Despite having officially recognized the State of Palestine in December 2015 and having opened an embassy in Ramallah, Ecuador is this week inaugurating its representative office in Jerusalem on the campus of the Hebrew University.
The office, which will have diplomatic status, will be known as the Innovation, Research, and Development Center.
This was jointly announced on Sunday by President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador and his foreign minister, Maria Gabriela Sommerfeld Rosero, in the course of a meeting with President Isaac Herzog.
Noboa, who last month was reelected to office, is in Israel to celebrate the 75th anniversary of his country’s diplomatic relations with Israel, though Ecuador’s relations with the Jewish people go much further back.
The first Jews came to Ecuador in the 1600s, but they were small in number and most assimilated into the Ecuadorian community. As a result, their progeny lost their Jewish identities.
The Jewish community was revived in 1938, when Ecuador, like several other Latin American countries, opened its gates to German and Austrian Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.
In November 1947, Ecuador voted at the United Nations in favor of the partition of Palestine, and in 1950 entered into full diplomatic relations with Israel. It opened an embassy in Jerusalem but transferred to Tel Aviv in 1980.
Herzog expressed the wish that the new Ecuadorian center in Jerusalem would be the first step toward returning the embassy to Israel’s capital.
“We are very happy to be here,” Sommerfeld, who is of Jewish background, told The Jerusalem Post.
Noboa and his entourage entered the President’s Residence without the usual fanfare, other than the red carpet, because this was not a state visit. Herzog promised Noboa that when he does come on a state visit, he will get the full treatment including a state dinner.
The two presidents discussed the wars against terrorism of their respective nations.
“We, as a nation, have a war against terrorism and people who want to change our way of life,” said Noboa, 37, who made history as the youngest person ever to be elected as president of Ecuador.
One of his major foreign policy moves was to appoint Vice President Veronica Abad Rojas as a negotiator between Israel and Hamas in an effort to achieve peace.
Noboa's Middle East meetings
In addition to his meeting with Herzog, Noboa also has meetings scheduled with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, and Defense Minister Israel Katz.
The delegation flew to Israel via the United Arab Emirates and arrived at the President’s Residence after having landed in the country in the wee small hours.
Herzog told his guests that Iran is behind all the instability in the region, creating a great challenge for Israel, which needs to strengthen its relations with those Arab countries with which it has already made peace and to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.
He was aware that Iran also has an influential role in Latin America.
The two presidents also discussed defense cooperation, how Ecuador plans to advance its economy, food security, population growth, hydroelectricity, two-way tourism, and the cost of higher education.
Herzog repeatedly told Noboa that Ecuador must market itself, and that it should try to attract Israeli investors.