Colombia’s outgoing Marxist president, Gustavo Petro, posted two words on X on Sunday that ignited a firestorm across two continents: “Heil Hitler.” The post was directed at an op-ed in the Colombian daily El Espectador that endorsed right-wing presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella ahead of Colombia’s June 21 runoff election. Within hours, Israeli officials, the Anti-Defamation League, and two dozen Latin American lawmakers had condemned the sitting head of state, a man who, as recently as September 2025, stood before the United Nations General Assembly and called for an international army to “liberate Palestine.”

The op-ed that triggered Petro’s response was written by Colombian journalist Felipe Zuleta Lleras, who argued that Colombia needs order, authority, and economic freedom. Petro, apparently seeing fascism in an endorsement of economic freedom, chose the Nazi salute as his rebuttal. He subsequently defended himself, claiming he was merely critiquing what he called “fascist phrases” in the column. The defense landed with all the credibility of the slogan itself.

The New York-based Anti-Defamation League was blunt: “The president of Colombia posted, ‘Heil Hitler.’ In 2026. An elected head of state shouldn’t have to be told why posting a Nazi slogan is monstrous and unacceptable. There is no excuse for it and no context that justifies it.”

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon did not mince words either. “President of Colombia, @petrogustavo, whatever is going on in your personal life, there are lines that must never be crossed,” Danon wrote on X. “Using Nazi slogans is a disgraceful low from which there is no coming back.” Danon also noted that Petro is scheduled to preside over a UN Security Council debate on Wednesday and called on him to apologize before then.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the post “a total loss of moral compass and an indelible stain on Colombia’s legacy.”

This was not the first time Petro had invoked the Holocaust in political attacks; in the wake of October 7, he drew condemnation from Jewish and Israeli leaders for likening Israel’s actions to Nazi Germany. In yet another post tied to the same controversy, Petro warned that the journalist who wrote the op-ed “will tremble when homosexuals are hunted down in the streets and prisons are filled with innocent people,” framing a conservative endorsement as the harbinger of Nazi persecution. 

Petro severed Colombia’s diplomatic ties with Israel in 2024 over the Gaza war, a war triggered by Hamas’s massacre of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023. He opened a Colombian diplomatic mission in Ramallah, received the Grand Collar of the Order of the State of Palestine from Mahmoud Abbas, and formally backed South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. His administration is Colombia’s first left-wing presidency, and Petro himself is a proud former member of the Marxist M-19 terrorist guerrilla. The U.S. Treasury Department added Petro, his wife, his son, and his interior minister to its Specially Designated Nationals list in October 2025 for alleged involvement in the global drug trade.

The response from Latin America, however, was swift and significant. Twenty-four lawmakers from 14 countries across the region — Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay — signed a formal condemnation organized by the Coalition of Latin American Legislators Against Antisemitism, led by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM). The statement recalled that “Heil Hitler” was the official salute of the regime responsible for murdering six million Jews, and warned that Petro’s repeated use of Nazi references was not an isolated outburst but a deliberate pattern that trivializes Holocaust memory and normalizes hatred in public discourse.

CAM Executive Director of Latin American Affairs Shay Salamon said: “Heads of state bear a special responsibility. Their words do not merely express political positions; they also shape social climates and can legitimize hatred. In the case of President Gustavo Petro, this is not an isolated rhetorical excess but a sustained pattern that reflects a troubling record of antisemitic expressions and conduct. When a leader uses the authority of his office to stigmatize the Jewish people or trivialize their historic suffering, silence is no longer an option.”

The man Petro was attacking, conservative frontrunner Abelardo de la Espriella, a 47-year-old lawyer and political outsider nicknamed “El Tigre,” or “The Tiger”, has pledged to restore Colombia’s ties with Israel and open a Colombian embassy in Jerusalem. De la Espriella topped the first round of voting on May 31 with 43.7%, backed by conservative and evangelical groups, and enters the June 21 runoff as the clear favorite.

Petro will be gone from the office in weeks. But the damage he has done to Colombia’s standing in the world, to Holocaust memory, and to the basic norms of democratic discourse will outlast his tenure. The Sages teach that a person reveals his true character in moments of anger and pressure. By that measure, Gustavo Petro has revealed everything the world needs to know about him.