Cuba, Nicaragua and Palestine A Shared Struggle Against Colonialism and Imperialism

Editor’s note: This article was originally written in 2025. Since then, the political landscape in Latin America has continued to shift, including a significant strengthening of right-wing governments and political forces across the region. The article should therefore be read in the context of the political situation at the time of writing.

Cuba and Nicaragua have historically been – and remain today – strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause. This solidarity is expressed diplomatically, symbolically, and through tangible actions. At the same time, Palestinian, Cuban and Nicaraguan resistance offer key examples of anti-colonial struggle. 

In the light of the relationship between the three countries, this article explores the links and parallels between the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Palestinian struggles. Looking at Cuba from the 1960s onwards, Nicaragua beginning in the 1970s, and the ongoing situation in Palestine (and particularly following the dissolution of the Soviet Union), it examines how these countries’ revolutionary processes influenced each other. In doing so, it identifies some similarities between each country, based on their location, histories, and the forms of organisation they adopted to confront their oppressors. The analysis covers three periods: the Cold War period, the post-Cold War period, and the present moment.

The first stage of the relationship between Cuba, Nicaragua and Palestine unfolded against the backdrop of the Cold War (1945–1989), a period of Third World revolutions, decolonisation in Asia and Africa, and constant geopolitical tension. It was in this period that Cuba, Nicaragua and Palestine consolidated their status as bastions of anti-imperialism, through the Cuban Revolution (1959), the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) (1964), and the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua (1979). During this period, these three countries were key actors in the ideological and material struggle for the sovereignty of the Third World and its independence from the domination of collective Western imperialism.

The following period saw the triumph of the unipolar world order, which was dominated by the United States and its allies. The fall – or, more acutely, the implosion – of the Soviet Union marked the reversal of revolutionary processes and economic independence across many parts of the globe, and was accompanied by the rise of an imperialism cloaked in terms such as ‘globalisation’ and ‘neoliberalism’. Cuba, Nicaragua and Palestine each faced setbacks during this period, though it was also during these years (in 1987–1992) that the first Palestinian intifada (‘uprising’ in Arabic) occurred.

The current period is one of hegemonic transition, characterised by the rise of BRICS (especially China, Russia, India, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia) and of Pakistan and Turkey. It was in this period of transition that, on 7 October 2023, Palestinians once again brought the question of Palestine to the forefront. 

The United States’ 1823 Monroe Doctrine advocated ‘America for the Americans’, by which was meant US nationals – disdainfully treating the continent’s centre and south as the US’s backyard. The Doctrine emerged in the context of a process of region-wide decolonisation and was intended as a warning to European powers not to intervene or seek to recolonise America, with the US indicating that any such actions would be viewed as an attempted attack on itself. Over the following two centuries, and up to today, the Monroe Doctrine has been associated with US domination of the American continent through military and ideological power and economic control.

The Caribbean Sea occupies a special place in this scheme. The US considers the Caribbean to be its inland sea and seeks to retain exclusive control over it, in line with the understanding that a power seeking to expand its influence globally must first dominate its own region – a point that is reflected in the new security doctrine of the United States. This is why the US’s quest for supremacy is much more intense in the Caribbean than in the rest of the American continent.

It is in this context that the Cuban Revolution, and Cuba’s ongoing resistance to US imperialism, must be understood. It was in 1898, during the Spanish-American War, that Cuba (along with the Philippines and the Lesser Antilles) came under US rule. As one of the last Spanish and European strongholds in the Caribbean, Cuba had strategic, economic, and political importance. Thereafter, the US retained control – either direct or indirect – over the island up until the Cuban Revolution in 1959. 

In 1901, the US enacted the Platt Amendment, under which it claimed the right to establish permanent military bases on the island (and to prevent other countries from doing so). The Amendment also allowed the US to engage in varying degrees of intervention in Cuba, whenever it deemed necessary. In 1903, the US established its first foreign naval base, in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, now an infamous detention centre with appalling conditions.

From 1901 to 1959, Cuba functioned as a US protectorate of sorts. It was from Cuba that the US dominated the Caribbean Sea, both economically and through allied governments. In 1959, the Cuban Revolution ended this state of affairs.

The 1959 revolution was not an isolated phenomenon but was the result of a series of struggles. These included the struggle of Afro-Cubans and Cubans of Spanish descent, the centuries-long struggle against Spanish colonialism, and the struggle against the US empire.

The Cuban revolutionary process had a continent-wide impact on political theory and praxis. Its repercussions later extended to Africa, as a result of the involvement of Cuban troops in southern Africa against the army of Apartheid South Africa. They also extended to Lebanon and to Palestine. In a context of Third World rebellions and national liberation movements, which saw the emergence of various anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, and anti-imperialist movements, the ‘rebel island’ developed and put into actual practice an anti-imperialist manifesto. Two key examples of this were Cuba’s support for Angola’s new People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government and for the Mozambique Liberation Front’s (FRELIMO) in their struggles for sovereignty following independence from Portugal and in the face of Apartheid South African aggression. 

Cuba’s support to Angola (Operation Carlota, 1975–1991) began in the mid-1970s, when Cuba’s military aid was instrumental in countering Apartheid South African military intervention backed by the US and other Western countries, and culminated in the acceleration of the end of apartheid. Similarly, in Mozambique, Cuba supported FRELIMO as Apartheid South Africa sent troops and supported armed insurgencies to destabilise the newly socialist government. These three nations – Cuba, Angola and Mozambique – thus joined forces in the anti-imperialist struggle and engaged in solidarity efforts, including through their diplomatic relations. Thousands of Cuban soldiers, teachers, doctors, engineers and workers worked in the two African countries in various capacities during the period of Cuba’s military assistance. 

The background to these developments was the wave of national liberation movements across the world from the 1950s to the 1970s, which influenced the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. It was this revolution which put an end to dictatorial rule in Portugal and thereby led to the independence of Angola and Mozambique (alongside Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor Leste). 

Some key events in this era of Third World liberation were the Bandung Conference in 1955 and the establishment in 1961 of the Non-Aligned Movement, which was initially formed by African and Asian countries that had emerged from anti-colonial struggles, including both radical regimes and others closer to imperialism.

Palestine was not left out of these developments. As Dahlia El Zein has written: 

Palestine was at the core of the anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. It was a transregional global movement that resonated across the Third World, and was of central concern to Pan-Africanism, as well as Pan-Arabism and Third World solidarity. 

It is in this context that revolutionary Cuba’s relations with Palestine must be understood. 

Cuba had opposed the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947, arguing that the Balfour Declaration lacked legal legitimacy, but Cuba went on to recognise Israel in 1948. However, after 1959, revolutionary Cuba aligned itself with the Palestinian struggle. Cuba’s internationalism meant that symbolism associated with the Palestinian cause began to proliferate throughout the island. Up to the present, during International Workers’ Day celebrations and at political rallies, Cubans raise the Palestinian flag and wear the keffiyeh. Cuba has trained Palestinian doctors in its Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM).1 More recently, during the current genocide, Amanda Santos Viamontes, president of Cuba’s Student Federation, declared: ‘The Palestinian cause is the cause of all revolutionaries’. In return, Palestinians have embraced the Cuban revolution, and particularly the revolutionary image of Che Guevara. 

The bonds between Cuba and Palestine are based on anti-colonial and anti-imperialist solidarity, in opposition to US expansionism. The Cuban Revolution has an affinity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and with Palestinians’ anti-colonial and anti-racist resistance. Palestinians likewise have an affinity with revolutionary Cuba. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) declares itself Marxist-Leninist and evokes the revolutions in Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam and China. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) is also a Marxist-Leninist organisation. In the 1960s and 1970s, Palestinian militants studied the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao. Inspired by the doctrines of Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, and the leaders of Algeria’s National Liberation Front (NLF), they carried out popular guerrilla actions.

Che Guevara visited Gaza in 1959. This visit signalled a change in international opinion towards the Zionist colonisation of Palestine. Palestine’s struggle went from being viewed as a regional conflict to being considered a central issue in the global struggle against colonialism. 

When it was founded in 1964, Cuba was one of the first countries to recognise the PLO. The Cubans trained Palestinian cadres and Fidel Castro himself embraced the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination. In a 1977 interview conducted by the French weekly Afrique-Asie, Castro stated: ‘Palestinian movements have shown their ability to resist imperialist aggression… [The Palestinian cause] will prevail sooner or later in spite of the betrayal by Arab reactionaries, imperialist manoeuvres, and Israeli aggression’.2 

The progress of Third Worldism and the building of ties between Cuba and Palestine went hand in hand. As evident from its actions in Angola and Mozambique, Cuba was one of the standard-bearers that galvanised the anti-colonial struggle in the Third World. In January 1966, Havana hosted the Tricontinental Conference, a gathering of revolutionary movements from Africa, Asia and Latin America that insisted on the importance of the struggle for liberation and solidarity. At the Conference, the Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organization (AAPSO), which had been established in 1957 and brought together movements engaged in national liberation wars, expanded to form the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL). OSPAAAL is still active in Cuba.

It was to OSPAAAL that Che Guevara (1967) addressed his famous call for the creation of ‘two, three, many Vietnams’, in which he stated: 

What a luminous, near future would be visible to us if two, three, many Vietnams flourished throughout the globe, with their share of death and their immense tragedies, their everyday heroism, and their repeated blows to imperialism, forcing it to disperse its forces under the onslaught of the growing hatred of all the peoples of the world!

The worldview of Palestinians, Cubans, and Nicaraguans alike reflected this spirit of anti-colonial and Third World struggle. In both the Cuban case and the Palestinian case, this spirit was embodied in emblematic and archetypal revolutionary individuals: Che Guevera and Leila Khaled. Khaled came to occupy the same position of representativity as Che Guevara, as an icon of her country’s struggle. Starting in 1970, the contrast between her femininity and her combative stance attracted global attention. The famous photo of Khaled – in which she is holding a Kalashnikov rifle, has a keffiyeh wrapped around her head, and appears to be almost smiling – became an emblematic representation of Palestinian resistance. The ring that can be glimpsed on her finger was made from a bullet and the pin of a hand grenade.

In 1973, Fidel Castro’s Cuba severed ties with Israel, in response to the war between Egypt and Israel in that year, and in the context of both the Cold War and Third Worldism. Six years later, in a speech to the United Nations in 1979, Fidel Castro summed up both Cuba’s transnational solidarity with Palestine and its own revolutionary leadership : 

For the non-aligned countries, the issue of Palestine lies at the core of the Middle Eastern problem. Both make up a comprehensive whole and cannot be solved separately [...] The revolutionary movement [in Cuba] has been brought up in the hatred of racial discrimination and pogroms of any kind, and from the depths of our souls, we repudiate with all our strength the ruthless persecution and genocide which, in its time, Nazism unleashed against the Jewish people. But I can find nothing more similar to that in our contemporary history than the eviction, persecution and genocide that is being carried out today against the Palestinian people by imperialism and Zionism. Stripped of their lands, driven out of their own homeland, dispersed throughout the world, they are an impressive example of abnegation and heroism, and they are the living symbol of the greatest crime of our times. (Cuba’s Representative Office Abroad 2024)

Over time, while there was some changes in the relations between Cuba and Palestine, given the changing context of struggle (including the deterioration in Cuba’s situation after the fall of the Soviet Union), their ties of international solidarity remained.

The solidarity between Nicaragua and Palestine can be traced back to the anti-imperialist struggle led by the Nicaraguan guerrilla, patriot and revolutionary Augusto César Sandino from 1927 to 1933. During this period, Ghadeer Abu Sneineh, a Colombian-born Palestinian, joined Sandino’s guerrilla army, seeing similarities between the impact that colonial powers had on Latin America and the impact they had on Palestine. After Sandino was executed at the hands of Anastasio Somoza (with the support of the United States) Abu Sneineh travelled to Palestine to join the 1936 Arab Revolt against British colonial rule.

Three decades later, in 1961, inspired by Sandino’s struggle, Carlos Fonseca Amador and Tomás Borge founded the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). In this period, the FSLN defined itself as a Marxist-Leninist anti-imperialist organisation, just like Algeria’s NLF and the Cuban Revolution. Its goal was to topple the dictatorial and dynastic government of the Somoza family, which had governed the country since 1937. This it succeeded in doing on 19 July 1979, in the Sandinista Revolution, which was an anti-dictatorial revolution with clear social objectives. 

In contrast to the Somoza regime, the revolutionary government nationalised lands and natural resources, restoring the country’s historical consciousness and lifting up its popular classes.

In the period leading up to the victory of the Sandinista Revolution, Nicaraguan and Palestinian ties were forged in shared struggle (Pozas Pardo 2001). For example, many Nicaraguan revolutionaries joined Palestinian forces during Black September 1970, in Jordan, where they paid with their lives. As Sandinista leader Jorge Manda explained to a Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Watan: ‘Nicaragua has Palestinian roots’. 

One prominent example of shared the close ties between Nicaraguans and Palestinians is the actions of Patricio Argüello Ryan, a Nicaraguan and US national. In the 1960s, Argüello travelled across Latin America to see the Third World movements up close and eventually joined the FSLN. He later travelled to Jordan to train in Palestinian refugee camps. On 6 September 1970 he took part in an attempted PFLP hijacking of an Israeli plane, together with Leila Khaled. Khaled survived but Argüello was killed. The PFLP viewed Argüello’s sacrifice as a major contribution to the Palestinian cause and added him to its pantheon of heroes and martyrs, celebrating him in commemorative events. He is considered an icon of the bonds between Palestine and Nicaragua and political banners raised by guerrillas present him as a ‘symbol of international solidarity with the Palestinian struggle’ (López de la Torre 2014). (Argüello was not the only Sandinista to take part in Palestinian actions. José Quezada, another Sandinista, also took part in a PFLP hijacking – this time of a British airplane.)

The experiences of Argüello and Quezada are just two examples of the links between Nicaraguan and Palestinian revolutionaries. In fact, prior to the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, the Palestinians trained several dozen FSLN members in Algeria and Lebanon. Among them were members of the future revolutionary government, such as Enrique Schmidt, René Vivas and Tomás Borge. Other names on this list include (in addition to Argüello and Quezada) Pedro Arauz Palacios, Eduardo Contreras, René Tejada, Evenor Calero, Leticia Herrera, José Valdivia, Jacobo Marcos Frech, and Enrique Romero Zamorán (López de la Torre 2014).

At the same time, Nicaraguans of Palestinian descent have played leading roles throughout Nicaragua’s history, in roles as diverse as businesspeople/traders, poets, professionals, and FSLN guerrillas.

After the Sandinista Revolution in 1979, Nicaraguan–Palestinian ties were strengthened. A PLO embassy was established in Managua and Yasser Arafat visited the country on 22 July 1980, consolidating the close bonds and diplomatic relations between the two countries. The PLO reportedly sent up to 70 ‘high-ranking officials’ to train the Nicaraguan army and provided the new government with a 12 million dollar loan. 

The presence of the PLO in Nicaragua (which the United States classified as a terrorist group until 1991) was used as part of the US’s justification for its financing of the Contras, which waged a war against Sandinista Government throughout the 1980s (see below). 

The Sandinista Revolution was the first armed revolutionary movement in Latin America, after Cuba’s revolution, to overthrow a dictatorial regime and to nationalise lands and natural resources. It did so in a context of military dictatorships and of the coordinated repressive actions of Operation Condor in the Southern Cone. During the decades leading up to the Cuban Revolution, and then the Sandinista Revolution, the United States backed or organised multiple dictatorships and coups in Latin America. In 1954 the US toppled Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala, and in 1963 it instigated a coup to overthrow Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic. In 1964 the US put an end to the revolution launched by Bolivia in 1952 (López, 2019), and in that same year it backed a coup in Brazil. Similarly, it overthrew Salvador Allende’s government in Chile in 1973, while the same happened in Argentina in 1976. 

Throughout this period, differences among Central American countries were reflected in how each country positioned itself with respect to Palestine and Israel (Baeza 2012). There were marked ties between Israel and conservative and authoritarian governments, such as those of Chile, Paraguay, Nicaragua (before 1979), Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador. Israel provided these governments with military assistance. For example, by the 1970s, Israel accounted for 98% of weapon imports received by the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. By contrast, governments more aligned with Third Worldism ideologies were closer to Palestine.

After Somoza was toppled, Nicaragua became the target of the United States, Israel and Central America’s right-wing leaders. For the United States, controlling Nicaragua was seen as essential in view of Sandino’s earlier struggle and because of the country’s strategic position for the construction of an interoceanic canal. This is why, throughout the 1980s, the US backed the Contras in their war against the Sandinistas. Israel was pivotal in this process, providing the Contras (who were based in Costa Rica and Honduras (both US allies) with weapons and training. The aim was to depose the Sandinistas and to put a right-wing anti-communist government in their place,

The Sandinista government responded with both military mobilisation and legal action, successfully bringing a case against the United States at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ held that the Contras war violated international law. (As discussed further below, Nicaragua has recently drawn on this experience in relation to cases before the ICJ on Israel’s genocide in Gaza).

In addition to Cuba and Nicaragua, other Latin American armed movements also forged ties with the Palestinian struggle. These included the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador and the Montoneros Peronist Movement in Argentina. 

The Montoneros established links with the PLO, Third World national liberation movements and revolutionary governments in North Africa. The PLO supported the Montoneros and provided them with weapons for their fight against the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983). The dictatorship acquired Israeli military equipment with an investment of 700 million dollars (López de la Torre 2015).

In 1974, Argentine journalist Rodolfo Walsh penned an article on ‘La Revolución Palestina’ (the Palestinian revolution), in which he described Fatah’s support for struggle by the masses, its armed actions, and its goal of establishing a non-religious state in Palestine. Two years later, Walsh was assassinated by the Argentine dictatorship.

As these examples have shown, Latin America’s revolutionary Left, from Argentina to Nicaragua and Cuba, was (and remains) attuned with the internationalisation of the Palestinian cause. As insurgent movements from small territories that confronted an opponent that is present across the world, these movements forged close ties, including sharing guerrilla trainings. 

For their part, the Palestinians have been influenced by, and in turned have influenced, various anti-colonialist movements and governments, both in Latin America and beyond, including those in Algeria, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua and China. Palestinian identification with anti-colonial movements and Third World struggles was evident in Arafat’s 1974 speech delivered before the UN General Assembly, in which he also defended Palestinians against accusations of terrorism: 

Those who call us terrorists wish to prevent world public opinion from discovering the truth about us and from seeing the justice on our faces. They seek to hide the terrorism and tyranny of their acts, and our own posture of self-defense. … The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for the freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists cannot possibly be called terrorist, otherwise the American people in their struggle for liberation from the British colonialists would have been terrorists; the European resistance against the Nazis would be terrorism, the struggle of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples would also be terrorism [...] those who wage war to occupy, colonize and oppress other people, those are the terrorists. 

The Global North – and particularly the United States – continually seeks to prevent the emergence of forces or alliances that will challenge its global power. It works to achieve this through controlling international institutions, imposing economic sanctions, operating military bases around the world, engaging in interference in countries’ internal affairs, and conducting military invasions in strategic regions. 

One of these regions is Latin America, which is noted for the degree of intervention in countries’ domestic policies, including through the presence of the CIA, which has been implicated in most of the dictatorial coups in the region. The dictatorships brought to power through these coups have, over many decades, sought to implement policies that trample labour and trade union rights and favour capital wealth over workers. 

Zionism has long supported this neoliberal and anti-socialist/communist agenda in Latin America, finding natural allies in far-right governments and movements in the region that promote neoliberal agendas and alignment with the US. It supports a conservative and anti-socialist/anti-communist economic and political model in the region. This includes cultivating Christian Evangelical Zionism, which is popular among those on the right, particularly in Brazil. In recent decades, Evangelicals have increased their links with Zionism, as can be seen in the movements supporting Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Javier Milei in Argentina. 

Across Latin America, Israel’s soft power rests on strong Zionist ties. To this is added the operations of Israeli corporations in the region, in areas ranging from water (e.g. Mekorot) to lithium (e.g. XtraLit), to agriculture, energy, software development, and startups, under an neoliberal economic model. 

Taken together, Zionist militarism, ideology/soft power and businesses have all strengthened Israel’s relations with the region’s right-wing governments.

At least since the 1970s, Israel can be considered as a co-imperial nation: it acts in line with the geopolitical priorities of US imperialism and global fossil capitalism. With that aim, in conjunction with US embassies, Israel backs coups in the region, sustains the imposition of neoliberal models, and supports the current attempt by the United States to regain its position in Latin America in the face of the rise of other powers, including through fragmenting any potential Latin American unity. 

One example of this co-imperial role is Israel’s support for the systematic embargo imposed on Cuba. The only countries to regularly vote against UN resolutions that call for ‘the necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba’ are Israel and the United States.3 Another example is Israel’s support to the United States’ pressure against Venezuela, which the former justifies by reference to Iran’s alleged influence in Latin America and ‘terrorism’. In fact, Venezuela is one of the few countries in the region to have called for a weapons embargo against Israel. 

One of the spaces through which Zionist militarism spreads its ideas is the media. Several Latin American news conglomerates present output that is in line with the far right’s endorsement of Israel’s policies. Such output includes decontextualised news and images from the Middle East which dehumanise the Palestinians, who are portrayed as acting indiscriminately and without reason. For example, in Argentina, Israel’s views are promoted and defended by the most conservative or right-wing media, such as Infobae (primarily) and La Nación and Clarín (to a lesser extent). 

These media help Israel to convey its hasbara (Israeli propaganda or public diplomacy), aimed at promoting a narrative that is favourable to Israel. Israeli hasbara includes the operations of organisations such as Fuente Latina and Conexión Israel, which invite journalists to visit Israel in order to influence their media and academic coverage and to suppress critical voices.

As indicated throughout this article, a key role played by Israel in Latin America is as a provider of weapons and training to right-wing governments and dictatorships. Since the 1950s, this has included the dictatorships in Paraguay (1954–1989), Guatemala (1963–1966 and 1982–1985), Chile (1973–1990), Argentina (1976–1983), Ecuador (1976–1979), Nicaragua (1937–1979), and El Salvador (up to 1979, and during the civil war until 1992).

Israel Shahak has provided a detailed account of Israel’s support to military regimes in Latin America, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. In it, he quotes a European commentator on El Salvador: ‘These people [women, girls, nuns and priests] were gunned down by bullets from Uzis, from Galils; this village was bombed by Arava planes manufactured in Israel’ (Shahak 2008). While this particular quote relates to El Salvador, it could equally have been said about Guatemala and about the vicious Somoza regime in Nicaragua, with which Israel had a long-standing and close collaboration. For example, in 1979, Israel supplied that regime with 98% of its weapons. These weapons were used to kill some 50,000 Nicaraguans in the space of two years, in Managua and other cities.4

In this way, Israel’s military industrial complex has been intimately connected with the repressive policies implemented under many Latin American dictatorships. This continues until today, with Israel’s military sector continuing to supply repressive forces in several countries in Latin America.5 For example, the alignment of Israel with the far-right administrations of Bolsonaro in Brazil, Milei in Argentina, and Daniel Noboa in Ecuador was/is underpinned by weapons and technology contracts. 

A key element in Israeli military aid to repressive forces in Latin American is its export of surveillance technology. For example, the Pegasus spyware was used in Mexico to tap the cell phones of individuals connected with the Ayotzinapa disappeared, and in Argentina, spyware from the Israeli Voyager Labs company was used to spy on the families of slain activist Santiago Maldonado and of indigenous leader Jones Huala (Zeta 2024).

Over the last two decades, in particular, Zionism has been closely connected with far-right and other governments that have come to power in Latin America through so-called soft coups (or lawfare) and political persecution. One example is Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash) in Brazil, which was linked to the coup against Dilma Rousseff and the jailing of Inácio Lula da Silva, and which led to the rise of political figures who sought to forge strategic ties with Israel. Other examples are the trials of Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, and Pedro Castillo in Peru.

When the far-right governments which were established through those political tactics came to power, they turned to Israel and the United States for support. For example, the dictatorial regime of Jeanine Áñez in Bolivia (2019–2020) appealed to Israel to help it in ‘combating left-wing terrorism’, in the words of Minister Arturo Murillo, who argued that the Israeli armed forces ‘are used to dealing with terrorists’. 

In sum, through its alliance with dictatorships and right-wing governments, and through exporting military and security technology for use in repressive actions, Israel promotes neoliberal ideas in Latin America by fostering the link between economic development and security. This is in line with the neoliberal agenda of privatisation, promotion of the free market, and the militarisation of security. With the support of Evangelical groups, Zionism strengthens media and political influence networks that promote economic models that are aligned with the United States’ aims for the region. The leading representatives of this neo-liberal movement – Bolsonaro in Brazil and Milei in Argentina – seek to move away from Chinese and Russian influence and to ally themselves with the United States and Israel. Israeli policy in Latin America is therefore inseparable from the Monroe Doctrine.

A key characteristic that links Cuba, Nicaragua and Palestine is the fact that in both the Middle East and Latin America the United States deploys a strategy of Balkanisation, seeking to ‘divide and rule’. This is done through various methods: financial pressure, direct invasion, using Israel as a platform for engaging in regional interference, influencing elites, infiltration of societies, CIA operations, persecution, and ideological indoctrination. The aim in both regions is to prevent the consolidation of region-wide organisations and alliances that could operate as a common platform and strengthen the region’s countries as a whole. 

These actions by the US and its Zionist ally have triggered different forms of resistance in the two regions. In the Middle East, resistance is led by the Axis of Resistance (Eje de la Resistencia), including Iran, Hamas, Hizballah,  and Ansar Allah (the Houthis). In Latin America, it takes the form of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and different groups engaged in insurrections and rebellions (e.g. the movement to oppose the abandoned Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)). 

In Latin America, resistance is currently taking place against Operation Condor II. This is an update of the original Operation Condor, which involved coordinated actions by Latin American dictatorships and the CIA to persecute and exterminate thousands of political and social activists. Actions under Operation Condor II range from 1970s-style direct military repression to ‘hybrid war’ mechanisms, lawfare, and the use of media conglomerates, social media, and digital surveillance to influence regional politics. Condor II also targets new forms of association in Latin America that seek to implement strategies for resisting Washington. While no Latin American country has yet experienced the direct invasions that countries in the Middle East have suffered in recent decades, many countries in the region have suffered interference in the form of coups, imposed changes of government, and direct political intervention. 

The two main targets of these actions are socialist Venezuela, which has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and revolutionary Cuba, which has been resisting an US-imposed economic embargo and blockade for over six decades. 

A key effort by both resistance axes – that in the Middle East and the other led by Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in Latin America – is resisting and finding ways around the system of unilateral economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies, which includes seizing the national reserves of Russia, Venezuela, Iran and Afghanistan.

The US’s largest centre of military power in South America is in Bogotá. Under Gustavo Petro’s presidency, this acquired a certain nuance. Before Petro came to power, Colombia was considered Washington’s closest client in the region and was the largest recipient of US military aid. Colombia remains NATO’s only global partner in Latin America. However, by openly criticising Israel and suspending coal exports to that country, Petro – a former M19 guerrilla turned centre-left politician – distanced himself from that history. 

As these facts make clear, the US continues to act as an imperial power in both Latin America and the Middle East. Indeed, its imperial ideology is a continuation of Europe’s. Like its predecessors, the US exalts the supremacy of the White man, fosters Eurocentric prejudices, and extols the virtues of the West, but it has replaced the rhetoric of colonial superiority with rhetoric about the benefits to people’s lives from the expansion of US capitalism (Anderson 2010).

Such rhetoric is clearly illusory. In fact, the US’s aim for Latin America is to expand primarisation (the export of raw materials instead of industrialised goods), extractivism, and Balkanisation, in what is the most unequal region in the world. The attractiveness of the region to US imperialists is clear: it is home to 8% of the world’s population, has 30% to 40% of global fresh water resources, accounts for half of the world’s biodiversity, has immense gas, oil, and mineral reserves, and has numerous valuable raw materials that are demanded by international value chains, such as lithium, silver, and tin. 

In this context, continued application of the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America aims to confront both anti-imperialist rebellions and Eurasian rivals. In particular, it targets China, which has gained a competitive presence in the region over the last 20 years. In this renewed version of the Monroe Doctrine, updated for the twenty-first century, the US seeks to push Beijing out of what it considers its backyard (Katz 2024).

Nevertheless, despite the rise of China, it remains the case that the United States faces little geopolitical opposition from other superpowers to its attempts to control the American continent. This is largely due to the continent’s insularity, and to the US’s alliance with Canada and collusion with Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. The US seeks to align these five geo-economic powers (the largest in America) with its policies for the hemisphere. By contrast, the US’s approach to those countries that are most critical of it (Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia – in varying degrees depending on the moment) includes diplomatic pressure and direct intervention in their domestic policies, as well as economic embargoes and the spreading of negative propaganda. The other superpowers, Russia and China, cannot apply such approaches, and so are unable to oppose US control of the region in a major way.

Israel’s project of maintaining an apartheid regime is underpinned by a genocidal logic. This project has been backed by Western powers since its earliest stages, around100 years ago. First, the British empire provided support to the Zionist colonisation of Mandatory Palestine. Then, over the last half century, the US imperial system has supported it through its geostrategic control of the region. Since 2023, this support has extended to assisting and actively participating in a genocide. 

The Gazan genocide has a number of historical precedents. Previous genocides included the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War; the American genocide during the European conquest of the American continent; the genocide committed by Belgians in the Congo from 1885 to 1908, which left 10 to 15 million dead; and the Nazi genocide of Jews and other peoples (such as the Roma) in the early 1940s. Compared to these, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has some distinct characteristics, such as the use of new technologies (including artificial intelligence to select the buildings that are to be bombed) and the fact that it has been livestreamed. The number of children killed, mutilated, and orphaned in Gaza is unprecedented in the current century. Importantly, the US (in partnership with major European powers) is a key player in the Gaza genocide, which it funds and guarantees, alongside Israel’s attempts to annex the West Bank.6

The Gaza genocide is only the most severe episode in the more than 100-year history of oppression that Palestinians have suffered since the beginning of Zionist colonisation of Palestine. Despite this ongoing oppression, the right of Palestinians to rise up against colonisation and occupation is denied by many states and individuals. This denial is often justified by references to Palestinian terrorism and the killing of civilians. On this point, Italian historian Enzo Traverso (2024: 81) has observed as follows: 

The killing of civilians, however deplorable, has always been the weapon of the weak in asymmetrical wars. It has been used by the Algerian NLF, the PLO before the Oslo Accords, by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), by Vietnam’s National Liberation Front in targeting brothels in Saigon filled with US soldiers, and even by Irgun terrorists who planted bombs against the British before the creation of the state of Israel (for example, the Hotel King David bombing in Jerusalem, in July 1946, left 91 people dead and 46 injured, not only British nationals, but Arabs and Jews as well). This is also valid – although we tend to forget – for European resistance movements during the Second World War. 

Imperialist and colonial states, like the US, Israel and their allies, have always denounced the ‘terrorism’ committed by the peoples they have oppressed and dominated, but many organisations that were labelled as terrorists in this way later became legitimate actors. This was the case of the Viet Cong, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Algeria’s National Liberation Front, the African National Congress, and many others – including the PLO and the PFLP in Palestine. 

It is important to note here that, like some of the aforementioned national liberation movements of the twentieth century, such as the FLN in Algeria, the objective sought by the Palestinian resistance is not the overall military defeat of the occupying forces, but rather to resist for as long as possible, until Israel is forced to yield – just as happened to the state that has, historically, most resembled Israel (and which was one of its closest allies), apartheid South Africa.

What is specific to the Palestinian resistance, and which sets it apart from perhaps all of the aforementioned liberation movements, is the fact that Palestine is no longer just a national or even a regional issue: it has become a global symbol of dignity in the face of colonialism and imperial power. Gaza – an open-air prison – has become the ethical and political epicentre of all the struggles of the Global South. In it converge the fracture lines of a global system in crisis: decadent neoliberalism, militarised imperialism, structural racism, and environmental collapse.

Behind Washington’s support to Israel, what is at stake is the US’s interest in the Middle East. The US has military facilities in at least 19 sites in the region (eight of which are considered permanent): in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Syria. In particular, relations between the Gulf countries, Israel and the United States are key for understanding the current moment. 

Across the region, to maintain its hegemony, US-led imperialism promotes and finances reactionary Jihadist groups, enhances sectarianism, and weakens states, thus laying the groundwork for continuous war (Capasso and Kadri 2023). In many ways, this presents a continuation of plans that are decades old, including the Project for the New American Century.7 Founded in 1997, this think tank/project sought to maintain US hegemony worldwide by preventing the emergence of a rival global power. To achieve this, it pursued control over hydrocarbons and the routes for transporting them. To that end, the Project’s proponents set out to reconfigure the map of central Afro-Eurasia through a series of invasions: of Serbia (1999), Iraq (1991 and 2003) and Afghanistan (2001). Although the Project (as a think tank) ceased to function in 2006, similar ideas were at play in the US interventions in Syria (from 2011 onwards) and in wars in Africa, including in Sudan, Somalia and Libya (2011). 

As time went on, this interventionist project was gradually exhausted, due to the level of military force deployed in direct interventions in central Afro-Eurasia. The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions resulted in a quagmire for the US empire and its allies, evidencing their flaws and ineffectiveness in refashioning central Afro-Eurasia. However, the defeats suffered by imperialism in that broad area did not lead to victories for progressive forces (Katz 2023), and while the US suffered setbacks and failures in carrying out its plans it remains present in the Middle East, including in its role as Israel’s primary sponsor.

For the United States (as for the European Union) the alliance with Israel is a key part of its strategy for maintaining a favourable regional order, including control over strategic routes and energy supplies. This involves suppressing both anti-imperialist movements and movements aligned with competing powers, such as Russia and China (Martinelli 2025). Today, the US-dominated imperial system is seeking to enhance its geopolitical and military power at a time of reconfiguration, in which the global geo-economic situation is undergoing change. What is happening in Gaza is thus only one part of these developments, as is the case with Ukraine and Taiwan (acknowledging the differences in the level of conflict in each case). 

From 2008 onwards, the approach to the US’s systemic rivalry with China and Russia that was promoted by neo-conservatives involved imposing hybrid wars to mitigate the opponent’s actions, a series of unilateral repressive measures and economic sanctions, including financial and propaganda measures, along with colour revolutions, cyber-warfare, lawfare and other tactics. 

In this context of global geopolitical tensions, since 7 October 2023, Israel’s role as custodian of US interests has taken on a new significance, because of the geostrategic triangle between China, Russia and Iran. Israel’s role here is similar to that of Taiwan, which Dwight Eisenhower called ‘the biggest US aircraft carrier in front of China’. In similar language, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig, described the US’s ally in the Middle East as follows: ‘Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security’. Similarly, when he was a senator in 1986, former US president Joe Biden (2021–2025) told Congress: ‘Three billion dollars a year to Israel is the best investment America makes. If Israel didn’t exist, America would have to invent an Israel to protect America’s interest in the region.’

Thus, Washington uses Israel to undermine the progress of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, particularly in connection with the Red Sea and various straits, and to further its medium-term plan of achieving Israeli hegemony in the Middle  East, for its own benefit. 

For its part, Tel Aviv continues to depend on the support of the West, which is the metropolis of the Zionist colonial settler system. This fact exposes the falsehood that Israel was created to protect Jews around the world from systemic oppression. At the same time, because of its extreme violence and criminality, and despite the efforts to maintain a media blockade to protect it, public opinion in the West today is increasingly turning against Israel.

Over the last three years, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have been among the most critical of the genocide in Gaza, with many  criticising it in general terms and expressing their solidarity with Palestine. Most likewise recognise that the alliance between US imperialism and Israeli Zionism encompasses Israel’s role as collaborator in maintaining the United States’ dominance in the hemisphere (Harris 2023). Statements and actions reflecting this position have been made by Colombia, Cuba and Nicaragua, and to a lesser extent by Brazil and Chile (see below). However, such statements and actions contrast with the subordination of other governments, such as Argentina’s, to the imperial agenda, with their unconditional support of Israel, their disdain for international law, and their systematic attack on critical culture. 

As earlier parts of this article made clear, both Cuba and Nicaragua recognise that to defend Palestine is also to defend those regions that have historically been colonised, and to resist capitalist and imperialist logics, including in Latin America. Both countries have faced attacks for doing just this. It is therefore unsurprising that Cuba and Nicaragua were the first countries in Latin America to recognise the State of Palestine, doing so on 16 November 1988, along with Algeria and other countries. However, other Latin American countries slowly followed suit, such that, at the time of writing, the only country in the region that has not recognised Palestine is Panama.

Nicaragua’s stance on the issue of Palestine has fluctuated over the years, due to changes in governments, with the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990 and their return to power in 2006. Nicaragua broke off diplomatic relations with Israel a year after the genocide began, in October 2024, when it issued a press release containing the following words:

In permanent solidarity with the people and the Government of Palestine, with all peoples suffering agony, destruction, and barbarism, and in strict observance of international law and the conventions that govern civilised relations between the States and Governments of the world, the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua breaks all diplomatic relations with the fascist Government of Israel.

Drawing on its experience in bringing a successful case against the United States at the ICJ over the Contras war, Nicaragua has supported the cases filed against Israel at the ICJ with the aim of stopping the genocide in Gaza. This includes backing South Africa in its case against Israel under the UN Genocide Convention and filing its own case against Germany for ‘facilitating the commission of genocide’ in Palestine. For Nicaraguan leaders, the parallels between Israel and the Apartheid regime in South Africa are clear: they argue that Apartheid was dismantled as a result of mobilisations both in the country and around the world, which led other countries to stop collaborating with South Africa.

Cuba has maintained a stable stance towards Palestine since the 1990s. Six months into the genocide, in March 2024, Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel – wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh and a Che Guevara t-shirt – led a demonstration in support of Palestine at the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Platform in Havana, surrounded by signs honouring Karl Marx, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. 

In recent decades, Venezuela has joined Cuba and Nicaragua in supporting Palestine: the government of Hugo Chávez cut the country’s ties with Israel in 2009, in response to the attacks on Gaza that year. 

As suggested at the start of this section, other countries in the region have responded with varying levels of action to the ongoing genocide. Bolivia broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in 2023 (although after the change of government in 2025, it later renewed ties). In May 2024, Colombian president Gustavo Petro announced that Colombia was also cutting diplomatic ties with Israel. Meanwhile, Chile, Brazil and Honduras, have each recalled their ambassadors in Tel Aviv in protest at Israel’s actions. 

In the case of Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela, their support to Palestine is part of their larger decision to pursue an independent foreign policy and to align themselves with the causes of the Global South.

This article has delved into the ties of the Cuban revolutionary government and the first stages of Nicaragua’s Sandinismo with the PLO, along with more recent relations between Cuba, Nicaragua and Palestine. It has also looked at the ties between different Third World movements (including the Palestinians) that resorted to armed struggle, showing how they shared their experiences of asymmetrical struggle in pursuit of anti-imperialist and anti-colonial goals. As the article has shown, these relations began primarily in the context of the Cold War, with these movements coming together due to their common enemy: US imperialism and its Israeli ally. 

It was in this Cold War context that Palestine first became a symbol of anti-imperialism for left-wing movements, which from then on developed a tradition of support for the Palestinian cause. Already one of the most emblematic cases of resistance in the face of colonialism and imperialism, Palestine became the central cause of the Global South.

In Latin America, this left-wing tradition of support to Palestine was strengthened by the history of Israeli complicity in the repression and violence of dictators and far-right governments in the region. While Latin American governments had always supported Israel since its establishment (with the exception of Cuba), that support increased under dictatorial governments. Later, with the so-called War on Terror, this support to Israel was intensified under right-wing and far-right governments. 

The connection between the struggle of the Palestinians and the struggle against the far-right and dictatorships in Latin America raises the need for stronger alliances and transnational solidarity between Latin America and the Middle East, against the advances of the far-right in the two regions. 

In pursuing this aim, it is essential to adopt a global political stance. Gaza speaks to us because it is there where the future of our world will be decided: whether we will live in a world based on technological barbarism, armed extractivism, and racial supremacy, or one based on justice and ensuring people’s dignity and self-determination. The new internationalism that is needed to bring about the latter world cannot be decreed in diplomatic summits: it must be woven through concrete solidarity, political training, decolonial thinking, and cultural insurgency.8 Learning the lessons from the genocide in Gaza will be key for channelling these new forms of internationalism, against Balkanisation and attempts at fragmenting solidarity.

As part of these efforts, we need to build bridges between our resistances, and between colonised and peripheral regions, as Cuba, Nicaragua and Palestine have done. The relationships between these three countries are based on historical solidarity between their respective national liberation movements. With these historical roots, they continue to maintain a shared rejection of capitalism, racism, colonialism and imperialism, and offer an example of resistance to blockades, to unilateral economic sanctions imposed by the US, and to Israeli colonialism (as one arm of US imperialism). Their alliance reflects a broader geopolitical strategy for defying the collective West and its de-legitimised ‘rules-based order’.

Solidarity between the Palestinian cause and Latin America is essential, both because of the need to defend people’s right to self-determination and to combat multiple forms of oppression, and because it has the capacity to bring the Global South together in a common front. The Middle East and Latin America share histories of resistance against colonialism and imperialism, and against capitalism. The Palestinian struggle against Israel’s colonialism is seen in Latin America as a reflection of the region’s own indigenous and popular struggles against the dispossession, extractivism, debt, and inequality that afflict the region. Movements in both Latin America and central Afro-Eurasia engage in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles against the widespread logic of dispossession and hybrid war. 

Taking account of this shared experience, the anti-imperialist movements in Latin America and Palestine, alongside other territories that are engaged in resistance, need to coordinate their actions and to maintain popular unity and international solidarity. As Ramón Grosfoguel has recently underlined, we must work together to establish a common front for liberation, from Latin America to Palestine.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of TNI.