The wife of an Israeli diplomat was deliberately excluded from a diplomatic event scheduled to be held Sunday at the Club Palestino in the capital of Chile.
Michal Hayet, wife of Israel’s Ambassador to Chile, Eldad Hayet, was not invited to the annual charity gathering held by a nonprofit organization attended by all the diplomats’ wives.
Some of the members of the Palestinian Authority club also planned to attend this year’s event, intended as a fundraiser for poverty-stricken families in the host country.
Club Palestino, a social and sports club, is located in Las Condes, one of the more elegant neighborhoods of Santiago.
Organizers of the event sent their apologies but reported they were unable to change the venue for the affair. “The participation of diplomatic representatives will be reduced,” they acknowledged, noting that some other wives were likely to refrain from attending as well in solidarity.
Indeed, a number of diplomats’ wives withdrew their support in response, including the wife of the German ambassador and a number of others from the European Union.
Ambassador Hayet filed a protest against the boycott, calling it an “absolute breach of diplomatic relations.” He accused the organizers of supporting the boycott against Israel led by the Palestinian Authority and the local PA Arab community.
“If they had invited us we would have been happy to participate,” he said. “You are generating a politicization of both the organization and the activity, whose objective was the charity for the needy in Chile.”