Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on October 8 that Colombia would move its embassy to Jerusalem, a step he presented as a diplomatic win and a sign of warming relations with Latin American governments. Saar said Brazil might soon follow Colombia and a growing list of Latin American countries that have moved their embassies to the disputed city, which Israelis and Palestinians both claim as their capital.
“We will work hard because this is the diplomatic battle over the truth,” Saar said. “And the truth is, Jerusalem was always the capital of one nation.” The remarks came as the region’s relationship with Israel appears to be shifting, with right-wing parties gaining power and pro-Israel politicians using support for Israel to rally voters.
Right-wing governments reshape ties with Israel
Colombia’s new government offers the clearest example of the change. Last month, Colombia and Israel began allowing their citizens to travel between the two countries without visas, a move that signals the government of Abelardo de la Espriella wants to restore ties that were cut during Israel’s war on Gaza.
His predecessor, Gustavo Petro, severed ties with Israel, which he said was waging a genocidal war in Gaza. Petro stopped exporting Colombian coal to Israel, cut military and security cooperation and planned to open a Colombian embassy in Palestine. De la Espriella, who took office in August, has moved quickly in the opposite direction. He has announced plans to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reappoint ambassadors and recognise Israeli control over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
Marta Tawil Kuri, a research professor at the Center for International Studies at the College of Mexico, said strong presidential systems and weak diplomatic corps let new leaders change course on issues such as Israel quickly. “Unlike the US, where support for Israel has stayed relatively stable across administrations,” Kuri said, “in much of Latin America foreign policy can swing sharply from one election to the next.”
The pattern appears across the region. In 2023, Argentina elected Javier Milei, who pledged to move the embassy to Jerusalem and refused to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN. He said he was “proud to be the most Zionist president in the world.” In Bolivia, the government of Evo Morales refused full diplomatic ties with Israel, and the administration of Luis Arce kept that position and recalled its ambassadors after October 7, 2023. After Arce was voted out last year, his successor, Rodrigo Paz, quickly reversed the policy.
Chilean President Jose Antonio Kast undid his predecessor’s measures against Israel soon after taking office in August, appointing an ambassador who describes himself as a “proud Zionist”. In Honduras, a right-wing leader replaced the left-wing government in January, and President Nasry Asfura reappointed an ambassador to Israel this year. In August, Venezuela said it would restore consular relations with Israel, ending nearly two decades of hostility under Nicolas Maduro and Hugo Chavez.
Brazil’s election and the evangelical vote
Brazil, the largest country in the region, is in the middle of a presidential campaign in which relations with Israel have become a key issue. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a left-wing supporter of Palestine, is in a close contest with right-wing rival Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. Lula has waved Israeli flags at campaign rallies and highlighted his friendship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two are due to face each other in a run-off after Bolsonaro performed unexpectedly strongly in the first round.
Bolsonaro launched his campaign last July standing beside Argentina’s Milei. Some people in the crowd waved Israeli flags while Netanyahu delivered a video message calling Bolsonaro a friend and a “great champion of the friendship between our peoples.” Alexander Main, director of international policy at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, called the prominent role for foreign leaders in a Latin American campaign “unheard of” and said it had not happened so overtly before.
According to Main, the rally was also an attempt to win over a large and influential group of voters who see protecting Israel as part of their religious outlook. The Evangelical Parliamentary Front, a caucus of pro-Israel evangelical lawmakers, includes more than 40 percent of the Chamber of Deputies and more than a quarter of the Senate. If it formed a party, the loose alliance would be the third-largest in the country.
Brazil is not the only country where this push is visible. Kuri said evangelicalism, particularly Christian Zionism, is a growing factor in Honduras and Guatemala. Around 40 percent of the population in both countries are evangelicals, and both governments have moved their embassies to Jerusalem.
Trump alignment, lobbying and the Isaac Accords
Experts say the realignment is partly driven by new leaders who want to show they belong to a regional alignment with US President Donald Trump. Several right-wing leaders received direct endorsements from Trump, including de la Espriella and Asfura. Their governments have joined US-led groupings such as the Shield of the Americas, a counter-narcotics security alliance that includes Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and several other countries in the hemisphere.
Main said members of this bloc have helped back controversial US migration policies, such as El Salvador housing third-country deportees for the United States. He also said they have framed their fight against drug trafficking as a new kind of war on terrorism, an approach he linked to Israel’s war on the Palestinians. “They find common ground with Israel on a lot of these things,” Main said.
Main added that good relations with Israel could bring access to military and security resources, including sophisticated spy software such as Pegasus, which was developed by an Israeli software company, as well as military jets and training for forces. Lobbying is also playing a role. The Latino Coalition for Israel, led by Florida-based evangelical pastor Mario Bramnick, has sent delegations across Latin America and met leaders in several countries. A spokesperson for Bramnick declined to comment for this story.
In 2025, the Genesis Prize, an Israeli nonprofit, awarded $1 million to Milei for his support of Israel. Milei used the money to establish the Isaac Accords, which are modelled on the US-backed Abraham Accords. The initiative provides grants to pro-Israel civil society groups in Latin America and tracks government moves on Israel, from embassy locations to votes on Israel-related resolutions at the UN.
The initiative’s latest step came at the end of Netanyahu’s trip to the UN General Assembly in late September, where most of the audience walked out of his speech in protest. Netanyahu then held his own summit with the leaders of Bolivia, Panama and Paraguay, urging them to join the Isaac Accords. He wrote on X that he sought to “expand the circle of friendship and partnership with Israel.”
