Guatemala to follow Trump by moving Israel embassy to Jerusalem

[Homo Sapiens]

This is a country survive on dole money hand out from America and smuggling it's citizen into America by crossing US-Mexico border illegally.So it is expected.Trump is their God now.

Despite the furore over Washington’s controversial decision to recognize the sacred city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Guatemala has decided to follow suit, announcing plans to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv.

Following a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday, the President of Guatemala, Jimmy Morales, announced his decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem.

“We talked about the excellent relations we have had as nations since Guatemala supported the creation of the State of Israel,” the president said in a Facebook post, stressing that one of the most relevant issues “was the return of the Guatemalan Embassy to Jerusalem.”

“I inform you that I have given instructions to the Chancellor to initiate the respective coordination” to move the embassy, Morales said in his brief post, without stating whether or not the country recognizes Jerusalem as the state capital.

The Central American country was one of just nine states to support the US decision during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote this week. On Thursday, the UNGA overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution condemning Donald Trump’s declaration to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and called on member states not to move their diplomatic missions to the Holy City. The non-binding UNGA resolution was backed by 128 states, while 35 countries abstained. Guatemala, Honduras, Palau, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Togo, the US and Israel voted in favor of the US decision. The UNGA vote followed the US veto of a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution Monday. All other UNSC members voted in favor of a motion to rescind Donald Trump’s move.

“We are absolutely certain that it is the right route,” Morales said earlier this week of Washington's recognition of Jerusalem, adding, that Israel is an “ally of Guatemala and we must support it.”

Tel Aviv has been urging other countries to follow America's example to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. On Friday, Netanyahu said a number of countries are “seriously considering” moving their embassies to Jerusalem. While the Israeli PM did not name the countries contemplating such a move, he did reveal that Israel is now engaged in a concerted diplomatic campaign to muster support for Israel.

Despite repeated warnings by global and regional powers, Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel on December 6, triggering a strong backlash and widespread condemnation. Following the announcement, massive anti-Israeli and anti-American rallies erupted across the region.

The most intense clashes are playing out in Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza, as Palestinians rally angrily against the decision and Hamas urging a new intifada (uprising). The Israeli crackdown on protesters has been brutal. Over 10 people have been killed and hundreds of others injured as Israeli security forces fired rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons to suppress demonstrators.

https://www.rt.com/news/414127-guatemala-jerusalem-embassy-move/

 

[Pax Ottomana]

This is a country survive on dole money hand out from America and smuggling it's citizen into America by crossing US-Mexico border illegally.So it is expected.Trump is their God now.

That's true. But the president of Guatemala, Jimmy Morales, likes to pretend they're doing it because they're "allies" with Israel. LMAO!

 

[neem456]

thats an amazing act of peace
now #3

3 ?

 

[Dalit]

This is excellent. I want this to get out of hand. Let’s lean back and enjoy the anarchy that Trumpland is responsible for.

 

[19887]

who pays for the move, Israel or US?

Your tax money

 

[KapitaanAli]

Guatemala is the ‘most evangelical’ country in Latin America The Evangelical Alliance estimates there are more than 40,000 churches in Guatemala, 96 evangelical churches for each Roman Catholic parish. SOURCES Protestante Digital AUTHOR Evangelical Focus GUATEMALA 07 MARCH 2016 18:20 h GMT+1 The main faith confessions in Guatemala are evangelical churches and Roman Catholicism. Due to the lack of a national census for the last 14 years, we cannot exactly know how many members each church has. However, it is known that there are six evangelical temples for each Roman Catholic chapel. The distance is even bigger if we count those who have not been officially registered. The church´s registration must be done in the Ministry of Governance. According to association Soy502´s data, there are 2,790 churches registered since 1957, active in 250 towns throughout the country. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic church is organised in 15 jurisdictions, with 415 parishes and 835 priests. 43% of the priests are assigned to a specific parish. The church´s registration must be done in the Ministry of Governance Last October, the Christian comedian Jimmy Morales became president of the country. Morales defined himself as a man of faith. HOW MANY EVANGELICAL CHURCHES ARE IN THE COUNTRY? Although the Ministry of Governance has a record of the evangelical churches in Guatemala, it does not show the real presence of the evangelical faith in the country. The Evangelical Alliance estimates that there are more than 40,000 churches in Guatemala, which would mean there could be up to 96 evangelical churches for each Roman Catholic parish. According to Cesar Vazquez, President of the Guatemala Evangelical Alliance, these churches operate like a network, where the little churches are a part of a denomination, so that a little church or community is not officially registered in Ministry of Governance because it depends on a bigger church. Jimmy Morales, the Christian president of Guatemala / AP Those little churches are non-legal entities. Vazquez explained that only his denomination has 4,000 churches around the country. The township with more evangelical churches is Guatemala city, followed by Mixco and Villanueva, the three most populated regions of the country. Santa María Visitación Solola is the city with more evangelical churches per inhabitant: 2 churches for 2,759 inhabitants. This map shows the distribution of the evangelical churches in Guatemala (in Spanish).
See more: http://evangelicalfocus.com/world/1431/Guatemala_the_most_evangelical_country_in_Latin_America

 

[500]

The biggest irony is that the address of embassy in Israel bothers world much more than 12 million people ethnically cleansed and half million murdered in Syria or half million ethnically cleansed in Myanmar etc etc.

 

[jewishm]

The national capital of your country needs to be designated by the other country. I am not sure if it is a source of pride.

its so funny that only know the muslims realise that we control jerusalem

 

[Jamaal Yelmaaz]

No suprise...Because current Guetamala is the UAE of Latins....bird dog of US and Israel..

 

[LeGenD]

The national capital of your country needs to be designated by the other country. I am not sure if it is a source of pride.

Ouch.

 

[KapitaanAli]

As I posted above, Guatemala is full of Evangelical Christians.
It's only natural for them to follow their retarded brethren in the US.

Such a shameless cult playing pretend as middle easterners.

Middle eastern Christians rightfully denounced them.

 

[Chhatrapati]

What a mess.

 

[dani191]

i soppurt geert willders

 

[Solomon2]

Why a small Central American nation became a trailblazer on Jerusalem
Guatemala played a key role in the Jewish state's creation and has enjoyed Israeli security assistance ever since. It doesn't hurt that its leader is deeply religious

By RAPHAEL AHREN Today, 1:10 pm

• Guatemala's new ambassador to Israel, Dr. Juan Garcia Granados leaving the President's Residence in Jerusalem after presenting his credentials, July 1955 (Moshe Pridan/GPO)

On Sunday, Guatemala became the first country after the US to announce its intention to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move seen as tantamount to recognizing the city as Israel’s capital, though President Jimmy Morales’s statement included no explicit recognition.

Predictably, the Central American nation’s decision was castigated by the Palestinians and other Arab states and hailed in Israel as an act of deep friendship that marked the beginning of a new trend. Neighbor Honduras is said to be next in line. Like Guatemala, it also voted last week against the United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning the US’s December 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move its embassy there.

Other countries — Togo, Paraguay, Romania, Slovakia — are also said to be considering following in Guatemala’s footsteps in bucking decades-old diplomatic dogma to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

But what prompted a relatively small nation far removed from the Middle East and its problems to be the first to take the plunge after the US?

There are several reasons for Guatemala’s dramatic step. The country’s well-established historic friendship with Israel and ongoing deep security and trade ties are one key part of the story. The personal character of the country’s current leader is the other.

Seventy years ago, Guatemala’s ambassador to the UN, Dr. Jorge Garcia Granados, a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, played a crucial role in convincing Latin American countries to vote in favor of General Assembly Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.


The vote on the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 on November 29, 1947. (Israeli Government Press Office/File)

“It could be that without Guatemala, the resolution on that fateful day would not have passed, and history would be very different,” Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein told Morales during his November 2016 visit to Israel.

At the time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recalled that he had grown up in Jerusalem near a street named after Morales’s country. “In just about every town in Israel there is a Guatemala Street because we remember Guatemala’s friendship and the friendship and leadership of your UN ambassador at the time of the decision on the Partition Resolution, and so Guatemala was etched into our hearts then,” he said.

Guatemala was one of the first countries to recognize the nascent State of Israel in 1948, and the friendship has remained strong ever since.


Telegrams of recognition of the State of Israel sent by Guatemala, Finland and Romania (courtesy GPO)

In the 1970s, Israel was said to have assisted the military juntas ruling Guatemala a great deal in the area of counterinsurgency, providing them with advice and equipment.

“Israeli-Guatemalan military cooperation began in 1971, during the presidency of Col. Carlos Arana Osario,” political scientist Cheryl Rubenberg wrote in a 1986 article on bilateral relations.

“Then the Guatemalan chief of staff, Kjell Laugerud Garcia, visited Israel and met with Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and other Israeli military officials. Laugerud Garcia expressed Guatemala’s interest in procuring armaments and military communications equipment. Later that year, the two countries signed their first cooperation agreement, though specifics were not made public,” she wrote.

Guatemala saw the Jewish state “as the world’s foremost practitioner of counterinsurgency” and looked to Jerusalem for expertise and arms, according to Rubenberg. “Israeli assistance began in 1971, but it took on increased importance after 1977, when the Guatemalan generals rejected US military aid in response to Carter administration pressures to remedy their gross human rights violations.”

Later that year, Israeli president Ephraim Katzir spent a week in Guatemala City, where he signed an agreement on military assistance.

Three years later, the Knesset passed a law declaring that united Jerusalem was Israel’s capital, leading the Security Council to call on all countries to withdraw their embassies from the city. Guatemala heeded the call and moved its embassy to Herzliya.

Relations with Israel remained strong, however. At least 300 Israeli security “advisers” were said to have operated in Guatemala in the early 1980s. “Israel is known to have intelligence teams, security and communications specialists, and military training personnel in Guatemala,” The New York Times reported at the time, though Israeli diplomats denied such claims.

Ties were also strong in the fields of civilian technology and tourism, among others.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President of Guatemala Otto Pérez Molina at Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem. December 9, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

In December 2013, Otto Fernando Perez Molina became the first president of Guatemala to visit Israel. “Guatemala did participate in the foundation of Israel, so that has led the foundations for a tradition and the unity between our two peoples,” he told Netanyahu at the time.

Fast forward to 2015, when Morales — a former comedian who’d never held political office — won the country’s presidential elections with 67 percent of the votes. Morales, a devout Evangelical, has been called “the Donald Trump of Guatemala.” In 2016, Guatemala received nearly $300 million in aid from the US.

Morales, who called his country’s relationship with Israel “excellent,” has been supportive of many of the current US administration’s policies, including Trump’s plan to build a border wall with Mexico, and, of course, his plan to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.


Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales (R) and wife Gilda Marroquin visit the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem on November 28, 2016. (AFP/Gali Tibbon)

On his visit to Israel last year — during which he received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem — he announced his hope to strengthen bilateral cooperation in many fields.

“Guatemala has a special relationship with Israel, and we know we can continue to work together: in partnership and hand in hand,” he told President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem. “During our visit we hope we will be able to enjoy Israel’s rich culture and history, and learn from you how to improve in the areas of agriculture, husbandry, and technology — areas in which Israel excels.”