Against the backdrop of the transfer of the Guatemalan embassy to Jerusalem, members of the Guatemala-Israel Inter Parliamentary Friendship Group in the Guatemalan Congress arrived at the Knesset on Wednesday to present a copy of their country’s “Israel Friendship Law” to Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Hilik Bar (Zionist Camp) and to the chairpersons of the Knesset’s Israel-Guatemala Parliamentary Friendship Group, MKs Yifat Shasha-Biton (Kulanu) and Haim Jelin (Yesh Atid).
The MKs thanked the Guatemalan lawmakers for the moving gesture, with MK Bar saying, “Guatemala is one of the best friends of Israel and the Jewish People.”
MKs Jelin, who lives in Kibbutz Nahal Oz near the Gaza Strip and is head of the Eshkol Regional Council, discussed the criticism leveled at Israel from around the world over the clashes along the Gaza border and described the tense atmosphere in the area, stressing that the IDF has not used excessive force.
MK Sasha-Biton told her Guatemalan counterparts: “If it weren’t for my soldier son and his fighter friends, who are protecting the Israeli border with their bodies these days and are fending off tens of thousands of rioters, we would not have been able sit here with you today.”
Congressman Manuel Diaz Duran, President of the Guatemala-Israel Inter Parliamentary Friendship Group, said, “We love Israel and believe in it. This is a historic day.”