Palestinian Leader Invites Brazil's Pro-Israel Leader to Visit

(Bloomberg) -- Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has invited Brazil’s pro-Israel President Jair Bolsonaro for a visit as Brasilia weighs moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The Palestinian delegation in the Brazilian capital delivered the invitation to the presidential palace a few days ago, its ambassador in Brasilia, Ibrahim Alzeben, said in an interview. While the letter didn’t propose a specific date, Alzeben suggested the meeting could coincide with Bolsonaro’s scheduled trip to Israel, which starts March 31. The invitation includes an offer for the Brazilian president to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Bolsonaro took power in January with a pledge to transfer Brazil’s Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as part of a broad effort to please his evangelical supporters and highlight Brazil’s foreign policy shift in favor of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. To date, however, the embassy move has been put on hold amid resistance from the military commanders in his government and agribusiness leaders concerned about commercial retaliation from Arab countries.

To contact the reporter on this story: Samy Adghirni in Brasilia Newsroom at sadghirni@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Cancel at dcancel@bloomberg.net, Bruce Douglas, Robert Jameson

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.