José Manuel Restrepo, Project Interchange alumnus and Colombia’s Minister of
Commerce, Industry and Tourism wrote in El Espectador about Israel’s success in innovation and nation-building, and lessons that can be learned by Colombia.
On the afternoon of March 17, 1992, Israel’s embassy in Argentina was reduced to rubble by a blast that killed 29 people – four Israelis and 25 Argentinians – and injured nearly 250. A group tied to Hezbollah, a proxy for Iran, claimed responsibility.
Former President Sebastián Piñera won Chile’s presidential election on Sunday, December 17. His triumph demonstrates a turn towards the center-right in a region that has been dominated by leftist movements for over a decade. In 2012, Piñera became the first Chilean president to visit Israel, a fact that sets great expectations for the future of bilateral cooperation.
Both the State of Israel and post-colonial Africa were culminations of long-held messianic dreams, the first held by a two-thousand-year Jewish diaspora, the second by nations or tribes that chaffed for centuries under colonial oppression in their own lands.