Morena Senator Fernández Noroña takes leave to visit Palestine this weekend

Noroña is making bully connected his committedness to question to Palestine. (Andrea Murcia/Cuartoscuro)

Mexican Senator Gerardo Fernández Noroña of the Morena enactment has taken a 10-day permission to question to the Middle East, saying helium volition conscionable with Palestinian authorities and carnivore witnesser to “the genocide” successful Gaza.

The travel was organized by the Palestinian Authority and his formation volition beryllium paid for by the United Arab Emirates, helium said.

In a quality league this week, Fernández Noroña said helium was accepting an invitation issued implicit the summer, erstwhile helium served arsenic president of the Senate, Mexico’s 128-member precocious house.

His clip successful the rotating presumption ended Aug. 31, but the at-large legislator elected by proportional practice (he doesn’t correspond a peculiar state) is conscionable 14 months into his six-year term.

In August, the Mexico City autochthonal told reporters his extremity was to “rescue orphaned Palestinian children” and connection them refuge successful Mexico, framing it arsenic a humanitarian mission. However, the projected travel did not instrumentality spot then.​

This week, helium said, “Despite the agreed-upon ceasefire, the genocide continues,” explaining plans to conscionable successful the UAE and Jordan portion spending “the bulk of my time” successful Palestine — the geographically contiguous West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the separate, war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

“If the Palestinian Authority has a sojourn to Gaza planned, I’ll bash it,” helium added.

The legislator said helium was not legally required to petition leave, but chose to bash truthful fixed nationalist scrutiny.

His lack began Thursday and volition tally done Sunday, Nov. 2, the last time of Día de los Muertos celebrations.

Fernández Noroña downplayed the hazard of U.S. retaliation, saying having his visa revoked is the worst that could happen.

Senator Alejandro Murat, seat of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, defended the travel arsenic portion of “parliamentary diplomacy.”

But absorption figures and activists questioned the timing and financing.

Cecilia Patricia “Ceci” Flores, the laminitis and nationalist person of the Madres Buscadoras de Sonora — a corporate of mothers that searches for Mexico’s missing persons — invited Fernández Noroña to articulation her ngo alternatively of flying much than 12,000 kilometers to the Middle East.

“You don’t request to spell truthful acold to fulfill that impulse to help,” she wrote connected societal media, offering to money his travel to Sinaloa to assistance find her son, missing since 2015. “In Mexico, we’re abbreviated connected hands and the willingness to extremity the massacre that’s taking our children from us.”

Guillermo Valencia, person of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) successful Michoacán, called Fernández Noroña’s determination “hypocrisy,” urging him to “speak up for the victims” astatine home.

(Earlier this year, a Senate league erupted into a fistfight betwixt PRI enactment person Alejandro “Alito” Moreno and then-Senate president Fernández Noroña.)

In an sentiment file successful El País, writer Zedryk Raziel accused the legislator of “stumbling implicit his ain words,” highlighting doubts astir whether helium tin legally fto a overseas authorities money his trip. He cited experts who called the sojourn “reckless” fixed that Noroña is nary longer Senate president and remains nether scrutiny for alleged ethical lapses, including luxury question and undeclared assets.

Fernández Noroña dismissed the criticism, insisting his travel reflects “solidarity with the Palestinian people” and rejecting claims of impropriety.

“Any legislator tin person this benignant of invitation,” helium said.

With reports from El Universal, La Jornada, Infobae and El País