Q COSTARICA (Semanario Universidad) The award bestowed upon Rodrigo Chaves by the so-called Zionist Israeli Center of Costa Rica, in the midst of the Palestinian genocide, arrived on March 2nd as recognition of a series of actions that made the president a worthy recipient of Zionist gratitude.
The Chaves administration has had no qualms about aligning itself with the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from supporting Donald Trump’s highly questionable plan to divide the beleaguered Gaza Strip with Israel, to abstaining in important United Nations (UN) votes, to the highly symbolic gesture of signing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Jerusalem and even establishing a trade office in that disputed city.
Note the gravity of the case: all the actions questioned by the Chaves administration were carried out while the genocide was already underway, which to this day has already claimed more than 75,000 lives, according to independent studies published by media outlets such as The Guardian or Al Jazeera.
It was upon receiving the Zionist recognition that Chaves announced the opening of the trade office in Jerusalem and declared that “peace is the only path to the well-being and prosperity of nations,” but that “peace at all costs has proven not to always work. There are things worth fighting for. There are things for which we have an obligation to fight.”
“I announce to you that relations between the State of Israel and the people of Costa Rica will not weaken; on the contrary, I have the honor of informing you that Procomer (the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promoter) will open a trade office with diplomatic rank in Jerusalem. This is a strong gesture, as Her Excellency the Ambassador can attest,” he proclaimed.
The President of Costa Rica added that “the government will be attacked for this, and yet, even in the current context, we will not back down, we will not retreat.”
And again, just this past March 6th, in an interview with the Mexican magazine Milenio, Chaves said: “Regarding Israel, we are strengthening that relationship.”
He even went further and, regarding the recently begun war against Iran, reaffirmed that “we are taking a stance with the United States and Israel because we believe they are on the right side. I know this is a controversial issue. However, Iran is a theocracy that says it will eliminate the democracy that exists in the Middle East, which is Israel.”
Chaves on the path already laid out
Dr. Carlos Murillo, an international relations expert and director of the Center for Research and Observatory of Development (Ciodd) at the University of Costa Rica (UCR), considered that Costa Rica’s foreign policy is “highly committed” to Israel’s interests.
At the same time, he observed that this level of commitment is not new under Chaves: “Historically, in Costa Rica’s mission to the United Nations, there has always been a diplomatic official connected to the Jewish community in Costa Rica,” something he admitted he hadn’t verified in the case of the current administration.
“I dare say that in all previous governments—I repeat, I don’t know about this one—there has always been someone influential close to the president of Costa Rica. That’s why, historically, Costa Rica has favored the Embassy in Jerusalem,” he said, recalling that Costa Rica was one of the first states to recognize Israel in 1948.
He pointed out that “during the administration of (Luis Alberto) Monge and others, perhaps the one who isn’t as close is Óscar Arias, but (Costa Rica) has had a close relationship and a strong commitment to Israel, especially on Middle Eastern issues, and that’s why Chaves speaks of this US-Israeli relationship, because I have no doubt that he has strengthened it, at least in recent months.”
Murillo, a professor at the School of Public Administration at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and the School of International Relations at the National University (UNA), remarked that “we would have to find the reasons for this strengthening or firm rapprochement of this administration with Israel, but the answer to your question is that, to a large degree, Costa Rica’s foreign policy is committed to Israel’s interests.”
However, he did note that the award given to Chaves by the Zionists “is understandable because few governments in the world sign a free trade agreement with Israel, and Costa Rica, in particular, does not have significant bilateral trade.”
For his part, Nicolás Boeglin, a UCR professor specializing in public international law, considered that Costa Rica “is aligning itself more than ever with the positions of Israel and the United States, and this has been the case for several years.”
As an example, he mentioned the establishment of the aforementioned “trade office” (which he put in quotation marks) with diplomatic rank in Jerusalem “and not Tel Aviv,” and described it as “another provocation to which Costa Rica lends itself, by violating the existing international consensus that Jerusalem cannot be considered the capital of Israel.”
In this regard, he recalled that this was enshrined in UN Resolution 181, which in 1947 recommended the partition of Palestine into two independent states, one Jewish (55% of the territory) and one Arab (45%), with Jerusalem under a special international regime. Boeglin emphasized that Costa Rica voted in favor of the resolution at the time and that, since 2007, it has complied with it by moving its embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.
To delve deeper into the topic, Boeglin referred to his remarks made during the forum “Gaza/Israel: From the Information Blockade to the Blockade of International Justice,” in which, he indicated, he offered “some clues” regarding Costa Rica’s alignment with Israel.
At that event, held in July 2024, the academic pointed out the tepid way in which Costa Rican official statements addressed Israel’s actions. For example, he cited an Israeli bombing of a refugee camp, in which the word “Israel” wasn’t even mentioned.
Boeglin noted that “the fact that Costa Rica and Israel are negotiating a free trade agreement doesn’t explain everything. I can’t believe that the Foreign Trade Commission (Comex) has such influence to force a Foreign Ministry to shamefully remain silent about the principles upon which Costa Rica’s international image has been based.”
He then observed that in the electoral context in which the United States was at that time, “Israel is dragging the United States into this madness, and in this same madness, the Democrats are being led to lose the election to Donald Trump.”
He added that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “great hope” “is that his great friend Donald Trump” will come to power, just as happened.
In other words, Boeglin’s words suggest that Chaves’s alignment with Israel is driven by obedience to Trump’s dictates. Note the participation of Chaves and President-elect Laura Fernández in the recent meeting to establish the so-called Shield of the Americas.
Wajiha Sasa, Honorary Consul of Palestine in Costa Rica, regarding Israeli interference in Costa Rican foreign policy, similarly emphasized that “there is a great deal of pressure; historically, there has been lobbying with most of the parties that have governed this country.”
She observed that this phenomenon occurred in both the National Liberation Party (PLN) and the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC), but stressed that in the case of the PLN, “members of the Zionist Jewish community of Costa Rica played a very important role, and we have seen for the past two years that they are like a bloc with the (Israeli) Embassy.”
“I wouldn’t know if Israel or the United States is pulling the strings, but it’s clear that Costa Rica is ignoring international law. What it’s doing with Jerusalem is betraying all jurisprudence, everything that has been decided regarding Jerusalem’s status,” he said.
Sasa also recalled that Costa Rica “was the first country to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel” when it established its embassy there in 1963. Along with El Salvador, it remained one of only two countries to have diplomatic missions there until 2006, when Óscar Arias, during his second term, announced he would correct a “historical error” and decided to move it to Tel Aviv.
“Years later, that mistake was reversed, and now Costa Rica is doing it again de facto with the location of this (trade) office,” thereby “eliminating any possibility of the recognition it already granted in 2008 of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian state’s right to exist and the Palestinian people’s right to life.”
Therefore, he pointed out that “it is evident that Costa Rica is aligning itself with the discourse spearheaded by the Israeli government and fully supported by the United States, which has taken the lead in making everything Palestinian attackable and erasable.”
Translated and adapted from the article “Política de Chaves sumisa a Israel compromete neutralidad del país en tiempos de guerra” published at SemanarioUniversidad.com