Faith and foreign policy: Brazil's Bolsonaro in Israel
Chase Winter
March 31, 2019
Brazil's Bolsonaro is in Israel on a trip that mixes faith and foreign policy. The far-right president has found a friend in Israel's Netanyahu, who has courted illiberal leaders.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/L. Correa
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In 2016, far-right Brazilian lawmaker Jair Bolsonaro donned a white robe to be baptized in the Jordan River by a prominent evangelical pastor.
Nearly three years later the former Army captain is back in Israel as the president of Latin America's largest democracy following an election in which the populist politician rode to power with the support of Brazil's more than 40 million evangelicals.
Bolsonaro's four-day trip to Israel starting on Sunday is as much about religious ideology as it is a shift in foreign policy. The two sides are expected to sign agreements on science and technology, trade, defense, agriculture and other areas. Bolsonaro, who is Catholic but married to an evangelical, will visit religious sites in the Holy Land.
It comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the few Western leaders to attend Bolsonaro's January 1 inauguration amid pledges that Brazil would follow the lead of US President Donald Trump in moving the country's embassy to Jerusalem, where evangelicals believe Jewish control will hasten the "end of days" and the second coming of Christ.
"The main driver of this visit is the close alignment of Bolsonaro with Trump and his evangelical base," said Arie Kacowicz, a professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil's far-right president in quotes
Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro was elected to Brazil's highest office on a wave of controversial statements ranging from homophobic to misogynist. DW looks at some of his most eyebrow-raising remarks.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/E. Peres
'Straight to the dictatorship'
Bolsonaro has criticized the very democracy that won him the presidency. In a 1999 TV interview, he said he would shut down Congress if he ever became president. "There is no doubt: I would perform a coup on the same day. And I'm sure that at least 90 percent of the population would celebrate and applaud because [Congress] doesn't work," Bolsonaro said. "Let's go straight to the dictatorship."
Image: picture-alliance/AP/L. Correra
'Rape'
Four years ago, Bolsonaro engaged in a heated debate with Brazilian lawmaker Maria do Rosario. During the debate, he said: "I wouldn't rape you because you don't deserve it." Shortly after, he defended himself, saying he wasn't a rapist. However, he added that if he were a rapist, he wouldn't touch do Rosario because she is "ugly."
Image: Agencia Brasil/M. Camargo
'Moment of weakness'
In a speech at Rio de Janeiro's Hebraica Club in April 2017, Bolsonaro spoke about his family. "I have five children. Four are men, and then in a moment of weakness the fifth came out a girl," he said.
Image: Getty Images/AP/L. Correa
'Prefer my son to die'
LGBT activists have long railed against Bolsonaro for his homophobic stance. But in a 2011 Playboy magazine interview, Bolsonaro made things personal, saying he "would be incapable of loving a homosexual son … I would prefer my son to die in an accident than show up with a mustachioed man." In May 2002, he said that if he saw "two men kissing each other on the street" he would "beat them up."
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Schincariol
'No means to control their offspring'
Bolsonaro has often belittled impoverished communities. But in 2008, he took things a step further by suggesting poor people should be prevented from bearing children. Birth control "methods have to be provided for those who, unfortunately, are ignorant and have no means to control their offspring because we [as the upper middle class] are able to control ours."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/I. Cheibub
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Jerusalem embassy move
Bolsonaro, dubbed by some as the Trump of Latin America, has since backpedaled on an immediate Jerusalem embassy move in the face of pushback from his economic team, the military and country's powerful farm lobby. Instead, Brazil is expected to open a commercial office in Jerusalem.
Transferring the embassy risks angering Arab and Muslim countries, with which Brazil has maintained cordial relations as part of its traditional multilateral and neutral foreign policy.
Brazil is the world's largest exporter of Islamic halal beef and a Jerusalem embassy move has prompted warnings from Arab and Muslim states that import billions of dollars of meat.
Promised land, enemy land: Israel 70 years after independence
Triumph or catastrophe? The state of Israel was declared 70 years ago this week, according to the Hebrew calendar — a turning point for Jews after the Holocaust. DW looks back at events that have shaped Israeli history.
Image: Imago/W. Rothermel
Long-held hope is victorious
On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, future first prime minister of Israel, declares the state's independence, outlining the Jewish story: "The people kept faith with (the land) throughout their dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom." It was the birth of an internationally recognized Jewish homeland.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The darkest hour
While the controversial idea of a God-given land for Jews has biblical roots, the Holocaust was a close, powerful backdrop for the significance of Israel's founding. Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews across Europe, and those who survived the concentration camps endured expulsion and forced labor. The above photo shows survivors of the Auschwitz camp following liberation.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/akg-images
'Nakba': Arabic for 'catastrophe'
Directly after Israel's founding, it was attacked by troops from Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq - among others. Israel pushed back and expanded its control over 77% of Palestinian territory. Some 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes. "Nakba" is what Palestinians call this event. The war encapsulated the still unresolved Mideast conflict sparked in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration.
Image: picture-alliance/CPA Media
Life on a kibbutz
These land collectives, known as kibbutzim in the plural, were established across Israel following independence. Many were run by secular or socialist Jews in an effort to realize their vision of society.
Image: G. Pickow/Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
A state at war
Tensions with its Arab neighbors erupted in the Six-Day War in June 1967. With a surprise attack, Israel is able to swiftly defeat Egypt, Jordan and Syria, bringing the Arab-populated areas of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights under Israeli control. Victory leads to occupation — and more tension and conflict.
Image: Keystone/ZUMA/IMAGO
Settlements on disputed territory
Israel's settlement policy worsens the conflict with Palestinians. Due to development and expansion of Jewish areas on occupied Palestinian land, the Palestinian Authority accuses Israel of making a future Palestinian state untenable. Israel has largely ignored the international community's criticism of its settlement policy, arguing new construction is either legal or necessary for security.
Image: picture-alliance/newscom/D. Hill
Anger, hate and stones: The first intifada
In winter 1987, Palestinians begin mass protests of Israel's ongoing occupation. Unrest spreads from Gaza to East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The uprising eventually wound down and led to the 1993 Oslo Accords — the first face-to-face agreement between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the representative body of the Palestinian people.
Image: picture-alliance/AFP/E. Baitel
Peace at last?
With former US President Bill Clinton as a mediator, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (left) and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat hold peace talks. The result, the Oslo I Accord, is each side's recognition of the other. The agreement leads many to hope that an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict is not far off, but peace initiatives suffer a major setback when Rabin is assassinated two years later.
Image: picture-alliance/CPA Media
A void to fill
A right-wing Jewish fanatic shoots and kills Rabin on November 4, 1995, while he is leaving a peace rally in Tel Aviv. Rabin's assassination throws the spotlight on Israel's internal social strife. The divide is growing between centrist and extremist, secular and religious. The photo shows Israel's then-acting prime minister, Shimon Peres, next to the empty chair of his murdered colleague.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Delay
Addressing the unspeakable
Nazi Germany's mass murder of Jews weighs on German-Israeli relations to this day. In February 2000, Germany's then-President Johannes Rau addresses the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in German. It is a tremendous emotional challenge for both sides, especially for Holocaust survivors and their descendants, but also a step towards closer relations after unforgettable crimes.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The Israeli wall
In 2002, amid the violence and terror of the Second Intifada, Israel starts building a 107-kilometer-long (67-mile-long) barrier of barbed wire, concrete wall and guard towers between itself and Palestinian areas of the West Bank. It suppresses the violence but does not solve the larger political conflict. The wall grows in length over the years and is projected to reach around 700 kilometers.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/dpaweb/S. Nackstrand
A gesture to the dead
Germany's current foreign minister, Heiko Maas, steps decisively into an ever closer German-Israeli relationship. His first trip abroad as the country's top diplomat is to Israel in March 2018. At the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, he lays a wreath in memory of Holocaust victims.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/I. Yefimovich
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Regardless of whether Brazil moves its embassy, Bolsonaro's visit nonetheless is viewed as a success for Netanyahu, who has made the argument that during his decade in power he has brought Israeli foreign policy to new heights.
Under Netanyahu, Israel has developed close ties with right-wing governments in the Americas, Europe and India. The country now appears to have found a new friend in Bolsonaro.
"Since Brazil is the major regional power in Latin America, this visit can be considered a diplomatic triumph for Netanyahu. At the same time, it further corroborates that his government has preferred to align with illiberal or populist democracies, distancing itself from the Democratic Party in the United States and the traditional liberal Western countries in Europe," said Kacowicz.
Netanyahu and Bolsonaro announced a growing "brotherhood" during the Israeli leader's visit to Brazil for the presidential inauguration Image: Getty Images/AFP/L. Correa
Election meddling
Bolsonaro is in Israel as Netanyahu faces a close re-election battle on April 9 while multiple corruption investigations are swirling around him. It comes after Trump recognized Israel's sovereignty over the occupied-Golan Heights, in a move observers viewed as intended to give Netanyahu an election boost.
For Marcos Azambuja, Brazil's former Deputy Foreign Minister who also served as ambassador to Argentina and France, the timing of Bolsonaro's visit is problematic.
"Bolsonaro should not be in Israel days before a crucial Israeli election," he said. "We should not meddle in Israeli domestic politics one way or another."
"Inevitably our presence will be played … by a prime minister of Israel who is bent on gaining outside support for his domestic policies," he said.
Azambuja, now an advisor to the Center for International Relations, a Brazilian think tank, also expressed concern about an ideological shift in foreign policy by a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country like Brazil.
"This bias towards an evangelical vision is a departure from the idea of a secular state and of a government which doesn't meddle in religion and a country which is tolerant of all religions and sects," he said. "It may appear that we are allowing religious factors to play an undue role in what has been an exemplary secular state."