Shortly after left-wing Bolivian President Evo Morales was ousted in a US-supported coup in November - disguised as a noble reaction to alleged electoral fraud - the self-appointed, fanatically right-wing Bolivian “interim” government announced the renewal of diplomatic relations with Israel.
These had been severed by Morales in 2009 during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, which killed some 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 300 children. Though Israel naturally cast itself as the singular victim of the affair, the ratio of Palestinian civilian to Israeli civilian deaths was 400:1.
During a subsequent Israeli-inflicted bloodbath in Gaza in 2014, this one by the name of Operation Protective Edge and entailing the slaughter of 2,251 Palestinians (including 299 women and 551 children), Morales denounced Israel as a “terrorist state” - a perfectly accurate assessment, given the circumstances and Israel’s track record.
So it’s no surprise that Israel was quick to embrace rapprochement with the newly cleansed government of Bolivia after the November coup, with Israel’s Ynet news site reporting that “the resumption of relations between Bolivia and Israel was made possible by the end of the reign of former hostile President Abu Morales”. (It is not clear whether the Evo-to-Abu modification was a bizarre mistake or a deliberate attempt by some sneaky Ynet person to Arabise the “hostile” leader’s name.)
Additional bonding opportunities rapidly materialised, as Bolivia went about requesting assistance from Israel in training police units for counterterrorism operations. On 6 December, Bolivian interim interior minister, Arturo Murillo, told Reuters: “We’ve invited them to help us. They’re used to dealing with terrorists. They know how to handle them. The only thing we want is to bring peace.”
The “terrorists” supposedly wreaking havoc in Bolivia are, according to the Reuters report, “radical leftists allegedly linked to [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro and drug-traffickers whom the [Bolivian interim] government say had instigated deadly unrest in the country”. In other words, the usual mishmash of hemispheric bogeymen trotted out to justify whatever right-wing undertaking is in need of justification - and never mind that the Bolivian military and police have been the ones perpetrating massacres. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.