Guatemalan ambassador to Israel gets more than she bargained for … and that’s fine
Two years, an internal social upheaval and a major regional war later, Ava Atzum Arévalo de Moscoso says she is feeling right at home in the Jewish state, despite the turbulent times.
Two years ago, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the president of Guatemala summoned his deputy minister of foreign affairs and told her that he had some good news for her: She was going to Israel.
At first, the lawmaker thought she was going to visit in her role as vice foreign minister.
No, the president interjected: You are going to be ambassador.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Ava Atzum Arévalo de Moscoso, the Guatemalan ambassador to Israel, recounted on Monday in her Jerusalem embassy office. (She revealed thinking that she was almost sure to be appointed as an emissary closer to home in Argentina.)
Two years, an internal social upheaval and a major regional war later, the ambassador says that she is feeling right at home in the Jewish state, despite the turbulent times. She expresses her admiration for Israelis, citing her country’s historic relationship with the Jewish state, as well as her evangelical Christian faith.
About half the population in the Central American nation of 18 million are Catholic; the other half are evangelicals.
“For me, God put me in this place and at this time,” she told JNS in an interview in her Jerusalem offices.
Guatemala’s historic friendship with Israel dates back to the vote by the United Nations to create a Jewish state in 1947, when it became the first country in Latin America to recognize the newly founded Israel. It was also the second country in the world to move its embassy to Jerusalem after the United States did so in 2018 under the first administration of President Donald Trump.
Guatemala’s president, Bernardo Arévalo, is the son of former president Juan José Arévalo, who in 1948 recognized the State of Israel and later went on to serve as ambassador to the country in the late 1970s.
During that time, Bernardo Arévalo studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he learned Hebrew and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
The flags of Israel and Guatemala
‘The news does not show the truth’
A half century later, the wartime ambassador, whose family remained behind in Guatemala, has been sending daily reports about the 17-month-old war in Gaza and expresses frustration about the global media coverage of Israel.
“The news does not show the truth; they lie,” de Moscoso said. “They just want to show atrocities.”
She pauses for a moment to gather her thoughts in English, then adds: “The experience of living here is very different than what the media is saying.”
Even as she arrived to take office amid the tumult of nationwide demonstrations over the judicial reform, and later that year, the outbreak of war following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the ambassador concedes that she was surprised by Israel’s landscape on what was her first visit to the nation.
“When you speak about Israel, you think desert, but when you see the trees and the buildings, you are in a new age entirely,” she said.
Despite the war, she notes that Guatemalans are eager to go to Israel for work, with more than 1,000 applicants from the most populous country in Central America seeking to be part of a first batch of construction workers in the Jewish state. Looking forward, she would also like to see much more Israeli agricultural and scientific assistance in cleaning up contaminated rivers and lakes in Guatemala using Israel’s high-tech prowess and know-how.
‘People here with big hearts’
In the interview, the Guatemalan ambassador notes that she finds herself especially connected to elderly Holocaust survivors despite the language barrier, highlighting an award she received by an Israeli NGO and signed by scores of survivors that is displayed in her office, coming full circle back to the day of her appointment when she attended a Holocaust remembrance event in the Guatemalan parliament.
Ava Atzum Arévalo de Moscoso, the Guatemalan ambassador to Israel, with a jacket of the Israeli Defense Forces that was presented to her.
“We don’t speak the same language, but love is the common bond,” she said of her visits with aging survivors in Israel.
The ambassador said she feels special pride concerning the 32 IDF soldiers originally from Guatemala who have been fighting in the war, highlighting pictures of them prominently hanging in the hallway of the embassy amid woven tapestries from back home.
Asked for a personal takeaway from her time in Israel, she highlights educational programs for autistic students in Israel, which have proven to be one of her most meaningful experiences and is something she would like to bring back home when she completes her tenure.
“You know Latin Americans are always smiling, but here, no,” she said of Israel. “Yet when I started my work, I saw the people here with big hearts; I saw in their eyes that they love the people, they love life, and they just really want peace and quiet.”
1 comment:
Guatemala is a 3rd World Country plagued with crime and corruption. I have a friend whose father disappeared during the people's uprising 40 years ago.
During and after Guatemala's 36-year civil war (1960-1996), the Guatemalan National Police (PNC) and other security forces were implicated in widespread human rights abuses, including disappearances, tortures, and murders, with a large archive of their activities discovered in 2005 shedding light on these crimes.
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