Is Brazil planning to move its embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem? Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro asserted that they will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, making the South American nations follow the footsteps of United States.
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This move which is bound to upset the Palestinians and the Islamic world is the latest controversial announcement by the former army captain, who has wasted no time fulfilling his hardline conservative agenda since his election win.
“As previously stated during our campaign, we intend to transfer the Brazilian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israel is a sovereign state and we shall duly respect that,” Bolsonaro tweeted.
But for opponents, the move stoked denunciations that the judge was politically motivated — especially against leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whom polls showed would have beaten Bolsonaro in the election had he not been jailed 12 years for corruption.
Bolsonaro vowed in his victory speech to “change Brazil’s destiny,” and the four days since the election have given a glimpse of the magnitude of the change he has in mind.
On the diplomatic front, the embassy move aligns him with US President Donald Trump, under whose administration, Jerusalem was recognized as the capital of Israel. Israel considers all of Jerusalem its capital, while the Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
But although politicians of all stripes have fallen, Moro has been accused of being particularly merciless on the left — especially Lula, Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010.
Moro sentenced Lula — a hugely divisive but enduringly popular figure — to jail for taking bribes from a Petrobras contractor. That led the courts to bar Lula’s presidential candidacy, dashing his hopes of making a come-back.
