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Paraguay’s election has implications for its Israeli embassy — and its relationship with Jerusalem
(JTA) — The question of where countries keep their embassies in Israel has become a debate that perpetually attracts controversy around the globe. In Paraguay, ahead of a national election on Sunday, the question is far from decided.
Since former President Donald Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018, a few other countries have followed suit, agreeing with much of Israel’s political establishment that the latter city, despite international and Palestinian opposition, is Israel’s sole capital. Israeli conservatives, such as those currently in power, have looked to court more countries to move their embassies and have counted each example as a historic victory.
The government of Paraguay, a country of around seven million people sandwiched in between Brazil and Argentina, has been back and forth on the Israel embassy issue. Shortly after Trump’s move, Paraguay’s president at the time, Horacio Cartes, moved his embassy as well. That year Guatemala did the same, and a few years later, Honduras and Kosovo followed suit.
But only one month after being elected, in September 2018, Cartes’ successor Mario Abdo announced he would be moving the country’s embassy back to Tel Aviv. Despite being a member of the same conservative party as Cartes, Abdo felt that for “broad, lasting and just peace” among Israelis and Palestinians, Paraguay’s embassy should be in Tel Aviv. Critics of Trump’s decision say declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s sole capital hurts the chances of a two-state solution, as the Palestinians would look to claim part of Jerusalem as their future state capital.
Abdo’s move quickly resulted in pushback. In Paraguay, pro-Israel protesters demonstrated outside the president’s residence in Asuncion. Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence “strongly encouraged” Abdo to reconsider his decision, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu went beyond rhetoric: he closed Israel’s embassy in Paraguay. It hasn’t reopened since.
Election day on Sunday could bring the debate back to the fore.
One of the two leading presidential candidates is 44-year-old economist Santiago Peña of the Colorado Party, Paraguay’s right-wing political party which has ruled the country for nearly 80 consecutive years (save for the period between 2008 and 2013). The party has been plagued by corruption allegations, and Peña has been tied to these scandals: he was finance minister under Cartes, who was recently sanctioned by the United States for undermining Paraguay’s democracy by “making cash payments to officials in exchange for their loyalty and support.”
Thanks in part to those corruption allegations, a non-Colorado candidate now has a serious shot of winning the presidency this year. Efraín Alegre is a more centrist candidate from Concertación, a coalition of political parties who came together to oppose Colorado’s domination. Earlier this month, polling from Encuesta Atlas had Alegre leading by a few percentage points, though other polling has found Peña in the lead.
In March, in a meeting with the Paraguayan-Israeli chamber of commerce, Peña announced that if he wins the election, one of his first actions as president will be to order the move of the Paraguayan embassy to Jerusalem. He said that Paraguay “recognizes that city as the capital of the State of Israel.”
Efraín Alegre’s last statement on the issue of Paraguay’s embassy came in 2018, shortly after Paraguay initially moved its embassy to Jerusalem. Alegre argued that the move would fuel the conflict.
In a statement provided exclusively to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Alegre confirmed that he would keep Paraguay’s embassy in Tel Aviv.
“Fundamentally, Paraguay is a country that respects international law. In its resolutions 181 of 1947, 478 of 1980, and 2334 of 2016, the United Nations Security Council has made clear the status of Jerusalem, not accepting its annexation or its declaration as the capital of Israel. This position is shared by all nations with only a few exceptions,” he wrote. “There is great potential for exchange and cooperation between Paraguay and Israel, and Paraguay will continue to defend Israel’s right to a peaceful existence. In fact, there is a long relationship of friendship between our nations. Paraguay’s vote at the United Nations in 1947 was the one that gave the majority for the recognition of Israel as an independent state. These close ties were not, nor are they now, subject to the status of Jerusalem.”
The Comunidad Judía del Paraguay, an organization which encompasses all the Jewish institutions in the country , remains apolitical but fervently Zionist, similar to Jewish organizations in other Latin American countries. The community of around 1,000 Jews is mostly affiliated with the Conservative movement and is concentrated in Paraguay’s capital of Asuncion. The city contains a local chapter of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, a Jewish day school and a Hebrew Union that organizes religious and athletic activities.
“We as a community have maintained very good relations with all governments and we will continue to work with whoever is elected,” said Mariano Mirelman, executive director of the Comunidad Judía del Paraguay.
But it is possible that if Peña is elected and moves the embassy, the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will re-enter public discourse in Paraguay. And this has the potential to fuel antisemitic attitudes, according to research by the Latin American Jewish Congress (or LAJC), an arm of the World Jewish Congress.
In Paraguay, serious antisemitism incidents are rare, but according to the LAJC, antisemitism in Paraguay does appear online, especially related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In a yet-to-be- released 2022 study by the LAJC’s Observatorio Web program of more than 42,000 tweets in Paraguay related to Jews, Israel or the Holocaust, 6.45% of them were antisemitic and included making comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany, which constitutes antisemitism according to the LAJC.
If Paraguay’s embassy does move back to Jerusalem, that would mean that more than half of the embassies in Jerusalem are from Latin America, joining Honduras and Guatemala.
According to Bishara Bahbah, author of “Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection,” it’s not an accident that the majority of these countries are from Central and South America. Although ideologically they may not feel strongly about the embassy issue, they know they can curry favor with the United States by strongly supporting Israel.
“Latin American countries view Israel’s special relationship with the United States as a critical element of their relationship with Israel,” Bahbah tells JTA. “Because if they are in need of U.S. support in one or two or three areas, they tend to lean on Israel to convince the U.S. government to provide them whatever they are seeking.”
Due to its size and lack of regional power, Paraguay’s potential decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem will likely not have a domino effect, Bahbah said. Further, although the Biden administration has left the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, it has shown no signs of pressuring Latin American countries to move their embassies the way the Trump administration did.
Regardless of what happens with Paraguay, Netanyahu has not given up in his fight to have Jerusalem recognized as Israel’s capital worldwide. As he said while visiting Italy last month: “I believe the time has come for Rome to recognize Jerusalem as the ancestral capital of the Jewish people for three thousand years, as the United States did with a gesture of great friendship.”
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For the Sake of the US-Crafted Ceasefire in Gaza, Israel Should Fortify the Yellow Line Immediately
A Red Cross vehicle, escorted by a van driven by a Hamas terrorist, moves in an area within the so-called “yellow line” to which Israeli troops withdrew under the ceasefire, as Hamas says it continues to search for the bodies of deceased hostages seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in Gaza City, Nov. 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alk
The Gaza ceasefire buckled last weekend. A Palestinian terrorist crossed the “Yellow Line” — which demarcates Israeli-held Gaza from territory held by Hamas — and fired at Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops from a humanitarian access road.
Israel eliminated five senior Hamas figures in response, and the strikes were fully backed by the United States. The violence highlighted a key vulnerability for Israel: its exposed positions along Gaza’s Yellow Line.
To minimize the violence — and the chance of the ceasefire blowing up at the hands of Hamas terrorists — Israel needs to provide its soldiers with protection in the form of a strong barrier along that line.
The line was designed to serve as a temporary withdrawal point for the IDF, while Hamas released all remaining living and deceased hostages, according to President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan. The terrorist group still holds the remains of one hostage, weeks after the 72-hour deadline set in the ceasefire terms.
On November 22, Qatar urged the “full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza” — but Israel is not required to do so until Hamas has taken further steps toward peace, including disarming. An International Stabilization Force (ISF) is also supposed to be ready to take Israel’s place in Gaza, operating under a temporary Board of Peace, which would govern the Strip.
Instead, Hamas rejected the UN-endorsed plan.
In a statement on November 17, the terrorist group claimed that “assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip … strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of [Israel].”
Hamas has also made it clear that the group likely will not agree to full disarmament, as stipulated by the Trump administration’s plan.
Instances of Palestinian terrorists firing across the Yellow Line at IDF troops have become a near-daily occurrence since the ceasefire’s inception on October 10. Palestinians have violated Phase One of the truce at least 32 times, according to IDF data, with a majority of those violations occurring when militants cross into Israeli-controlled areas east of the Yellow Line.
Despite some concerns about the potential for a permanent IDF presence in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel wants to “pass [Gaza] to a civilian governance that is not Hamas,” and doesn’t seek to “keep” Gaza long term.
For now, the situation leaves the IDF encamped in elevated positions along the Yellow Line. The border between those positions and the hornet’s nest of Hamas’ remaining forces in Gaza is marked with yellow cement blocks, while the IDF sits several hundred yards back from the line in positions dotted with large sand berms, supported by tanks and some electrical and water infrastructure. This is not like the high-tech border “Iron Wall” that separated Israel and Gaza before the October 7, 2023, attacks. Of course, even that was easily breached. But without something similar, the region is just one successful Hamas assault away from a return to war.
For the sake of the ceasefire, especially since Hamas continues to violate its terms, Israel should strengthen the Yellow Line: not to establish a permanent presence, but to provide cover for its troops in the near term, the ISF’s troops in the medium-to-long term, and to avoid the ceasefire’s collapse.
Israel’s reinforced border with Lebanon could serve as an example. The IDF could easily install concrete barriers along the Israeli side of the Yellow Line to reduce terrorist infiltration, while establishing checkpoints to lower troop exposure and allow Gazan residents to return to rebuilt homes in the future, in line with the Trump administration’s reconstruction plan for the areas of the enclave not under Hamas control.
The border could also isolate Hamas, piling diplomatic pressure on the terror group from mediators like Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, to comply with the ceasefire to get Israel out of Gaza as soon as possible, per Doha’s demands. The border would protect troops from other nations involved in a future ISF, should it materialize. These nations have made it clear that they don’t want to volunteer soldiers to fight in armed engagements with Palestinians, and a fortified border may provide the necessary solution.
Aaron Goren is a research analyst and editor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
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Hostage’s remains returned to Israel, as Trump says Gaza ceasefire’s next phase is ‘going to happen pretty soon’
(JTA) — Israel has identified the remains handed over Wednesday by Hamas as belonging to Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai agricultural worker murdered on Oct. 7, 2023.
Rinthalak had been working in Israel for years, sending money home to his family in Thailand, but had only been at Kibbutz Beeri for a few months on Oct. 7, when it became one of the hardest-hit communities during the Hamas massacre, with about 100 residents killed.
The release means there is just one Israeli hostage remaining in Gaza of the roughly 250 taken on Oct. 7: Ran Gvili, a police officer killed while defending Kibbutz Alumim.
Gvili’s family and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has announced that the mass Saturday night demonstrations on behalf of the hostages, which began soon after Oct. 7, would shift to smaller gatherings on Friday afternoons.
The changes come as pressure mounts for Israel and Hamas to move into the second phase of the ceasefire plan that U.S. President Donald Trump brokered in October. Under the terms of the ceasefire, all living and dead hostages would be released before a second phase focused on Gaza’s postwar governance would be negotiated.
Trump insisted on Wednesday that the next phase was imminent, even as skirmishes continue in Gaza. Israel recently killed two children who crossed the “yellow line” separating Israel- and Hamas-controlled portions of the enclave, while gunmen emerging from the network of tunnels built by Hamas attacked and severely wounded Israeli soldiers in Rafah on Wednesday.
“Phase two is moving along. It’s going to happen pretty soon,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday, even as he acknowledged that Israel’s bombing response to the attack on the soldiers represented “a problem.”
Still, he said, “We have peace in the Middle East. People don’t realize it.”
Both Israel and Hamas would lose authority in Gaza during the next phase of Trump’s plan, which would establish a “Board of Peace” helmed by Trump to make decisions about Gaza’s future. It is expected that the Palestinian Authority will play a role in the board, which Israeli officials have said they oppose, and Hamas will face renewed pressure to disarm, which it does not want to do.
In a sign of how contentious each development is likely to be, Israel announced on Wednesday that it would reopen the Rafah crossing with Egypt — but only to Gazans leaving the enclave. Egypt, meanwhile, said it would not open the crossing on its side unless Israel accepts Gazans who seek to return.
The post Hostage’s remains returned to Israel, as Trump says Gaza ceasefire’s next phase is ‘going to happen pretty soon’ appeared first on The Forward.
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NYC synagogue protest leads to a new bill, and a rally by Jewish groups outside Park East shul
(JTA) — A demonstration outside Park East Synagogue two weeks ago, during which protesters shouted chants like “Death to the IDF” and “Globalize the Intifada,” has spurred major Jewish groups and lawmakers into action.
A coalition of Jewish groups are organizing a solidarity gathering on Manhattan’s Upper East Side Thursday night, outside the same synagogue where pro-Palestinian groups protested an event promoting immigration to Israel — a scene that NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch later referred to as “turmoil.”
The rally “will bring our community together in that same sacred space to celebrate and defend our community’s values and support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish homeland,” according to a press release from UJA-Federation of New York.
UJA is partnering on the rally with Park East Synagogue itself, as well as the Jewish Community Relations Council, the New York Board of Rabbis, and local branches of the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.
They’ve also listed dozens of Jewish organizations, schools and congregations as partners. Schools and synagogues around the city were sharing information with families about how to commute to the rally.
The gathering will feature live performances, community leaders and elected officials, according to UJA’s release, though it did not specify who would be present.
The rally is set to take place on the heels of newly introduced legislation, brought forward on Wednesday by a pair of Jewish lawmakers — Assembly member Micah Lasher and State Sen. Sam Sutton — that proposes banning protests within 25 feet of houses of worship.
“New York must always be a place where people can both exercise free speech and express their religious identity without fear or intimidation, and that balance broke down outside Park East Synagogue,” said Micah Lasher, who is running for Congress in New York’s 12th district, which includes Park East.
The bill was co-sponsored by fellow Jewish lawmakers Nily Rozic, a Democratic Assembly member, and Sen. Liz Krueger, who endorsed mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the general election.
Many Jewish groups were disappointed with the initial response to the incident by Mamdani’s spokesperson, who said that while Mamdani would “discourage the language used” at the protest, “these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.” The second clause was a reference to complaints that the synagogue event’s organizers facilitate immigration to the West Bank, which most countries consider illegally occupied by Israel under international law.
Critics said Mamdani’s statement drew an unfair comparison between menacing protesters and a synagogue exercising its commitment to Jewish communities in what the ADL referred to as their “ancestral homeland,” and that the protest made no distinction between immigration to Israel and the West Bank.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, who has been a harsh critic of Mamdani and is the son of Park East’s senior rabbi, said on WABC that he’s had multiple phone calls with the mayor-elect about legislation like the bill proposed by Lasher and Sutton.
Schneier said Mamdani was receptive to the idea during their discussions, and a Mamdani spokesperson told The New York Times that the mayor-elect “expressed his interest in hearing more details about the Schneier pitch.”
Jewish leaders say they are looking to Thursday as an opportunity to counter the rhetoric used outside Park East.
Chaim Steinmetz, a critic of Mamdani and the senior rabbi of a different Orthodox synagogue on the Upper East Side, shared a post about Thursday’s rally, calling it an opportunity to “stand up as proud Jews.”
“And now, with a new city administration about to take office, it is more important than ever that we bring our pride into the streets,” he wrote.
The post NYC synagogue protest leads to a new bill, and a rally by Jewish groups outside Park East shul appeared first on The Forward.