decision<\/a> to \u201csever all contact\u201d with the office of European Union foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas after reports that she compared Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians to apartheid-era South Africa during a closed-door meeting in Mexico. Kallas has declined to confirm or deny the reports publicly<\/p>\nSa\u2019ar stressed that the move was directed at Kallas, not the European Union as a whole. He pointed to what he described as \u201cvery good, open and honest discussions\u201d with EU Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka \u0160uica this week in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI privately asked her to do something about it,\u201d Sa\u2019ar said of Kallas. \u201cShe could say, \u2018I didn\u2019t say that.\u2019 She could have said, \u2018I\u2019m standing behind these words.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But, with Kallas refusing to address the report on her comments, he said, \u201cI can\u2019t be silent and act like it is a legitimate thing to be said against my state. Therefore, I didn\u2019t have any choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The foreign minister said Israel is open to dialogue, as evidenced by the meetings with \u0160uica, and while \u201cwe are used to having criticism against us, to say the least, a dialogue is not that the other side can dictate to us political positions, mainly when they are connected to very basic national interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sa\u2019ar also highlighted what he described as growing opportunities for Israel in Latin America, citing the election of Colombian President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella, a conservative lawyer who defeated leftist Sen. Iv\u00e1n Cepeda in Sunday\u2019s runoff election.<\/p>\n
De la Espriella \u201cis a great friend of Israel and the Jewish people. I know him personally,\u201d Sa\u2019ar said, contrasting him with outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro, one of Israel\u2019s most outspoken critics in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the full picture is even more encouraging when you see what happened in the elections in Peru, Honduras, Chile, Bolivia,\u201d Sa\u2019ar said.<\/p>\n
He added that the recent parliamentary elections in Argentina were a sign of a significant regional shift.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll invest much more in order to strengthen our relations, and we are doing it with the same interest as our American friends, which for them the Western Hemisphere is critical in their national security doctrine, and for us it can be a hugely friendly continent,\u201d Sa\u2019ar said, stating that an important order of business in the coming months is to add more embassies in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(June 23, 2026 \/ JNS) Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar rejected international criticism of Israel\u2019s military presence in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-507449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}