Benjamin Netanyahu, on the ground in Brazil for the presidential installation, deliberated for several hours on Friday with Jair Bolsonaro. They had lunch in the fort of Copacabana, a famous tourist destination, and visited a nearby synagogue.
Despite the exuberant declarations, and despite the fact that the man made up of a brazilian state visit to Israel in march, suggests that even nothing that Netanyahu achieved the goal of his journey: A promise to move the Brazil’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
this during the election campaign, but hesitating now. Even if he makes light of the protests from the foreign MINISTRY in Brasilia and from the country’s large arab minority, so he can not turn a blind eye to the Arab league’s threat of a handelsbojkott.
Bolsonaro has also promised to close the palestinian embassy in Brasilia, a threat that got Egypt to set up a brazilian ministerbesök couple of weeks ago.
Brazil accounts for a large part of Turkey and the arab world in the import of Halal-meat. Overall, Brazil has a substantial surplus in its trade with the Arab world, while it has a deficit in trade with Israel. Netanyahu hopes that Bolsonaro, who proclaimed life and death battle against the country’s drogmaffior, will buy more israeli security system.
But the Netanyahu visit is not just about quantifiable benefits. Bolsonaro belongs to the new circuit of the democracy-skeptical leaders like Netanyahu are drawn to and see as their natural allies. To get other heads of government who have accepted the Bolsonaros invitation belongs to Hungary’s Victor Orbán, who helped Netanyahu scupper the EU’s Palestinapolitik.
As he polarized Brazil to the breaking point, Bolsonaro fragmented Brazil’s jews into two camps. The jews ‘ association Hebraica in São Paulo refused to accept Bolsonaro during the election campaign, while the same compound in Rio welcomed him.
Traditionally, relations between arabs and jews in Brazil has been good. Among the arabs, far more numerous and more influential than the jews, christians, maronites dominated. Both the outgoing president Michel Temer and Bolsonaros opponent in the presidential election, Fernando Haddad, belong to this group.
