti-democratic interventions that were backed or carried out by the United States, such as the 1954 coup d’état in Guatemala. Decades on, it appears that neoconservative and other hard-line factions in Washington—and their allies across the Americas—still hold significant sway over the organization, hindering its ability to function as a genuinely democratic multilateral body representing the countries of the Western Hemisphere.
The U.S. government, Israel’s principal ally and source of military, economic, and political support, is the largest financial contributor to the OAS, granting Washington substantial leverage over the organization’s agenda. However, this influence alone does not fully account for the OAS leadership’s unyielding stance. Half a dozen current and former senior diplomats at the OAS who were consulted for this article noted that a powerful transnational network of far-right politicians, activists, and organizations have had significant influence over the multilateral institution during Almagro’s two consecutive terms.
For example, in 2020, Almagro received the leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, at the OAS General Secretariat in Washington. Abascal praised the organization as a key bridge for like-minded political movements opposing the “far left” and sought Almagro’s support for the emerging “Madrid Forum,” an alliance coordinating ultraconservative efforts to oppose progressive movements worldwide. This forum—which includes figures such as far-right Argentine President Javier Milei—continues to enjoy access to the OAS General Secretariat, as illustrated by a meeting it held with the secretary-general in March 2023.
Throughout Almagro’s tenure, the OAS has cultivated strong ties with the Israeli government and right-wing networks that support its continued military operations and occupation of Palestinian territories. In 2017, shortly after a U.N. report accused Israel of creating “an apartheid regime” over Palestinians, Almagro traveled to Jerusalem and praised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as a key regional partner, citing its “commitment to democracy and to human rights.” The OAS secretary-general has also made unprecedented official appearances at the conferences of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—the pro-Israel lobbying group that is expected to spend $100 million this year to defeat progressive congressional candidates in the United States.
These close bonds between the OAS leadership and Israel have translated into policies that reveal a concerning bias. In 2019, Almagro adopted the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for the OAS, which has been deployed globally to suppress criticism of Israel. Neither the U.N. nor any leading international human rights organizations have embraced the IHRA definition.
Additionally, in 2021, the secretary-general created the role of “commissioner to monitor and combat anti-Semitism,” without establishing equivalent roles within his secretariat to tackle racism against Indigenous or Black populations in the Americas. While antisemitism is a serious issue that deserves condemnation, in the Western Hemisphere, Indigenous and Black communities have been the victims of gross, systemic historical injustices and are more frequently the targets of hate crimes today—including in the United States. Together, they represent a population that is 3,000 percent larger than the Jewish community in the region.
The OAS officials consulted for this piece noted that the organization has lost political integrity over the past decade. Unlike Almagro, his predecessor—José Miguel Insulza, who served from 2005 to 2015—maintained a balanced approach by condemning Israel’s military actions and supporting U.N. calls for a cease-fire during the 50-day war in Gaza in 2014. Under Insulza, the OAS fostered a platform where diverse viewpoints on the conflict could be expressed, aligning more closely with the organization’s democratic principles.
This time around, groups supporting Israel’s war in Gaza have honored Almagro. In April, they granted him an award for “his work countering anti-Semitism.” The event, held at the OAS headquarters in Washington, was dominated by far-right speakers who denounced regional governments that have used diplomatic measures to try to bring about a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.
Among the attendees was Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a staunch defender of former U.S. President Donald Trump who implied that six Latin American presidents have incited hate crimes against Jews with their vocal opposition to the Israel-Hamas war. Only five months earlier, in a video endorsement she made for then-candidate—and now far-right Argentine President—Javier Milei, Salazar praised Argentina for having “one race,” invoking the false, racist idea that Argentina is a country descended from white Europeans and erasing its Black and Indigenous populations.
Currently, no OAS member state is considering addressing the Gaza war within the organization. Instead, many countries have turned to other regional fora. Through the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, a multilateral organization that includes all countries of the Americas except the United States and Canada, 24 nations called for an immediate cease-fire as early as March. In July, Brazil leveraged the regional alliance Mercosur to establish a free trade agreement with the Palestinian Authority. Even the 14 nations of the Caribbean, some of which were previously hesitant to express their positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict due to U.S. influence, have now united within the multilateral Caribbean Community organization to recognize the state of Palestine and oppose the war.
Of the 35 countries in the Americas, 32 recognize the state of Palestine, with four announcing this decision following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last year. Yet, in direct contradiction to the positions of most of its members, the OAS’s leadership continues to provide diplomatic cover for the violence perpetrated by the Netanyahu government, which is facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice—a case supported by seven Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Under Almagro’s leadership, the organization continues to drift further from the principles of democracy and human rights that it was supposedly founded to uphold. If the OAS stays on its current trajectory, ignoring and even actively opposing the views of many of its members, it is likely to be seen as increasingly irrelevant in much of the region.
Francesca Emanuele is a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. She is also a doctoral candidate in anthropology at American University, where her work focuses on the Organization of American States. X: @francemanuele