Once again, Israel is supporting a repressive regime in the Global South, this time in the poor Central American nation of Honduras — and Israeli activists are protesting vigorously.
Just after the November 26 election in Honduras, the results started to show a commanding margin for the pro-democracy opposition — until the vote-tabulating computers mysteriously went down. Many days later, the incumbent president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, had miraculously gained the lead, and Hondurans poured into the streets in nationwide peaceful demonstrations against the obvious theft.
The military and police have already killed 22 protesters, but the street demonstrations show no signs of stopping. The United States dishonestly endorsed the rigged results, even though observers from the Organization of American States had found so many irregularities that they recommended new elections.
Israel hides its arms exports. But last year, the Honduras regime revealed that it had bought $209 million worth of weapons from Israel, including surveillance drones for the army.
A representative of the Israeli activists, a courageous lawyer named Eitay Mack, sent a letter to the Israeli Defense Ministry asking it to freeze or cancel the arms sales. (Eitay Mack, who pushes for public scrutiny of Israeli security exports, has written for this site.)
Honduras just repaid Tel Aviv for the weapons sale — by casting one of the only 9 votes against the United Nations resolution condemning the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. (Here, in addition to the U.S. and Israel, is the rest of the list: Guatemala, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Togo.)
