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Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said that the question of “who will hold Israel accountable for its crimes” should start with Germany, stressing that Germany’s “guilt complex towards the Jews because of the Holocaust” continues to paralyse its decisions.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher, President Petro said that while Israel “is a state with a government,” it “has committed genocide and is repeating what the Nazis once did to the Jews — but this time against the Palestinians.”

He called on Germany and Europe to take action, as well as democratic people in the United States — particularly the youth — noting that “American capital is trying to silence them.” 

The president added that Germans “are paralysed by fear of their past and its burden.” He pointed out that the Nuremberg Trials, which later evolved into the international justice system represented by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, are now “under attack from the United States.”

President Petro noted that most countries have ratified the courts’ conventions “despite their current inability to act,” adding, “I trust that the Israeli people, especially the youth — who are currently ruled by a Nazi government that oppresses Christians and Arabs alike — will rise up.”

He went on to say that the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, but that US President Donald Trump and other states have ignored it.

President Petro concluded by saying that “the chosen people are not Israel or the United States; the chosen people are those who choose humanity.”

READ: Germany consulted with Israel before its defense at ICJ: Reports

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.