Chile's 'Pro-Israel' President Loves Death Squad Pinochet, Too
When The New Arab spotlights 'Chile's new pro-Israel president,' José Antonio Kast, the headline might conjure images of geopolitical alliances. What gets downplayed is how 'pro-Israel' often correlates with 'pro-authoritarian' elsewhere. Kast, for example, is a vocal admirer of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, a regime responsible for over 3,000 murders and disappearances, and tens of thousands
tortured. (Source: Chilean National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, 2004). This isn't just a quirky personal preference; it's a telling embrace of state violence against perceived enemies. So, when media focuses solely on the 'pro-Israel' label, it sanitizes the underlying ideology. It’s not simply a foreign policy stance for Kast; it reflects a broader worldview that tolerates,
perhaps even celebrates, the use of extreme force to maintain order. One might wonder if the 'pro-Israel' label, in certain contexts, merely serves as a polite euphemism for a much darker philosophical alignment with state-sanctioned brutality.