Argentine President Javier Milei arrived in Israel on Sunday for his third visit in as many years, as bilateral ties between the two countries are at historic highs.
Milei, who will become the first foreign leader to light a torch at Israel’s official Independence Day event in Jerusalem this week, has repeatedly pledged to relocate his embassy to Jerusalem, and could make the move during his visit.
A Catholic who studied the Bible with a rabbi whom he appointed his ambassador, Milei has broken with decades of foreign policy by positioning himself with the United States and Israel, emerging as one of the most vocal supporters of the Jewish state around the globe.
His first official stop upon arrival will be the Western Wall in Jerusalem, followed by an evening meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he has formed a close alliance.
The two leaders will announce the inauguration of direct flights between Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires on Israel’s flag carrier El Al starting this fall, as first reported by JNS.
During his visit, Milei will also meet with his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog, who will award him the Presidential Medal of Honor, and receive an honorary doctorate from Bar-Ilan University. He is also scheduled to visit both the Hebron Yeshiva and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and sign an agreement between UTN Argentina and the Technion.
Since taking office two and a half years ago, Milei has designated Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as terrorist groups and called out Tehran’s terrorism, vowing to try in absentia Iranian suspects in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires.
Earlier this month, Argentina, which has strongly supported the US and Israeli war on Iran, expelled the Islamic Republic’s envoy from Buenos Aires.
Last year, Milei declared two days of national mourning for the Bibas children—Ariel, 4, and 9-month-old Kfir—who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in captivity in Gaza, along with their mother, 32-year-old Shiri Bibas. The family, which held Israeli, Argentine and German citizenship, had become symbols of the plight of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas and other terrorist groups when they invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and murdered some 1,200 people, mainly civilians. He also renamed a Buenos Aires street from Palestine to the Bibas Family.
