by Herb Keinon
NATIONAL AFFAIRS: Israel's international standing is shifting, moving from isolation to slow, uneven recovery as global engagement grows.
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If the opposition had wanted to stage a Knesset debate on the collapse of Israel’s international standing, the ideal moment would have been last summer.
That was when country after country rushed to recognize a Palestinian state, when the “starvation in Gaza” narrative saturated global media, and when images of suffering in Gaza dominated front pages from London to La Paz.
In that moment of near-constant diplomatic turbulence, a debate declaring Israel isolated and adrift would have captured the prevailing mood.
Instead, that debate – under the rubric of a “40-signatures debate” obligating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to respond – took place on Monday, several months after the storm’s peak had passed. The timing felt off. The script belonged to another season – before the Trump-brokered October ceasefire in Gaza and as Israel was contemplating a full military onslaught on Gaza City.
“The subject of your heated discussion, members of the opposition, is what you are calling the so-called collapse of Israel’s international standing,” Netanyahu said at the outset of his Knesset remarks. “What a detachment from reality. What recycled, worn-out slogans.”
Yet here it was taking place in December, days after the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) voted overwhelmingly to allow Israel to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest; hours after the first visit to Israel in months by the elected leader of a major European country, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz; on the eve of a warm phone call with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi; and just before Washington invited Netanyahu for what will be his sixth meeting this year with US President Donald Trump.
It was a debate that made sense in the summer, but far less so now, given how much the diplomatic picture – largely because of the Trump-brokered ceasefire – has shifted.
None of this is to suggest that Israel’s diplomatic challenges have evaporated. Far from it. The criticism remains intense. Public opinion in many European capitals has hardened. The images from Gaza still carry enormous weight abroad. But what the opposition framed Monday as a collapse looks, from the vantage point of this week’s developments, more like a slow, uneven process of recovery.
Israel's Eurovision inclusion, German visit: A sign of slow, uneven recovery
Consider the past 10 days alone. Signs of this shift appeared in an unlikely arena: Eurovision. Under immense pressure, the EBU – which oversees the annual song contest – decided to keep Israel in the 2026 competition.Five countries – Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Iceland – pulled out in protest, but the institution itself refused to place Israel in the pariah category. Had it done so, the symbolic rupture would have been profound. Instead, broadcasters across Europe signaled that banning Israel was a line too far.
For a continent where street protests routinely feature virulently anti-Israel slogans and chants, and where several governments moved toward unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, that decision was far from a given. Germany played a central role, making clear that if Israel were banned, it would stay away as well.
Then, just two days later – though entirely unrelated – Merz landed in Israel, a not insignificant diplomatic gesture. Only months ago, Germany, whose postwar identity is intimately bound to Israel’s security, embargoed certain weapons destined for Gaza, a move that rattled Jerusalem.
Yet the embargo was followed by something wholly different: the deployment two weeks ago of Israel’s Arrow 3 missile defense system on German soil. As Netanyahu said during his press conference with Merz, “Germany has long worked for Israel’s defense, but Israel, the Jewish state, 80 years after the Holocaust, now works for the defense of Germany.”
Merz did not pretend that disagreements with Jerusalem had vanished. He spoke candidly of a “dilemma,” balancing Israel’s right to self-defense with Germany’s commitment to “human dignity” and the “rule of law.” But he also emphasized that the weapons embargo was a moment, not a doctrine.
“Circumstances have since changed,” he said. Germany’s core commitment to Israel, he added, “applies today, it applies tomorrow, and it applies forever.”
His visit underscored that Germany remains the key actor preventing the EU from sliding toward punitive measures. Berlin may continue voicing concerns about Gaza and Judea and Samaria, but its strategic alignment with Israel has not fractured – a reality his visit made plain.
Israel's luck in Latin America improves with restored Bolivian ties
If developments in Europe pointed to limits on Israel’s isolation, events in Latin America suggested that even ruptured ties can be repaired.In Washington on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo signed a communiqué formally restoring relations after a 16-year break.
The rupture, driven largely by the far-left ideological bent of successive Bolivian governments reaching back to when Evo Morales became president in 2006, had long seemed beyond repair. Yet political winds shift, and in October they shifted in Bolivia when centrist candidate Rodrigo Paz won the presidency.
Sa’ar called him the next day, and the road to renewal opened. “Today we are ending the long, unnecessary chapter of separation between our two nations,” Sa’ar said at the signing ceremony.
Bolivia is the first but perhaps not the last. Elections loom in Chile, Brazil, and Colombia, each with the potential to reshape bilateral relations.
Chile votes on Sunday, with right-wing candidate Jose Antonio Kast favored over the Left’s Jeannette Jara. President Gabriel Boric charted a distinctly anti-Israel line, something Kast is expected to reverse.
All this highlights how Israel’s diplomacy in Latin America is fragile and deeply dependent on individual leaders. Argentina stands today as one of Jerusalem’s closest allies not because of structural forces, but because its president, Javier Milei, is personally committed to that partnership. That was not the case under his predecessor.
Brazil swung from hostility to warmth, then back to hostility, as power shifted from Dilma Rousseff to Jair Bolsonaro, then back to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It could shift again after the 2026 elections.
And Colombia, long Israel’s closest ally in South America, severed relations after Gustavo Petro – a former Marxist guerrilla – took power in 2022. Elections there in 2026 could dramatically alter the trajectory once more.
The region remains volatile, but the picture is no longer one of uniform deterioration with regard to Israel. If anything, it is beginning to tilt, however slightly, in Israel’s favor – a trend illustrated by Bolivia’s renewal of ties.
Across the world, India provided another stabilizing counterweight.
On Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Modi tweeted – in English and Hebrew – after speaking with Netanyahu: “Spoke with my friend Prime Minister Netanyahu. We reviewed progress in the India-Israel Strategic Partnership and agreed to further strengthen our cooperation. Also reaffirmed our shared commitment to zero tolerance for terrorism.”
Spoke with my friend Prime Minister Netanyahu. We reviewed progress in the India-Israel Strategic Partnership and agreed to further strengthen our cooperation. Also reaffirmed our shared commitment to zero tolerance for terrorism. India supports all efforts aimed at achieving a…
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 10, 2025
Netanyahu cited the call in his Knesset speech as evidence that Israel’s diplomatic horizon is not nearly as bleak as it is portrayed, and said he will meet Modi soon.
“India, a huge country with a billion and a half people, also wants to strengthen ties with us,” he said.
For Israel, a country facing immense diplomatic pressure, that kind of public reaffirmation from the world’s largest democracy matters.
All of this made the Knesset debate – one that might have made sense in the summer – feel out of step with the present moment. Netanyahu stressed that point.
The prime minister highlighted his upcoming meeting with Trump on December 29 in Mar-a-Lago and his regular conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the latter were critical for safeguarding Israel’s interests in the north. He pointed to this, as well as Merz’s visit and his calls with Modi, as evidence of ongoing engagement with the world’s “great powers.”
And he noted that the government had just approved more than NIS 2 billion for the Foreign Ministry to fight anti-Israel propaganda.
The truth about Israel's wartime international isolation
The premier’s critics were not persuaded. They argue that none of this erases the broader erosion of Israel’s standing in the world or the intensity of criticism from both allies and adversaries.And they are not wrong. The floodwaters have not receded. Israel still faces legal challenges in The Hague, protests across Europe, widespread delegitimization efforts, and a global public that has grown increasingly skeptical of its military actions.
But the picture is more complex than “collapse.” This week illustrated that international isolation is neither uniform nor inevitable.
In some arenas – Germany, India, parts of Latin America – Israel is holding its ground and beginning to regain lost territory. In others – like Eurovision – allies are pushing back against efforts to exclude it. The diplomatic tide triggered by the war is no longer rising uncontrollably; in several places, it is beginning, however slowly, to ebb.
If the summer was the season of anxiety, this moment is one of recalibration. Recovery is not restoration. It is slower, subtler, and more fragile. But it has begun. And this week, for the first time in many months, Israel could look across the global landscape and see more than just setbacks. It could see footholds – some small, some symbolic, some strategic – from which to begin rebuilding.
Herb Keinon
Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-880071
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