Brazil Opens First Palestinian Embassy In Americas

Last Friday Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was in Brazil to participate in the groundbreaking ceremony of the first Palestinian embassy in the Americas there. This is a huge deal. If you recall, we previously wrote about how U.S. policy ignoring Latin America has fomented a growing support for Palestine there.

One example of this growing support is that several Latin American countries have come to recognize Palestine’s 1967 borders, as opposed to the ones the U.S. and Israel recognize. Another sign is building an embassy for Palestine in your country, as Brazil did, and other Latin American countries will likely follow suit.

A total of 106 countries recognize Palestine as a sovereign state and the construction of this embassy will probably give more countries a reason to do so. The embassy conveys legitimacy. Whether or not Palestine is a legitimate state is not something I’m trying to address here, but I think the construction of this embassy speaks volumes to the U.S.’s loosening power on Latin America.

President Barack Obama has ignored Latinos in the Americas, as well as Latinos in his own backyard (who incidentally helped elected him to office). This recent stroke is likely to highlight that failure even further. It’s going to be a hard sell for the U.S. to market itself as a world leader when the evidence points only to pockets of leadership around the world. Latin American politics have been integral to U.S. foreign policy for a long time, I think this recent event shows that big changes are coming down the pipe.