Argentina’s Javier Milei Heads to Israel in Show of Support for Jewish State

Argentina’s newly minted president, Javier Milei, is on his way to Israel to meet with the Jewish state’s president, Isaac Herzog, in a show of support from South America. Most of Mr. Milei’s neighbors vehemently disagree with his staunchly pro-Israel stance. Speaking to reporters on a commercial flight shortly before takeoff from his home country, Mr. Milei said that he was meeting with Mr. Herzog “to express my support for Israel against the terrorist attacks of the Hamas terrorist group.”According to the Bueno Aires Times, Mr. Milei will travel to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and will also visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum. Mr. Milei will also meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu, a group of Israeli entrepreneurs, and the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Rabbi David Lau and Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef. The Argentinian president plans to plant a tree in Jerusalem’s Grove of Nations — a garden home to many trees offered by other heads of state in a sign of respect and friendship. He also intends to visit Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities attacked by Hamas on October 7. After his visit to the Jewish State, Mr. Milei will travel to Rome where he will meet with the country’s prime minister, Georgia Meloni, and Pope Francis. He will be traveling with his foreign minister, the Israeli ambassador to Argentina, and one of his closest advisors — his sister, Karina Milei. Mr. Milei said during his presidential campaign last year that he identifies strongly with the Jewish people, and even intends to eventually convert to Judaism. In 2021, Mr. Milei said that “I am thinking about converting to Judaism and I aspire to become the first Jewish president in Argentine history.” While he has yet to do so, he has said that he has studied the Torah for years, and visited the grave of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson at New York before being sworn in as president of Argentina. His South American neighbors, for the most part, do not share that sense of community and camaraderie with the Jewish State. The president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, said Israel’s Gaza offensive has been “as grave” as the October 7 attack, and even introduced a cease-fire resolution at the UN Security Council just days after the attacks. Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric, told President Biden that Israel’s Gaza operation “deserves our clearest condemnation.” Other South American countries’ ambassadors voted for a cease-fire resolution at the UN last year. In one of the more striking moves made by a South American head of state in the wake of October 7, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, compared Israel’s actions at Gaza to that of the Nazis in World War II. Mr. Petro’s foreign minister later said he would be expelling the Israeli ambassador. The president later had to clarify that he would not be doing so. Argentina has a long history of supporting Israel in times of conflict. More than 200,000 Jewish people live in the country, with most concentrated in the capital city of Buenos Aires. After seven Argentinians were killed in the October 7 attack, Mr. Milei’s predecessor, President Alberto Fernandez said his government “expressed its solidarity with the Israeli people” and he began working with international partners to free some of the hostages taken by Hamas.

Argentina’s Javier Milei Heads to Israel in Show of Support for Jewish State

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