With a presidential vote drawing near, campaign flags have spread across the streets of São Paulo, the country's capital. Among the flags on display are those of Brazil, Israel, and Palestine — nationalities whose presence together points to the range of political viewpoints held by those gathered, spanning concerns tied to both Latin America and the Middle East.
Roughly a third of Latin America's people live within Brazil's borders, and the country's output accounts for a comparable share — about 33% — of the region's total economic activity. Where each candidate stands on Israel and Palestine has added an international dimension to the race between sitting president Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, a contest already carrying considerable weight for domestic policy.
Across Latin America, stances on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have come to function as indicators of wider political alignment, mirroring domestic conversations around sovereignty and national security. Soraya Misleh, a Palestinian-Brazilian journalist whose father, Abder Raouf Misleh, was displaced from Palestine during the Nakba, argued that left-leaning organisations have grown increasingly attentive to what she characterises as Israel's use of Palestinian territory as a testing ground for military technologies that are later exported globally.
Certain political figures have put forward the view that approaches taken in Israel offer a template for countering what they describe as terrorism-related threats. Several leaders across Latin America — among them Honduras's Nasry Asfura and Colombia's Abelardo de la Espriella — have moved to strengthen trade, diplomatic, and security ties with Israel while also maintaining close alignment with Washington.
Flávio Bolsonaro was born into a political lineage established by his father, Jair Bolsonaro, who held the Brazilian presidency before him. On a West Bank visit in January, Flávio Bolsonaro expressed backing for Israeli settlers there and committed to moving the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; he has also put on record his position that Israel holds the right to exist, to pursue territorial defence, and to protect its population.
Bolsonaro had secured a first-round result on October 5 when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended congratulations to him ahead of any final outcome. Bolsonaro has also put forward a proposal to align with what United States President Donald Trump calls the Shield of the Americas, a grouping framed as targeting cartel activity.
Among the policy commitments Bolsonaro has put forward are the construction of maximum-security detention facilities and the formal designation of organised crime networks as narco-terrorists — an approach that draws comparisons to governance models pursued by Argentina's Javier Milei and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele.
In February 2024, Lula recalled Brazil's ambassador from Israel and, at the African Union Summit, put forward a comparison between Israeli military conduct in Gaza and the Holocaust, while also voicing solidarity with nations he characterised as sharing a commitment to combating organised crime and terrorism. Netanyahu responded by describing the Brazilian president as someone who holds deeply antisemitic views, while Foreign Minister Israel Katz formally declared him unwelcome in the country; separately, Brazil moved in September 2025 to align itself with South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Thirty-six armoured howitzers valued at $145 million were set to be procured from Elbit Systems under a contract that Defence Minister José Múcio Monteiro did not finalise during the Lula administration, leaving the agreement without a signature as of May 2024. A halt to weapons shipments bound for Israel took effect twelve months on.
Records held by Brazil's National Petroleum Agency and the Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services put petroleum shipments to Israel at zero for 2025, a notable shift from the preceding period running from October 2023 through July 2024, when Brazil ranked as the fifth-largest source of oil for that country. No comprehensive arms embargo has been put in place by the Lula administration.
Trade ties between Brazil and Israel have flowed across multiple sectors under the Mercosur-Israel Free Trade Agreement, a pact that Brazil joined in December 2007. Trade data published by Brazil's official foreign commerce authority put the value of fertiliser shipments arriving from Israel at more than $500 billion during 2025, a figure representing roughly one third of what Israel exported in that sector to the entire world.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese stated in a report that Israel's agricultural business sector has grown through resource extraction and land acquisition practices that serve the interests of Israeli settlers, generate market expansion, and draw global investment, while Palestinian food systems have been diminished and displacement has accelerated. Separately, Bolsonaro has put forward a proposal to deepen ties with Israel, pointing to the value of collaboration in technology and what he described as a set of wide-ranging, historically notable agreements, with his commitment including the signing of the Isaac Accords — a framework between Israel and Argentina covering trade, technology, and counterterrorism cooperation.
At a Buenos Aires gathering in June, Bolsonaro was among twelve Latin American legislators who put their names to a resolution backing expansion of the Accords. Misleh separately told a news outlet that a Lula re-election would prompt continued pressure for a full severance of economic, military, and diplomatic ties with Israel. On a potential return of Bolsonaro to the presidency, she expressed concern that advocacy voices for Palestine in Brazil would face tightened restrictions, with democratic freedoms coming under added pressure.
Bolsonaro has attributed an anticipated improvement in ties between Brazil and Israel to his own evangelical faith. Flags and other symbols tied to Israel appear with regularity across evangelical congregations and gatherings.
Quarried limestone sourced from Jerusalem — with a declared worth of $8 million — was incorporated into the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God's Temple of Solomon, a São Paulo structure that opened its doors in 2014. According to analyst Panotto, Eduardo Bolsonaro has pursued a more deliberate courtship of evangelical voters than his father did, pointing to symbolic acts — among them a baptism carried out in Jerusalem — as evidence of a strategy his father never employed. At a gathering of the Assemblies of God, Brazil's largest Pentecostal denomination, Eduardo Bolsonaro characterised the country's present political divisions as a conflict playing out on a spiritual plane.
