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‘Absolutely’ pays off to support Israel, Paraguay President Santiago Peña tells JNS

The Paraguay leader, who was in Washington for President Donald Trump’s inauguration, spoke at the relaunch of the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Paraguayan President Santiago Peña at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 21, 2025. Credit: Freddie Everett/U.S. State Department.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Paraguayan President Santiago Peña at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 21, 2025. Credit: Freddie Everett/U.S. State Department.

It has been difficult at times to stand with the Jewish state and with the United States in Latin America, particularly during Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. But it has been important to adhere to “the right values and principles,” Santiago Peña, the president of Paraguay, told JNS on Tuesday night.

“Paraguay has been fighting for freedom, for democracy, for many of the right causes thanks to Jewish and Israel influence for centuries,” Peña told JNS. “Sometimes, it’s tough, but when you stick to it, it will absolutely pay off.”

Peña, who was in Washington for U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration, spoke to JNS during the launch, which happens every two years, of the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus. The event, held in the Gold Room of the Rayburn House Office Building, drew about 150 people, including European, African and Latin American representatives.

When Peña visited Jerusalem in December to reopen the country’s embassy there, he fulfilled “the desire of the entire Paraguayan population,” he told JNS during the event.

“We are here in this great moment for the United States, for the Western hemisphere, and, of course, for the entire world,” he said. “We’re very happy to team up with the U.S. government, to work together on all these causes.”

Paraguay, Honduras and Guatemala represent half of the embassies in the Israeli capital. Peña told JNS he hopes to further expand Latin American-Israeli relations.

“There is so much that we should do. Of course, we want to put the war and the terrorist attacks behind us, to look into building a strong relationship in so many areas,” he said. “What Israel has done, and thanks to the hardship and the needs that they have developed, they have all this innovation and creativity.”

“We have to offer a continent that is full of natural resources, with a great potential for the future,” he added. “Combining innovation, technology and knowledge with this great amount of natural resources, I think that we could do great things.”

Congressional Israel Allies Caucus
The relaunch of the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21, 2025. Credit: Courtesy.

Isolationism

Peña headlined the event on Tuesday, which was more pomp and circumstance than the typical fare for the Israel Allies Foundation, which isn’t “about ceremonies,” Josh Reinstein, the foundation president, told JNS.

With a new Congress in session, a new U.S. president and Israel at a crossroads, it was time for a grand gathering, Reinstein said.

The foundation, which was created in 2007, has 54 Israel allies caucuses and about 1,500 legislative leaders in its network, according to Reinstein. It grew out of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, founded in 2004, which launched the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus in Washington in 2006.

Reinstein, who also directs the Knesset caucus, told JNS that the congressional group in Washington has 70 members, roughly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. The U.S. group is a “working caucus,” he said. 

Among the event speakers were Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), August Pfluger (R-Texas), Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.).

Sherman, the California Democrat who is Jewish, thanked Israel for sending firemen to help battle the wildfires in California, including in his district.

“Israel has more support in Congress than it does among the American people. It has more support among the American people than it has among young American people, and the people who get the most attention are the far left, who say that Israel is morally inferior to Hamas,” he told attendees. “That is a very weak argument.”

“There is another argument that’s more powerful on the right, and that is the isolationist argument,” Sherman said at the event. That argument involves rooting for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, but saying that “we don’t want to get involved, because it’s too expensive and too difficult,” he said.

“You’ve got to be concerned with the other argument that has traction on the right, which is isolationism,” he said.

Bacon, the Nebraska Republican, told JNS that he thinks there can and will be bipartisan congressional support for Israel, despite Trump’s often incendiary rhetoric on a variety of topics.”

“In the first four years, people tended to focus on what he says, and now we’ve learned you’ve got to focus more on what he does,” Bacon told JNS. “He says a lot of statements that I think are said for effect, or to be humorous. It’s more important to see what he does.”

Bacon thinks Trump will have more bipartisan support for Israel.

“He will have that with the border, I believe, on some crime prevention stuff, some energy issues, we’ll get bipartisan support. So I see some opportunities for us to work together,” he said.

Lawler told attendees that the Biden administration “failed miserably with respect to strengthening and expanding the Abraham Accords.”

The Republican from New York said he sent a letter to Trump recently, urging the president to fill the role of special envoy for the Abraham Accords—a position Lawler helped create on a bipartisan basis.

“It is vital we need to get Saudi Arabia to the table, and we need to normalize relations between the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia together to ensure lasting peace and prosperity,” Lawler told attendees.

Sherman, Schneider and Smith co-chair the caucus with Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who recently replaced Doug Lamborn, who recently retired as a Colorado congressman.

Reinstein credited Lamborn with securing funding of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and the Taylor Force Act, which bars U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority until it ends its policy of rewarding terrorists, who kill and injure Israelis, and their families with salaries.

‘Israel should be a bipartisan issue’

Goldman, the New York Democrat who was among those who claimed that Elon Musk performed a Nazi salute at an inauguration celebration on Monday—a charge that the Anti-Defamation League and many others rejected—is the new co-chair of the House Task Force on Antisemitism.

“Republicans weaponized antisemitism and Israel for their partisan purposes” in the last Congress, Goldman told JNS. “That has to stop. Israel should be a bipartisan issue. I want it to be a bipartisan issue.”

“Some of the rhetoric and some of the actions from the new administration are concerning, and I think it’s important that no matter what party we’re from, that we recognize when there are threats to the Jewish people, when there are threats to Israel and we have to speak out about them,” he said.

Paula White, a Pentecostal leader who is reportedly Trump’s longtime spiritual adviser and who chaired the White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative in Trump’s first term, told JNS at the event that “there is so much opportunity” to build bridges between Jews and Christians in the new administration.

“We’re coming in stronger than ever. President Trump has elevated his faith offices to the highest level possible—stand-alone offices right in the West Wing, offices staffed by the best of the best,” White told JNS. “He is deeply concerned about so many issues: Israel, antisemitism, we’re standing strong with religious liberty.”

“I believe that you’ll see a lot of things happen, both domestically and foreign, that he has put into place that will make a huge difference in America,” she added. “Not only America but the world as well.”

Trump is reportedly planning to return to the grave of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—the Lubavitcher Rebbe—in Queens, N.Y.—to give thanks for his election as president.

The president is “absolutely a very spiritual guy,” White told JNS. “I think you heard it in his inauguration speech. We will not forget God. He also stood and said that when he had that attempted assassination, he knew that it was God that saved him, that it was a miracle and that God had a purpose in his life.”

“We know where he stands, who he is,” she said. “His policy has shown that, and I can tell you, for 24 years, this man is a man that loves God.”

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