Posted on YouTube: October 12, 2023
This video can be auto-translated.
A German news site, Deutsche Welle, examines Brazil’s stand on the Gaza War.
The video above gives a good, short history of Brazil’s relationship with Israel.
Like the United States, Brazil is very divided.
The government is presently run by a center-left president (Lulu), who would probably lean to a more pro-Palestinian position. However, 31% of the population is Evangelical Christian and they swing Zionist.
The former president, Bolsonaro, was very pro-Israel, and got baptized into the Evangelical church in the Jordan River.
Bolsonaro, was raised Catholic and baptized in the Jordan River by an evangelical pastor during a visit to Israel prior to his 2018 election, as part of a broader effort to boost his appeal among the key religious bloc.
Chilestino is a Spanish term meaning Chilean of Palestinian ancestry.
Backgrounder:
Chilestinos are descendants of Christian Palestinians who started moving to Chile in the late 19th century. At that time, they were often fleeing to avoid having their sons being drafted into a Muslim controlled Ottoman Army. Later waves came, some due to Jewish-Arab fighting.
The vast majority are Christian, and most are now intermarried with other ethnic groups, but are presently re-discovering their Arab roots.
However, what they remember is a Palestinian “paradise” that no longer exists, and they seem to forget that Islamic persecution is what drove some of their ancestors to Chile.
They tend to see the Israel-Palestine conflict in purely national terms, devoid of religious animosities.
They ignore the Islamic aspect of the struggle, an Islamic aspect that once persecuted their own Christian ancestors. The ignore that, were the Palestine side to win, the Christians left in the Holy Land would not fare well.
They are very anti-Israel, but are a rich and powerful community, which can hijack Chile’s foreign policy.
In many ways, the Chilestinos resemble the Jewish community in the USA which punches well above its weight in political influence — except that the Chilestinian community is anti-Israel.
Public opinion in Chile is often influenced by the country’s politically powerful 200,000 Palestinian immigrants and their descendents.
“The Palestinian community is to Chile what the Jewish community is to the US,” [The president of Chile’s Jewish community, Gabriel] Zaliasnik explained.
…
[My Note: The Palestinians are closer to 500,000 in number]
This tweet (below) is from Dec 21, 2023.
Agradecemos al Presidente @GabrielBoric por su participación en la Ceremonia de Navidad y por su contante apoyo hacia el pueblo palestino. https://t.co/JqI1oIEVP9
The Palestinian Community thanked the President of Chile for his participation in a Chilestino Christmas ceremony and his constant support for the people of Palestine.
American politicians go to AIPAC. Chilean politicians bow to the Palestinian community.
These Chilestinos don’t seem to consider the probable consequences that an Islamic victory might present to any of their relatives left in the Holy Land. As noted above, the Chilestinos are sympathetic and nostalgic for a Palestinian cause that no longer exits, if it ever existed at all.
Here in Santiago, 8,000 miles from Gaza, Palestine’s cause and culture burn brightly: Chile is home to the largest Palestinian diaspora outside the Middle East, numbering as many as 500,000 people.
…
“I would love to say that the support is born from an innate sympathy for human suffering,” said Dalal Marzuca, 28, a third-generation Chilean Palestinian. “But I think it’s more likely that everyone here just has a friend, colleague or classmate with Palestinian heritage.”
Marzuca works at a Palestinian coffee shop in the city centre where – between brewing thick dark coffee and serving up sticky, sweet knafeh – she follows the latest news from Gaza via WhatsApp and Instagram.
“Being Chilean Palestinian is unique,” said Marzuca. “I’m not entirely one nor the other, but I know how much what happens in Gaza is affecting me.”
Earlier this month, Marzuca was one of thousands of people who marched beneath a sea of Palestinian flags towards La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago, as the diaspora lent its considerable voice to the global clamour for a ceasefire.
Most were Orthodox Christians from Beit Jala, Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, and by the second generation, many were already integrated into Catholic churches.
The Chilestinos imagine the Palestine of their ancestors to have been a halcyon land, forgetting the very real persecutions that their own Christian ancestors had suffered under Muslim rule.
This is an incredible thing to watch. How can they be so deluded?
Yet, when it comes to Mideast policy, the Chilestinos seem to steer Chile’s ship of state.
Chile has become one of the “loudest regional voices” in Latin America condemning Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, said NBC.
“Roots run deep” in Chile for the Palestinian community, with immigration to the nation beginning in the late 19th century, “when Christians fled the faltering Ottoman Empire”, the broadcaster explained.
Despite most Chileans with Palestinian heritage identifying as Christian, this in “no way diminishes the national feeling” of support for the majority-Muslim state, the Morning Star said.
Support for Palestinians has extended outside of Chilean politics, seeping into other influential spheres in the South American nation.
1) There are roughly 500,000 Chileans of Palestinians descent, called Chilestinos in Spanish (Chilestinians in English).
2) They shape the opinion of Chile’s national media.
3) They have influenced the Chilean government to recall its ambassador from Israel.
4) With Chile’s population at 19.5 million, the Palestinians are a little under 3% of Chile’s total population, however they are over half of the Arab population in Chile, so they set the tone for the Arab community … unlike in many other Latin countries where the Arab demographic is titled towards moderate Lebanese Maronites (Catholics).
5) Though the Chilestinians are Christian in the vast majority – about 99% Christian – that does not stop them from identifying with the Palestinian cause, which is heavily Muslim influenced — even though their ancestors fled Palestine to Chile in order to escape the persecution of Christians under the Muslim Ottomam Turks.
6) Many are third- and fourth-generation Chilean, but have risen to be elites.
7) Elites does not capture the full sense of their power. One family, the Yarur family, were industrialists that once produced 60 per cent of Chile’s textiles.
8) They have an elite social club in the capital – see video below.
Posted for YouTube: June 19, 2020
9) They were esconced in a major Santiago business district, the Patronato.
Posted on YouTube: 2013
And now, having reached the top, they pressure the government.
[F]or Chilean Palestinians, the fight will not stop until the people of Palestine are liberated. The community is “clamoring” for a ceasefire, said NBC, holding rallies and pushing for boycotts, as the conflict continues.
They are fighting mad as this tweet (below) from The Palestinian Community of Chile shows:
Más de la mitad de las viviendas en la Franja de Gaza fueron completamente destruidas.
Cientos de familias viven en los escombros de sus casas con el constante temor de nuevos ataques. pic.twitter.com/llbqCKkXl9
Public opinion in Chile is often influenced by the country’s politically powerful 200,000 Palestinian immigrants and their descendents.
“The Palestinian community is to Chile what the Jewish community is to the US,” [The president of Chile’s Jewish community, Gabriel] Zaliasnik explained.
[My Note: The Palestinians are closer to 500,000 in number]
This is dramatic to watch.
Chiles is a first world country, but the Chilestino demographic has hijacked the nation’s government so that Chile acts in contradiction to its otherwise first world interests in this matter. Most first world countries support Israel, whether strongly or lukewarmly; but few support Palestine.
The effect is compounded in every aspect of the culture in Chile, which for example has a professional soccer team called Palestino.
Posted on YouTube: Mar 2, 2015
The documentary above (this is a teaser) is Cuatro Colores (Four Colors), which is named after the the four colors of the Palestinian flag [red, green, black, white], and the four colors of the professional soccer team, Palestino, in Santiago Chile.
The Chilestinos have an outsized influence on Chile’s culture, commerce, industry, banking, sports, and politics. They have held Chile’s foreign policy hostage for decades. In many ways, they have Palestinianized Chile.
1 January 2024 – Edited: cleaned things up and added more info.
"Se cometen crímenes de guerra y no está Hamas.. Hoy palestinos no pueden llegar a sus trabajos por los bloqueos israelíes…..No se puede señalar que cualquier ataque de civiles se puede justificar de cualquier forma" denunció desde Cisjordania el politólogo chileno palestino… pic.twitter.com/7InedKeGAq
“War crimes are committed and Hamas is not there… Today Palestinians cannot get to work because of the Israeli blockades… It cannot be pointed out that any attack by civilians can be justified in any way” denounced the political scientist from the West Bank. Chilean Palestinian Xavier Abu Aid (tv12 telemundo)
It is Xavier Abu Eid (or Aid).
He has been around since forever, but I have not read about him for years. He is a Chilean spokesman for the PLO.
2) He is a political scientist, and advisor to the PLO, as well as one of their chief spokesmen.
3) He went to Universidad Diego Portales (Diego Portales University) in Chile.
4) He has media clout in Latin America, though he is unknown in the USA.
5) Being Chilean, he is almost certainly Christian.
6) He writes for Al-Damir, a Palestinian-Chilean Magazine, run by the Fundación Belen (Bethlehem Foundation) – English language link, which also exhalts Arab-Chileans in Chilean Life. It claims to have a Christian emphasis, but some have suspected it of working with Hamas.
The name Xavier Abu Eid is almost certainly a pen name, as Xavier is a Catholic name while Abu Eid is probably Islamic.
