RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On the verge of completing his first year in office, President Jair Bolsonaro is still to fulfill his electoral pledge to transfer the Brazilian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a controversial decision that runs counter to international consensus and which has so far only been adopted by the United States and Guatemala.
Bolsonaro refrained from commenting on the transfer of the diplomatic representation in April, during his official visit to the Jewish state, but as a first step, he announced the opening of a trade bureau.
His son and political heir, Eduardo Bolsonaro, stated that the President will fulfill his commitment by inaugurating a mission of the Brazilian Ministry Trade And Investment Promotion Agency (APEX-Brasil), a body linked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but with no diplomatic status, in the Holy City this Sunday.
“[My father] told me that there is a firm commitment, that the transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem will take place,” said the 35-year-old deputy, who chairs the Chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations.
In an official event at Brazil’s new branch in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the announcement as he prepares to face this year’s third election campaign in an attempt to remain in power.
The head of the Israeli government went further before his visitor when he declared that he saw the inauguration of the trade bureau “as part of President Bolsonaro’s commitment to establishing an embassy in Jerusalem next year”.
Only Guatemala, a country with an important presence of evangelical advocates of the Hebrew state in its government, followed in the footsteps of President Donald Trump by transferring the US embassy from Tel Aviv, where the diplomatic representations of other nations that have relations with Israel are located.
The general consensus of the international community leaves Jerusalem’s final status – which the Israelis consider their capital “eternal and indivisible” and where the Palestinians aspire to establish the capital of their future state in the east – for a lasting peace agreement between the two parties.
Paraguay also followed in the footsteps of the USA at first. However, after a change in the country’s presidency, it ordered the reopening of its embassy in Tel Aviv. Netanyahu failed to inaugurate further diplomatic representations in the Holy City.
European Union countries with governments favorable to Israel have recently established a trade bureau in Jerusalem (in the case of Hungary) and a cultural center (Czech Republic).
Bolsonaro needs to establish a tough balance between the electoral support he has received from the evangelical community in Brazil – unconditional supporter of the Jewish state – and the interests of powerful groups of agrobusinessmen, who export US$5 billion (about R$21 billion) each year in halal meat (with Muslim religious approval) to the Islamic world.
The trade balance leans decisively towards the Arab countries, which account for approximately five percent of Brazilian exports, against a share of only 0.2 percent for Israel.
Netanyahu, who keeps close ties with ultraconservative leaders like US Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, acknowledged Bolsonaro for Brazil’s support in international forums, where the new president has distanced himself from the tradition of condemning the occupation of Palestinian territories upheld by Brazil’s previous Workers Party governments.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, whom his father unsuccessfully tried to appoint as ambassador to Washington, also announced before the Israeli Prime Minister that his country would take the decision “sooner or later” to consider the Lebanese militia party Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
“We will organize the [diplomatic] transfer to Jerusalem,” he said, “not only on behalf of Brazil but as an example to the rest of Latin America”.