A diplomatic incident has Chilean President Gabriel Boric at the center of the controversy and the Israeli Foreign Ministry is outraged by his actions. The president decided to suspend at the last minute a meeting that he had in La Moneda with the Israeli ambassador, Gil Artzyeli, who had been summoned to a ceremonial act to present his diplomatic credentials at 10:00 am on Thursday.
Boric’s decision was a kind of diplomatic response to the death of a Palestinian youth committed by the Israeli army during a raid in the northern West Bank. As confirmed by sources from the Chilean Foreign Ministry The nation, the president made the decision personally. An event that happened almost simultaneously with the arrival of the Israeli ambassador to La Moneda Palace. “It is not that the ceremony has been suspended. Rather, he was asked to postpone it given that an incident with children occurred in Gaza,” they pointed out in the Chilean government.
The tense moment was experienced when Gil Artzyeli was already in the La Moneda Palace along with his entourage and the diplomat waited in vain for several minutes for the arrival of the head of state. After the inexplicable wait, Artzyeli was informed that the event was suspended and that he would be summoned for a new meeting. The snub provoked the indignation of the representative of Israel.
“The ambassador got furious, he started calling on the phone and speaking in his language, and the truth is that nobody understood anything, he was just very upset. After a couple of minutes he left, ”said a source from the Chilean Foreign Ministry to this newspaper.
“The problem was that he was the first of the ambassadors to be received and he waited a long time. It was Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola who informed him of the suspension of the meeting. It was an awkward moment,” added the same source. Thus, Boric finally proceeded to receive the credentials of all the other ambassadors: Tomas Wiklund, from Sweden; Christian da Lannoy, from Belgium; Irmgard Maria Fellner, from Germany; Markus Dutly from Switzerland and Khalid Al Salloom from Saudi Arabia.
Already during the election campaign, Boric had defended the Palestinian cause and defined Israel as “a genocidal and murderous state.”
nuisance in israel
Once the suspension of the meeting was completed, there were quickly moves by the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs to try to defuse the crisis. In addition to mitigating the annoyance of the Israeli ambassador. In fact, Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola contacted the diplomatic authority to summon him to an appointment during the followingnoon and try to calm the tension between the two states.
Finally, a meeting took place around 4:00 p.m. and the Israeli official himself participated in it with the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Ximena Fuentes, who apologized to the representative. The meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half. While the first 30 minutes were spent listening to the diplomat’s claim, he did not hide his annoyance.
“We had an extensive meeting of more than an hour in which they have repeatedly apologized to me and to the State of Israel and we opened a new page,” said the Israeli ambassador following the meeting.
“For me it was a not very comfortable incident this morning. But being an Israeli and a Jew, my people have been through worse in recent years and we are going to get over this incident this morning. For the good of Chile and the good of Israel and our bilateral relations”, added the diplomat, who detailed what happened. “I was invited to La Moneda, I arrived, and they didn’t let me in there. This was what happened. And the explanation will be given by the ministry”, said Gil Artzyeli.
reactions
However, following placating the snub a little, the tension between the two countries increased and from various sectors there was harsh criticism of Boric’s actions.
“It is an unprecedented fact not only in Chile’s bilateral relations with Israel or unprecedented in the history of Chilean diplomacy. But it seems to me that it is an unprecedented case in the world,” said lawyer Gabriel Zaliasnik, one of the historical representatives of the Jewish community in Chile.
“It is the duty of the Chilean government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to safeguard the foreign relations of our country. We must ensure that we build bridges between nations, not generate greater divisions. Situations like these show a deep contempt for the friendship of more than 70 years between Chile and Israel”, they indicated in the Chilean-Israeli interparliamentary group of Congress.
Meanwhile, through a statement, the Palestinian community in Chile said they “greatly value” the president’s decision. “We firmly believe that as long as the world continues to treat Israel and its diplomats as normal, while they systematically commit war crimes, crimes once morest humanity, human rights violations and subject the Palestinian population to an apartheid regime, the situation of the Palestinians will not change,” he opined.
“We appreciate the president’s conviction, in a gesture that we hope will serve as an example to the world,” the note added. This was said in reference to the death of 17-year-old Uday Trad Salah, who according to a statement from the Palestinian Ministry of Health was killed by Israeli forces. “He was killed by a bullet to the head fired by Israeli occupation soldiers in Kafr Dan, Jenin Governorate,” the statement said.
annoyance on the rise
Despite all the efforts of the Chilean Foreign Ministry and the numerous reactions that were generated in the political spectrum, Israel took note of the rudeness and the Chilean ambassador in that country was summoned for a meeting this Sunday.
“Israel regards Chile’s strange and unprecedented behavior as serious. This seriously harms relations between countries,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on Twitter by the Deputy Director General for Public Diplomacy at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Emmanuel Nahshon. He added that the meeting will aim to “have a conversation in which Israel’s reaction will be made clear to the ambassador.”
Economically there is also concern. According to 2021 data from the Undersecretary for International Relations, the main products that Chile exports to Israel are salmon, chemical wood pulp, seeds, blueberries, and walnuts. While Chile imports from Israel plastic manufactures, cleaning supplies, technology and medical technology.
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