On Wednesday, President Gabriel Boric, in a Christmas activity with the Palestinian community in Chile, announced that his government will raise the rank of the current Chilean representative office in that state to an embassy.
“It always makes me very angry to look at the Middle East and not see Palestine on the map, (…) but it is a people that exists, that resists, that has a history,” the President described on the occasion.
“Today, being here at the Palestinian Club, we cannot forget a community that is suffering from an illegal occupation, a community that is resisting, a community that is seeing its rights and dignity violated every day and that is Absolutely unfair,” he added.
Since 1998, Chile has had a representative office before the Palestinian national authority in the city of Ramallah. And who is in charge is Christian Hodges-Nugent, who has the rank of ambassador.
Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola explained this Thursday that the announcement —which would have been an initiative of the President— consists of raising the level of diplomatic representation advancing towards the constitution of an embassy in the State of Palestine with an indeterminate period of time, but within the mandate Boric.
The objections of the Jewish community that La Moneda tries to mitigate
In La Moneda they admit that, although to raise the rank you have to carry out different administrative procedures, in practice it is a rather political sign of support for the State of Palencia.
Sources inside the Palace assure that they are aware that there is a possibility that Israel does not consider it good news. They explain that the key will be to emphasize that there is no change in Chile’s policy with Palestine and Israel. In this they deepen that the message is that the right of both states to exist and coexist peacefully with clear limits is still recognized.
Along these lines, the Minister of Foreign Affairs clarified this Thursday that they are “talking about the recognition of two states (…). Chile’s foreign policy remains the same”, and she added that “the right of the Palestinian people to establish itself as an independent State, coexisting in peace with the State of Israel. Likewise, she has fully supported the right of the State of Israel within secure and internationally recognized borders.”
This Thursday morning, hours after the President’s announcement, the Israeli ambassador to Chile, Gil Artzyeli, wrote in Twitter: “In the last decades the Palestinian leadership has dedicated all its resources and efforts to annihilate Israel, including associating itself with Hitler, bringing only misery to its people. His idea is not to live in peace alongside Israel but to wipe it off the map. The way out is direct negotiation”.
Gil Artzyeli is the same person who on September 15 was at the center of the controversy that raised Gabriel Boric’s refusal to receive him at La Moneda where the ambassador went after being summoned to deliver his credentials to the President.
A few days before the President’s announcement—on the morning of December 16—a Hanukkah ceremony was held at the Palace. There Gabriel Boric did not intervene with a speech. The President of the Jewish Community, Gerardo Gorodischer, evaluated the instance positively and assured that “the relationship with the President, not with the rest, has been a bit distant and today we had a closeness that is worth valuing, recognizing and thanking ”.
