{"id":37981,"date":"2019-03-29T18:23:26","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T18:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=37981"},"modified":"2019-03-29T18:23:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T18:23:26","slug":"uae-official-urges-arab-openness-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=37981","title":{"rendered":"UAE official urges Arab openness to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBRASILIA: Brazil\u2019s President Jair Bolsonaro arrives in Israel Sunday, where he will walk a diplomatic tightrope as he seeks to shore up ties with his right-wing counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu while keeping key Arab trade partners onside.
Bolsonaro\u2019s controversial pledge to move Brazil\u2019s embassy to Jerusalem is expected to be high on the agenda during the three-day visit as Netanyahu uses the occasion to boost his standing ahead of April 9 elections.
The Brazilian ex-army captain\u2019s trip comes after his recent visits to the United States and Chile, as part of efforts to build ties with conservative governments around the world.
Neither Brazil nor Israel has released details of the visit, but Bolsonaro is expected to focus on correcting their lopsided trade relationship by boosting Brazilian exports, mainly soybeans and meat.
He is also expected to seek greater access to Israeli defense technology.
In 2018, Brazil\u2019s exports to Israel were worth $321 million dollars, while imports, including fertilizers and chemical products, stood at $1.17 billion, official data shows.
But the issue of relocating Brazil\u2019s embassy will likely dominate the visit, testing the tough-talking Bolsonaro\u2019s diplomatic skills.
Months after promising the shift, which sparked an angry response from Palestinian leaders, Bolsonaro has yet to announce a timetable.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Bolsonaro suggested he was in no hurry to make a decision.
\u201cTrump took nine months to decide, to give his final word, so that the embassy was transferred,\u201d Bolsonaro said.
\u201cPerhaps now we will open a commercial office in Jerusalem.\u201d
While moving the embassy would please Bolsonaro\u2019s evangelical Christian support base, it would run the risk of provoking commercial retaliation from Arab states, some of which are major importers of Brazilian meat.
The issue has \u201ca very important symbolic weight,\u201d said Paulo Kramer, a professor at the University of Brasilia.
\u201cIf he doesn\u2019t announce it on the trip, it will frustrate his voters\u2019 expectations and upset evangelical groups,\u201d federal lawmaker Marcos Pereira, who is also president of a parliamentary Brazil-Israel friendship group, told AFP.
The decision to move the embassy is highly sensitive because Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while Palestinians view east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Virtually all countries agree that Jerusalem\u2019s status can only be defined through wider Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
So far, only the United States and Guatemala have broken with that consensus by opening embassies in Jerusalem. Paraguay backtracked on a decision last year to move its embassy. Israel and the US have spoken with Honduras about its embassy going to Jerusalem.
\u201cMoving the embassy of any country… is a violation of international law and an attack on the Palestinian people,\u201d the Palestinian envoy to Brazil, Ibrahim Alzeben, told AFP this week.
For Netanyahu, who faces a strong challenge from former military chief Benny Gantz in next month\u2019s election, Bolsonaro\u2019s visit will help him demonstrate that \u201che has friends around the world,\u201d Raphael Eldad, Israeli ambassador to Brazil from 2011 to 2014, told AFP.
\u201cIn the international context, Israel cannot ignore friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRASILIA: Brazil\u2019s President Jair Bolsonaro arrives in Israel Sunday, where he will walk a diplomatic tightrope as he seeks to shore up ties with his right-wing counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu while keeping key Arab trade partners onside.Bolsonaro\u2019s controversial pledge to move Brazil\u2019s embassy to Jerusalem is expected to be high on the agenda during the three-day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":37982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}