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Bolsonaro sets dates for first presidential visit to Israel

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has also repeatedly promised to relocate the Brazilian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro on an official state visit in Brazil, Dec. 28, 2018. Credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro on an official state visit in Brazil, Dec. 28, 2018. Credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is scheduled to visit Israel from March 31 to April 4, announced Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday.

This visit would be his first since being sworn into office last month.

The trip would occur five days before the April 9 Israeli elections, whose fate appears uncertain amid Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announcing on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be indicted with bribery in one case and a count each of a breach of trust in two other cases.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly promised to relocate the Brazilian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“The decision is taken; it’s only a matter of when it will be implemented,” he said in an interview last month to SBT television.

He also pledged to close the Palestinian mission in the capital of his country, Brasilia.

The trial stop in the Buckeye State would help those who require consular help but don’t want to or can’t travel to New York.
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