Despite domestic pushback and complicated politics, Brazil still plans to follow President Trump and relocate its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, according to new President Jair Bolsonaro.
Speaking in Blair House with about a dozen American evangelical leaders during his recent visit to the Oval Office, Bolsonaro said that his government is moving slowly, but methodically, to become the second largest world power to move their embassy.
In the meeting, his son Eduardo Nantes Bolsonaro, a member of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, dismissed concerns.
“It’s not a matter of if. It is a matter of when. We’ve got to do it smart,” said one of those in the meeting, Israeli evangelical and author Joel C. Rosenberg, who also holds U.S citizenship.
Both he and another participant, Penny Young Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, said that when concerns about delaying the move were raised, President Bolsonaro noted that Trump also took his time before making good on his campaign promise to make the symbolic shift to Jerusalem.
“I think it took your own president a year to do this,” said Bolsonaro, according to Nance and Rosenberg.
Several Arab leaders are opposed to moving embassies to Jerusalem which Palestinan officials claim.
The issue dominated their private meeting. Bolsonaro sought out evangelical leaders in part to show thanks for evangelicals back home supporting his election.
He indicated that he is facing “pushback” domestically, especially from farmers who produce the most halal meat used in the Muslim world.
Rosenberg, however, said that Brazil was promised by an unidentified Arab nation leader that the embassy shift won’t lead to a ban on Brazilian meats.
In his visit to Israel next, Bolsonaro is not expected to announce the embassy relocation, but won’t back away from it either. Instead, reports indicate he will take the first step by announcing the opening of a business office in Jerusalem.
During his Washington meeting, Nance and Rosenberg said that Bolsonaro was working first to win support at home and make sure that the diplomatic change didn’t become a debacle as it did with Paraguay which moved its embassy but then four months later returned it to Tel Aviv, angering Israel.
