Venezuela’s socialist regime announced Tuesday that it has restored consular ties with the state of Israel, ending a 17-year-old rupture ordered by late dictator Hugo Chávez.
The announcement marks a significant departure from the staunch anti-Israel stance adopted by the Venezuelan socialist regime — a longtime ally of Iran’s Islamic regime.
Israel is among the countries that provided humanitarian assistance to Venezuela in the wake of the devastating June 24 double earthquakes that left over 6,300 dead and thousands more injured.
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry explained in an official statement on Tuesday that both countries have agreed to continue the bilateral cooperation that started in the aftermath of the earthquakes. As such, the Ministry announced, both countries agreed to restore consular relations with one another, granting their respective nationals access to consular services.
Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia published a copy of the statement on social media on Tuesday. The State of Israel’s official Spanish-language Twitter account also published a copy of the statement’s text minutes later.
“Both governments recognize the importance of the bond between the State of Israel and the Jewish community residing in Venezuela, which constitutes a significant historical bridge of friendship between the two countries,” the statement read.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar celebrated the announcement and confirmed that the restoration of consular ties between Venezuela and Israel follows talks that he held with his Venezuelan counterpart in recent weeks. Sa’ar highlighted that the joint statement published by both countries emphasized the importance of the connection between Israel and the Jewish community of Venezuela.
For more than two decades, the Venezuelan socialist regime maintained a fierce anti-Israel stance that began during the first years of Hugo Chávez’s rule. The late socialist dictator allied himself with Iran, resulting in the regimes rapidly bonding over their shared anti-U.S. and anti-Israel stances. The Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional recounted that Venezuela and Israel maintained friendly ties for decades. However, upon taking office in 1999, Chávez began a drastic realignment of Venezuela’s foreign policy and began establishing alliances with Iran and other anti-Israel nations in the Middle East.
Chávez began unilaterally straining Venezuela’s relations with Israel in favor of deeper ties with Iran from 2006 onwards, welcoming then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Caracas. Three years later, in January 2009, Chávez ordered a complete rupture of all diplomatic ties with Israel, accusing the Jewish state of committing a “holocaust” in Gaza. In that same month, a group of individuals broke into the Tiferet Israel synagogue in Caracas, causing significant damages to religious object, and leaving antisemitic graffiti messages across the building’s walls. At the time, the Israeli government accused the Venezuelan socialist regime of instigating the attack of the synagogue.
A year later, in 2010, Hugo Chávez accused the United States during a broadcast of “sponsoring” terrorism through Israel, which he condemned as a “terrorist and assassin” state. At the time, Chávez delivered what is widely described as his harshest condemnation of Israel.
“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 at the time.
Chávez’s chosen successor, Nicolás Maduro, maintained the same hardline anti-Israel stance in the years that he was in charge of the Venezuelan regime after Chávez died of cancer in March 2013. Maduro, in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza.
Delcy Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president until Maduro’s capture by United States forces in January 2026, also maintained a public anti-Israel stance over the past decade. Rodríguez participated in anti-Israeli rallies held by the Maduro regime in the weeks after the October 7 terrorist attack and in December 2023 published a video calling for an “end to the genocide in Palestine perpetrated by Israel’s Zionist regime.”
The “acting president” appears to have drastically changed her stance during her time in charge of the socialist apparatus. In July, Rodriguez met with specialists from the Israeli delegation after they finished providing assistance in identifying structural vulnerabilities and assessing collapsed buildings and other damaged structures.
Most notably, the Venezuelan regime elevated a formal protest to Iran last month over comments expressed by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi regarding Venezuela. Araghchi reportedly affirmed during an interview with Iranian state media that Iran “isn’t Venezuela” when it comes to negotiating with the United States. The comments appeared to be in reference to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro in January.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.