From Gaza to Bogota: The election that could reshape Colombia’s relationship with Israel
As Colombia prepares for its upcoming presidential election on Sunday, Ivan Cepeda, a senator and human rights activist, represents the left’s bid to continue the political legacy of President Gustavo Petro.
His opponent, Abelardo de la Espriella, a Trump-endorsed lawyer, businessman, and iron-fisted populist, is meanwhile seeking to “rebuild the miracle homeland” from a more punitive, right-wing perspective.
De la Espriella won the first round of the race, held on 31 May, with 43.7 percent of the vote to 40.9 percent for Cepeda.
Core domestic issues include a persistent internal armed conflict, deep-rooted political corruption, and challenges in the economy and environment, and, as in many recent Latin American elections, Israel is also on the ballot.
Since October 2023, pink-wave politics have driven a wave of pro-Palestine solidarity across Latin America, but Colombia has emerged as Israel’s most vocal critic in the Americas, recalling its ambassador, suspending arms sales, halting coal exports, severing diplomatic ties, and co-founding The Hague Group.
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“It is difficult to overstate the significance of Colombia’s stance internationally,” said Francesca Emanuele, a senior international policy associate at the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
“Colombia helped create political space for other governments to take stronger positions on Gaza and contributed to the growing international isolation of the Netanyahu government,” she told Middle East Eye.
However, as demonstrated by recent elections in Chile, Bolivia and Honduras, solidarity is vulnerable to reversal.
Meet the candidates
Working at the centre of this political moment, BDS Colombia has produced a digital tool known as the Sionistometro, designed to track each candidate’s connections to Israel.
Starting with Cepeda, “no economic or political ties were found with companies or institutions affiliated with Zionism” nor did they discover any affiliations with Zionist organisations, or the State of Israel itself.
However, while he has pledged to “decisively oppose the genocide” and expressed his “full backing for the courageous and consistent position of President Gustavo Petro”, he has yet to set out any new proposals of his own.
“Silence on the matter is concerning, given that Colombia still maintains arms, trade and cultural ties with Israel,” BDS Colombia said.
Adopting a softer tone and lower profile, with a historic focus on ending Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict, Cepeda is not necessarily expected to replicate Petro’s international activism.
“I don't think he is likely to be as active on the global stage as Petro,” said Alexander Main, director of international policy at CEPR. “He is in the shadow of Petro,” Main told MEE, “and that makes it hard for him to distinguish himself.”
His opponent, de la Espriella, is a different story altogether.
During a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in December, he stressed “the urgent need for Colombia to strengthen its ties of friendship and cooperation with Israel”.
Furthermore, “De La Espriella maintains political and social ties with the Confederation of Jewish Communities of Colombia (CCJC),” a Zionist organisation, according to BDS.
Turning tides
De La Espriella has made relations with Israel central to his security agenda as Colombia confronts “its own evils”, he said after his meeting with Sa'ar.
Most recently, he outlined a plan to “renew” a “strategic alliance” with the United States and Israel, including through the exchange of “technology, state-of-the-art weapons, dronesand artificial intelligence”.
“A collaboration with Israel would allow these resources to be applied directly to combating criminal structures within the national territory,” the plan read.
'Colombia helped create political space for other governments to take stronger positions on Gaza'
- Francesca Emanuele, CEPR
As in Honduras and Argentina, pro-Israel policies across Latin America are influenced in part by warped theological narratives. Advanced by Christian-Zionist groups such as the Israel Allies Foundation and Philos Latino, these narratives are leveraged by politicians seeking to court conservative evangelical voters, among whom Christian Zionism is a growing movement.
De La Espriella's pledge to move the Colombian embassy to Jerusalem appears aimed at appealing to this evangelical base, while also demonstrating his alignment with Trump, who moved the US embassy there in 2018 “for the evangelicals”.
In addition, de la Espriella is “deeply embedded in south Florida Republican politics”, Main told MEE, pointing out his ties to Floridian Republicans such as Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos A Gimenez. Both have expressed support for Israel amid its genocide in Gaza and, according to the site Track Aipac, have received funding from pro-Israel action groups.
As such, “there is this common agenda of the new Latin America right: a hyper pro-US vision, extreme security policy, a common war on narco-terror, and common adoration for Israel, or what it represents”, Main said.
De La Espriella “is adopting that whole mantle”.
Bloody bonds
To an extent, none of this is new.
The Israel-Colombia nexus is “inseparable from the darkest chapters of Colombia’s recent history”, explained Emanuele.
During the height of the armed conflict between consecutive Colombian governments and left-wing guerilla groups, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), “Israeli weapons, training, and security cooperation were deeply intertwined with state security forces during a period marked by widespread human rights abuses,” Emanuele said.
Cepeda’s own father was killed by state-sponsored paramilitaries in August 1994.
His murder was part of an extermination campaign against the Patriotic Union, a left-wing political party founded by Farc and the Colombian Communist Party, carried out by state actors and allied paramilitary groups in which nearly 6,000 people were killed.
“Colombia is responsible for the elimination of the Patriotic Union Political Party,” read a landmark 2023 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Since then, Cepeda “has spent decades documenting these crimes, supporting victims, and demanding accountability”, Emanuele said.
He has also served as a peace talk facilitator between the Colombian government, Farc and the ELN.
On the other hand, de la Espriella provided legal defence to political figures accused of allying themselves with paramilitaries. In 2005, he also founded the Foundation for Peace Initiatives, which platformed former paramilitary commanders at university forums and campaigned to prohibit extradition requests.
Most recently, on 11 June 2026, Cepeda filed a criminal complaint against de la Espriella for alleged ties to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a far-right paramilitary coalition that has been linked to Israeli military figures through Yair Klein, a retired Israeli colonel-turned-mercenary who trained AUC members in the 1980s.
“One day, the army and government of Israel will ask forgiveness from us for what their men did on our land,” wrote Petro in October 2023. “We do not support genocides,” he added.
'Black gold, red hands'
Under Petro, “Colombia did not merely join international condemnations of the genocide in Gaza,” Emanuele said, “It also sought to translate that position into concrete policy measures.”
In August 2024, Petro signed a decree prohibiting coal exports to Israel, and, one year later, a more stringent decree sought to ban all thermal coal exports “without exception”, including existing contracts. This was no small feat.
From providing electricity to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank to fuelling its military in Gaza, Israel relies heavily on coal. Between October 2023 and August 2024, Colombia was its primary supplier, accounting for 51 percent of Israel’s thermal coal imports. That number fell to 34 percent in July 2025 and 6 percent in March 2026.
'Palestine has been at the centre of popular movements in Colombia for a long time'
- Javier Marin, Asociacion Minga
The US-based company Drummond and the Anglo-Swiss company Glencore, two of the largest mining companies operating in Colombia, have been Israel's key suppliers.
Glencore has been at the centre of multiple disputes. A recent investigation by Raya Revista reported that union representatives at Glencore’s El Cerrejon mine in La Guajira alleged that workers had been subjected to a campaign pressuring them to vote for de la Espriella.
“The workers were allegedly forced to attend talks where they were told to protect their jobs and vote for candidates who support mining,” the article revealed.
Furthermore, although Colombia has halted coal exports to Israel, Glencore’s operations in the northern regions of La Guajira and Cesar continue to plague indigenous communities, including the Yukpa and Wayuu.
Meanwhile, solidarity protests against Glencore have spread from Bogota to London and Johannesburg.
South Africa, which has taken a leading role in proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice and co-founded The Hague Group, has itself replaced Colombia as Israel’s key suppliers of coal.
From Guajira to Gaza, “territory is the material and spiritual base of the people” said Javier Marin, a sociologist at Asociacion Minga, a human rights advocacy organisation in Colombia.
Noting parallels between patterns of territorial degradation and human rights violations, he said, “we share the same historical condition as the Palestinian people”.
“Palestine has been at the centre of popular movements in Colombia for a long time,” Marin told MEE.
For the past few years, that solidarity has been reflected in Colombia’s government policy, however, its future direction appears increasingly uncertain.
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