Is Israel helping to fight fires in the Amazon?
The fires consuming the Amazon rainforests are profoundly alarming for the international community.
Interestingly, Israel was among the first countries to offer assistance.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to express his solidarity and support. Following the conversation, Bolsonaro tweeted that his country had accepted the offer of a specialized aircraft to cooperate with their efforts against the fires.
Israel’s offer and Brazil’s response was widely reported by international media, especially because many other offers for help by the international community had not been received as warmly.
Brazil rejected $20 million of emergency aid to help battle the wildfires by the G7 leaders, slamming the offer as a “colonialist” effort. He later said that he would be willing to accept the funding if French President Emmanuel Macron apologized for accusing him of lying about protecting the environment.
However, five days later, the extent and the delivery of the aid Israel offered remains to be seen.
First of all, Israeli sources seem to contradict the notion that an airplane was offered in the first place.
On Sunday, the official Twitter account of the Prime Minister’s Office stated that Netanyahu “offered to immediately dispatch flame retardants,” which are chemicals that stop the spread of fire.
A similar version of the story was presented by the official Facebook page of the Israeli Embassy in Brazil.
“After expressing the solidarity of the people and the government of Israel with President Bolsonaro and the Brazilian people, the two leaders agreed that Israel would immediately send anti-flames material and fire-fighting equipment,” a post read.
On Wednesday, Ambassador to Brazil Yossi Shelly delivered a speech before the Legislative Assembly of the state of San Paulo, where he was granted the Colar de Honra ao Mérito Legislativo, one of the highest local awards. On the occasion, he stated that the 200-300 tons of flame retardants to contain the fires would be delivered from Israel to Brazil in the coming days.
The Israeli Embassy in Brazil did not respond to a query by The Jerusalem Post regarding the nature of the aid that Israel has promised or when the assistance is expected to be delivered.
AS BRAZIL is losing the equivalent of one and a half soccer fields of rain forest every minute, a political controversy regarding the nature of the fires and the attitude of the Brazilian government has also been raging.
Many, including local and international environmental organizations and foreign leaders, are accusing Bolsonaro of undermining the efforts to preserve the Amazon.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that his administration had cut the budget of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), the agency responsible for protecting the rainforests, which the Brazilian president has publicly rebuked in the past as an impediment to the nation’s development.
Since he took office on January 1, IBAMA’s budget has shrunk by 25% as part of government-wide belt-tightening, according to internal government data collected by the opposition Socialism and Liberty Party and shared with Reuters. Among the cuts: funding for prevention and control of forest fires was reduced by 23%.
New leadership at IBAMA also has made it tougher for the agency to crack down on illegal logging, farming and mining that have despoiled nearly 12,000 sq.km. (4,633 square miles) in the Amazon this year, several former and current employees told Reuters.
However, the current Brazilian administration has rejected the accusations, labeling them as a “disinformation campaign” and a threat to the country’s sovereignty.
Bolsonaro, an ultraconservative, has often drawn international criticism for his positions on several topics. He made controversial comments about the LGBTQ community and women. At an event earlier this year, he said that democracy and freedom “only exist when your armed forces want them to.”
Soon after visiting Yad Vashem during his state visit to Israel at the end of March, he claimed that Nazism was “a leftist movement” and suggested that Holocaust crimes can be forgiven.
The president later clarified that he meant on an individual level and that his statement “was not meant to be used in a historical context.”
However, among world powers, both the US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu have been very supportive of Bolsonaro, and the Amazon crisis has been no exception.
As international criticism against the current Brazilian administration mounted, both leaders expressed their backing for how the country’s government was handling the situation.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his appreciation for President’s Bolsonaro efforts to battle the flames in the Amazon rain forests, including by mobilizing the army for this purpose,” read a tweet by the Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday.
“I have gotten to know President @jairbolsonaro well in our dealings with Brazil,” Trump tweeted on Monday. “He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil - Not easy. He and his country have the full and complete support of the USA!”
Following Trump’s example, Bolsonaro has promised to move the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But a timeline for such a move has not yet been defined.
Moreover, the growing Christian Evangelical community in Brazil was instrumental in electing Bolsonaro in October 2018. Christian Evangelicals are among the staunchest supporters of Trump in the US and generally among the most supportive of Israel.
Whether the close relationship between these three leaders is going to help to save the Amazon rainforests remains to be seen.