Relations between Latin America and Israel are about to get an important boost. For the first time since the founding of the Jewish state in May 1948, its sitting prime minister will visit the region.
“This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. The State Department rightly said this is the largest incarceration of any ethnic minority since the Holocaust,” says Nury Turkel, a leader of the Uyghur community in the United States and a newly appointed member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Malaysia is 4,700 miles away from the Middle East, yet the leadership of this Muslim-majority country in Asia long ago chose sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Malaysia has recognized the “State of Palestine” and hosts a Palestinian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, but refuses to recognize the State of Israel.
Hardly a week passes without a media report concerning the growing chasm between American Jews and Israelis over issues of culture, religion and politics. The recent Israeli elections may aggravate the divide.
In the early and mid-1980s, I saw up close some of the remarkable Israeli efforts, supported by the United States government and a few American Jewish groups, on behalf of Ethiopian Jews.