Venezuela’s socialist government announced Tuesday that it has restored consular ties with Israel, officially ending a 17-year rupture that began under the late dictator Hugo Chávez. The move marks a striking departure from the regime’s longstanding anti-Israel posture and represents a significant setback for Iran, which had cultivated Venezuela as one of its closest allies in the Western Hemisphere.
The announcement came just weeks after two devastating earthquakes struck Venezuela on June 24, killing more than 6,300 people and injuring thousands more. Israel was among the countries that provided humanitarian assistance in the aftermath, and the restoration of consular relations was framed as a continuation of that bilateral cooperation.
In an official statement released Tuesday, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry said both countries agreed to restore consular relations, granting their respective nationals access to consular services. The statement emphasized the importance of the bond between Israel and Venezuela’s Jewish community, which it called “a significant historical bridge of friendship between the two countries.”
Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia published a copy of the statement on social media, and Israel’s official Spanish-language Twitter account shared the text minutes later. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar confirmed that the restoration followed talks he held with his Venezuelan counterpart in recent weeks, highlighting the joint statement’s recognition of the connection between Israel and Venezuela’s Jewish community.
A Radical Realignment Begins
Venezuela and Israel maintained friendly ties for decades before Chávez took office in 1999 and began a drastic realignment of the country’s foreign policy. According to Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, Chávez moved quickly to forge alliances with Iran and other anti-Israel nations in the Middle East, bonding with Tehran over shared hostility toward the United States and Israel.
From 2006 onward, Chávez unilaterally strained Venezuela’s relations with Israel while deepening ties with Iran, notably welcoming then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Caracas. In January 2009, Chávez ordered a complete rupture of diplomatic ties with Israel, accusing the Jewish state of committing a “holocaust” in Gaza. That same month, a group of individuals broke into the Tiferet Israel synagogue in Caracas, causing significant damage to religious objects and leaving antisemitic graffiti on the walls. Israeli officials at the time accused the Venezuelan regime of instigating the attack.
Chávez’s rhetoric escalated further in 2010, when he delivered what is widely described as his harshest condemnation of Israel during a broadcast, accusing the United States of “sponsoring” terrorism through Israel and calling it a “terrorist and assassin” state.
“I take this opportunity to condemn the State of Israel once again, from the very depths of my soul and my gut: Damn you, State of Israel, damn you. Terrorists and murderers,” Chávez said.
Maduro and the Hardline Continuity
After Chávez died of cancer in March 2013, his chosen successor, Nicolás Maduro, maintained the same hardline anti-Israel stance. In the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack, Maduro accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza.
Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president until his capture by U.S. forces in January 2026, also sustained a public anti-Israel posture. Rodríguez participated in anti-Israeli rallies organized by the regime in the weeks following the October 7 attack and in December 2023 published a video calling for an “end to the genocide in Palestine perpetrated by Israel’s Zionist regime.”
Now serving as “acting president,” Rodríguez appears to have drastically changed her stance, according to the report. In July, she met with specialists from an Israeli delegation that had been providing assistance in identifying structural vulnerabilities and assessing collapsed buildings and other damaged structures after the earthquakes.
A Message to Iran
The restoration of consular ties is all the more notable given Venezuela’s recent diplomatic friction with Iran. Last month, the Venezuelan regime elevated a formal protest to Tehran over comments made by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who reportedly told Iranian state media that Iran “isn’t Venezuela” when it comes to negotiating with the United States — an apparent reference to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro in January.
The move effectively ends more than two decades of Venezuela serving as Iran’s closest ally in Latin America, and it signals a broader recalibration of Caracas’s foreign policy following Maduro’s ouster. While the restoration is limited to consular relations for now, analysts will be watching to see whether full diplomatic ties are reestablished in the coming months.
Israel, meanwhile, has welcomed the development, with Sa’ar emphasizing the importance of the historical connection between Israel and Venezuela’s Jewish community.
For Tehran, the loss of Venezuela as a reliable partner is a significant blow, as it erodes Iran’s foothold in the Western Hemisphere and undermines years of investment in the relationship. The announcement is another sign that the political landscape in Caracas is shifting — and that Iran’s influence in Latin America is receding.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2026/08/12/big-loss-iran-venezuelan-socialists-restore-ties-israel/