Chilean president earns shitstorm for suspending meeting with Israeli ambassador
Chilean President Gabriel Boric was heavily criticized for postponing the delivery of the credentials of Israeli Ambassador Gil Artzyeli over the death of a Palestinian teenager in the West Bank.
The ambassador was already in La Moneda (the seat of government) to attend the Sept. 15 ceremony in which the representatives of Germany, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and Israel presented their credentials when it was announced that Boric would not receive the Hebrew diplomat.
“When the problem concerns the only Jewish state in the world, the double standard is called anti-Semitism (…) It is appropriate that the Chilean government publicly apologize and repair this damage to bilateral relations between Chile and Israel,” the Jewish community said.
However, the typical accusation of anti-Semitism that the Middle Eastern country has consistently made for nearly half a century is put into perspective when one sees the latest UN report on how the Israelis gun down unarmed protesters in Gaza. Watch.
With the meeting postponed until the second week of October, the Israeli Foreign Ministry invited Chilean Ambassador Jorge Carvajal to an official meeting on Sept. 18.
“Israel views Chile’s unusual and disturbing behavior with great severity. This significantly damages relations between the two countries,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The Chilean ambassador to Israel was summoned by the director general of the Foreign Ministry on Sunday for a conversation in which Israel’s response to the ambassador will be made clear,” it was added.
Members of the Chilean-Israeli Inter-Parliamentary Group also criticized Boric’s stance.
Several senators also expressed their condemnation of the suspension.
Independent Senator Carmen Aravena spoke of a “very serious and shameful snub.”
Socialist Senator Juan Luis Castro said that “the defiance without public apology toward the Israeli ambassador speaks of diplomatic levity toward a country with decades of relations with Chile and could have international consequences.”
The Chilean government’s decision to postpone the meeting was in response to the death of Ugay Trad Salah; a 17-year-old boy killed in the northern West Bank by a headshot attributed to the Israeli army.
The Palestinian community in Chile is the largest outside the Middle East and includes “nearly 500,000 members,” according to the non-governmental organization Comunidad Palestina en Chile on its website.
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