Argentine President Javier Milei to Visit Israel With Aim of Strengthening Bilateral Ties

Argentine President Javier Milei prays at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, Feb. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

In February 2024, on his first international trip as president, Milei visited Israel in a show of wartime solidarity and reiterated his pledge to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem.

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

Argentine President Javier Milei will visit Israel on March 23 for his second trip to the Jewish state, aiming to strengthen bilateral ties and cooperation.

The planned trip comes after Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana invited Milei last month to deliver a landmark address to Israel’s parliament. The Argentine president is also expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Israeli officials.

Since taking office over a year ago, Milei has been one of Israel’s most vocal supporters, strengthening bilateral relations to unprecedented levels and in the process breaking with decades of Argentine foreign policy tradition to firmly align with Jerusalem and Washington.

Milei, who won Argentina’s November 2023 presidential election, has been outspoken in his support for Israel and Judaism, both central to his campaign.

His presidency has come amid an economic crisis, soaring inflation, and longstanding corruption scandals that have burdened the country.

In February 2024, on his first international trip as president, Milei visited Israel in a show of wartime solidarity and reiterated his pledge to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem.

During his visit, he also traveled to Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Negev, where Hamas-led terrorists kidnapped several Israelis from their home including the Bibas family on Oct. 7, 2023.

Nearly 25 percent of Nir Oz’s residents were murdered or kidnapped during Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.

At the time of his visit, Milei said that he was traveling to Israel to express his “support against the attacks by the terrorist group Hamas.”

Since taking office, Milei has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization and condemned Iran’s terrorism more broadly, vowing to prosecute in absentia Iranian suspects linked to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

Earlier this year, Argentina’s Public Prosecutor’s Office concluded that Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in the country’s capital, was murdered in 2015.

Marking the 10th anniversary of his death, prosecutors released the report as part of the ongoing and still unresolved trial, reaffirming that Nisman was killed.

“The federal prosecutor Natalio Alberto Nisman was the victim of a homicide,” and “his death was motivated by his work in the AMIA Special Investigation Unit and, specifically, by his actions related to the Memorandum of Understanding with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the 56-page report said.

Last month, Milei declared two days of national mourning for the Bibas children, Ariel, 4, and nine-month-old Kfir, who were murdered in captivity in Gaza along with their mother, Shiri.

Their bodies were returned to Israel by Hamas a year and a half after they were kidnapped by the Palestinian terrorists.

The Bibas are Argentinian through their father, Yarden Bibas, who was also abducted during Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7 and was freed last month as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

The Israeli-Argentine family became a symbol of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the terrorist group’s massacre, with Kfir being the youngest hostage taken from Israel on Oct. 7 and the youngest to be killed.