Israel backs down in row with Brazil over ambassador

Israel has backed down in a long-running and bitter diplomatic dispute withBrazil, withdrawing its nomination of a controversial settler leader as ambassador after Brasília refused to accept his credentials.

The seven-month long impasse over the planned appointment of Dani Dayan, a former chairman of the the West Bank Yesha settler council, came to an end on Monday when Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is also the country’s foreign minister, announced he would be appointed consul general in New York instead.

Rejection of a proposed ambassador is extremely rare and had drawn considerable attention to the Dayan case.

According to Israel’s deputy foreign minister late last year, the Dayan case was the first instance in which a proposed Israeli diplomat had been rejected for his “ideological” views.

The move comes despite repeated insistence by senior officials that they would ensure that Dayan – who lives in a settlement – would be allowed to take up his post in Brazil.

Under diplomatic protocols, when a new ambassador is proposed if the accepting country does not officially accept the appointment – known as agrément – it is supposed to be understood that the appointment is rejected, the situation in Dayan’s case.

Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, last summer sent messages to Israel making clear she disapproved of the appointment of the Argentina-born Dayan because of his involvement in promoting illegal Israeli settlement construction.

Rousseff had also been lobbied by Brazilian groups and some MPs to reject Dayan as ambassador. Speaking at a conference opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in Jerusalem on Monday, Dayan said: “I don’t think that we folded. There was no choice. Those who don’t want me in Brasília will get me in the capital of the world and to me that is a victory. I believe I can revolutionise Israeli public relations in the US, whose beating heart is in New York.”

In an interview with Israel’s army radio, Dayan added: “I’ll tell you a secret: when the prime minister asked me to serve as ambassador in Brasília, I asked for the office of consul general in New York instead. Now I’m getting what I think I know how to do best,” said Dayan.

Dayan previously argued that should Brazil succeed in excluding him, it could create a precedent barring settlers from representing Israel abroad.

In January it was widely reported in the Israeli media that Netanyahu had insisted that if Brazil did not accept Dayan, it would not offer an alternative candidate.

“I believe that Dani Dayan is an exceptionally qualified candidate and he remains my candidate,” he insisted in J Hotovely’s comments represented a sharp U-turn after she had earlier said that if Brazil did not approve Dayan, Israel would be served in the country by its number two diplomat there.

Israel appears increasingly isolated on the international stage over its continued policy of settlement construction.

Last week the United Nations human rights council voted to set up a database of Israeli and foreign companies operating in the the occupied West Bank despite lobbying by Israel to block the move.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip – territories Palestinians claim for their future state – in the 1967 six-day war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Nearly 600,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

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Welcoming the appointment, Israel’s rightwing deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, said: “The appointment of Danny to one of the strategic locations in the United States is an important statement to the world.

“The state of Israel will be blessed with a worthy representative who lives in [one of the] settlements in Judea and Samaria, and will carry an important message that the Israeli government stands behind Danny as a faithful and worthy representative of the state,” she said.