The low point of Israel’s standing in the world came in the summer of 2025, while the fighting was still raging in Gaza, and anti-Israel crowds shouted their slogans — “from the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” “death, death to the IDF,” “globalize the Intifada” — on campuses and city streets, while the Jewish state, fighting a seven-front war for its survival, was subject to a similar assault on social media. Now, with the ceasefire in Gaza, and the IDF’s withdrawal to the east of the Yellow Line that divides Gaza in two, there is an observable diminishment in the hostility and diplomatic isolation that Israel has endured. More on the signs that Israel’s diplomatic position is improving can be found here: “Israel’s global standing slowly recovers as diplomatic tsunami begins to recede,” by Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, December
If the opposition had wanted to stage a Knesset debate on the collapse of Israel’s international standing, the ideal moment would have been last summer.
That was when country after country rushed to recognize a Palestinian state, when the “starvation in Gaza” narrative saturated global media, and when images of suffering in Gaza dominated front pages from London to La Paz.
In that moment of near-constant diplomatic turbulence, a debate declaring Israel isolated and adrift would have captured the prevailing mood.
Instead, that debate – under the rubric of a “40-signatures debate” obligating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to respond – took place on Monday, several months after the storm’s peak had passed. The timing felt off. The script belonged to another season – before the Trump-brokered October ceasefire in Gaza and as Israel was contemplating a full military onslaught on Gaza City.
“The subject of your heated discussion, members of the opposition, is what you are calling the so-called collapse of Israel’s international standing,” Netanyahu said at the outset of his Knesset remarks. “What a detachment from reality. What recycled, worn-out slogans.”
Had this debate occurred in June or July, when Israel’s diplomatic standing seemed to be deteriorating by the week, it would have echoed a palpable global sentiment.
Yet here it was taking place in December, days after the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) voted overwhelmingly to allow Israel to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest; hours after the first visit to Israel in months by the elected leader of a major European country, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz; on the eve of a warm phone call with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi; and just before Washington invited Netanyahu for what will be his sixth meeting this year with US President Donald Trump….
Germany has ended its brief embargo on some weapons for Israel. It lasted all of three and a half months, and did not stop the delivery of weapons already in the pipeline, but simply halted the approval of new export licenses for a very small number of offensive weapons. Now even that “embargo” has been lifted, and Merz has reaffirmed, in his just-completed trip to Israel, that Germany’s support for Israel remain central to its being, its “statsräson.”
In Washington on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo signed a communiqué formally restoring relations after a 16-year break.
The rupture, driven largely by the far-left ideological bent of successive Bolivian governments reaching back to when Evo Morales became president in 2006, had long seemed beyond repair. Yet political winds shift, and in October they shifted in Bolivia when centrist candidate Rodrigo Paz won the presidency.
Sa’ar called him the next day, and the road to renewal opened. “Today we are ending the long, unnecessary chapter of separation between our two nations,” Sa’ar said at the signing ceremony.
Bolivia is the first but perhaps not the last. Elections loom in Chile, Brazil, and Colombia, each with the potential to reshape bilateral relations.
Chile votes on Sunday, with right-wing candidate Jose Antonio Kast favored over the Left’s Jeannette Jara. President Gabriel Boric charted a distinctly anti-Israel line, something Kast is expected to reverse.
All this highlights how Israel’s diplomacy in Latin America is fragile and deeply dependent on individual leaders. Argentina stands today as one of Jerusalem’s closest allies not because of structural forces, but because its president, Javier Milei, is personally committed to that partnership. That was not the case under his predecessor.
Though a practicing Catholic, Javier Milei also studies the Torah with a rabbi, and during his entire political life, has been both a steadfast supporter of Israel and a philosemite.
Brazil swung from hostility to warmth, then back to hostility, as power shifted from Dilma Rousseff to Jair Bolsonaro, then back to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It could shift again after the 2026 elections….
In Brazil, the steady increase in the number of evangelicals, who now constitute close to 30% of the population, has led pari passu to a rise in the support for Israel, for evangelicals see the establishment of the modern state of Israel as a fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy that the Jewish people would return to their ancestral homeland. And just now, the state of Rio de Janeiro has passed a law that makes October 7 an annual “Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Massacre of the People of Israel by the Terrorist Group Hamas.”
When he first proposed the bill in 2024, State Deputy Átila Nunes said: “The legislative proposal calls on current and future generations to reflect on one of the largest attacks carried out by the extremist group Hamas against Israel, on October 7, 2023, which culminated in the cold-blooded murder of babies, children, women, and the elderly, in addition to hundreds of young people, including foreigners of various nationalities, in the middle of the Jewish holiday, Shabbat. We intend that the commemoration of this date enables the development of a critical conscience so that crimes against the People of Israel are no longer repeated.”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Most, if not all, of that erosion of Israel’s diplomatic adversaries has been in Latin America, where unlike the pink wave of 2021, which saw countries like Colombia and Chile go Left, the trend this time has been Rightwards. First Argentina 2 years ago, but now Bolivia. Paraguay has a Center-Right government, and Uruguay a Centrist government. Chile has elections today, which look like it’ll again go Republican (the opposition being openly Communist, like Allende) and Colombia has elections next year. Hopefully, Peru & Ecuador will follow suit, and then Venezuela will only have its pals Cuba and Nicaragua (unsure about some of the other Central American & Caribbean countries)
Otherwise, the same mobs who condemn Israel at the UN will remain at it
Troybeam says
Stand with Israel, always have always will. Now they seriously need to defend themselves better.
Stop worrying about back lash, did Israel worry about that during the 6 day war, don’t think so.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
That was a very different Israel though, where their leaders didn’t care what other countries – the bulk of them either Communist bloc or “Non-Aligned” – thought of them. Even Golda Meir could be less arm-twisted than Netanyahu. What Israel needs is a leader like Begin or Shamir: Netanyahu is too willing to listen to Trump, when he ought to put his foot down in most cases
Troybeam says
Netanyahu should put his country first, protect it and not worry about other world leaders.
His first and only priority is his nation, screw the rest.
OLD GUY says
I’ll stand with the Jewish people and Israel any day as opposed to Muslims and islam.