Guatemala’s Strange Love Affair with Israel

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Guatemala's Strange Love Affair with Israel
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2025/04/11/guatemalas-strange-love-affair-with-israel/

Strange things are happening in Guatemala.

In February 2025, Guatemalan authorities arrested Yoel Alter, a senior leader of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish cult Lev Tahor, outside a government childcare facility in Guatemala City.

Alter is wanted in Guatemala and Mexico in connection to human trafficking allegations. He had recently been organizing protests as a direct response to the Guatemala government's crackdown in November that separated 148 children from their parents within the sect's compound near Oratorio, Guatemala. The protests sought to challenge the Guatemalan government's custody of minors rescued during raids that uncovered systemic abuse, including forced marriages, child rape, and malnutrition.

Lev Tahor "Pure Heart" was founded in 1988 in Jerusalem by Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. The group adheres to an extreme interpretation of Judaism, enforcing strict dietary laws, extended prayer sessions, and requiring women and girls to wear full-body coverings.

The Jewish cult relocated to Guatemala around 2013 after fleeing investigations in other countries, such as Canada and the United States, for a series of sex-related crimes. They established a compound near Oratorio, close to the border with El Salvador. The move was part of their pattern of seeking refuge in countries with less stringent oversight on matters concerning human trafficking.

The broader Jewish communities in these Latin American countries tactically distanced themselves from Lev Tahor and supported recent investigations into the sect, likely as a way to divert attention away from organized Jewry's long-standing connections to human trafficking.

What could have possibly made Guatemala a spot for the most depraved elements of Jewish society to carry out their heinous crimes? A closer look at its recent history reveals the rise of a sizable evangelical movement—one that has made Guatemala Latin America's most staunchly pro-Zionist state.

This growth of evangelicalism in Guatemala has been over a century in the making. In 1882, Justo Barrios, a liberal president with anti-Catholic views, invited an American Presbyterian minister to Guatemala to encourage the growth of Protestantism. Later, in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Protestant missionaries from organizations like the Central American Mission, Quakers, Primitive Methodists, and Nazarenes began arriving. Pentecostal missionaries associated with the United and Free Gospel Society joined them in 1916.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), perceptively remarked in an interview Christianity Today in 2017 that wherever Pentecostal traditions have spread across the globe, so has Christian Zionism. Research has confirmed Eckstein's observation, which has found a correlation between the growth of these traditions and support for Israel. "Just as Pentecostals and Charismatics experienced remarkable success spreading their movement around the globe, exuberant expressions of Christian Zionism proliferated alongside these preexisting Pentecostal networks as well," wrote Joseph Williams, a religious scholar at Rutgers University. This trend toward evangelical confessions held true in Guatemala throughout the 20th century.

After World War II, the Central American nation played a crucial role in the establishment of Israel's statehood, being one of the first countries to vote in favor of UN Resolution 181 in 1947. This resolution called for the partition of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish state. In 1948, Guatemala became one of 21 countries in the United Nations to recognize the state of Israel.

Guatemala's support for Israel's creation in 1948 laid the foundation for deep military collaboration between the two nations. As one of the first nations to recognize Israel, Guatemala positioned itself as a key ally during the Cold War, particularly as Guatemala faced international isolation for its role in suppressing indigenous guerillas during a brutal civil war from 1960 to 1996 —  a conflict that claimed over 200,000 lives.

Under Guatemalan President Carlos Arana Osorio (1970–1974), Israel began supplying arms and counterinsurgency expertise, which intensified after the United States restricted military aid to Guatemala in 1977 over human rights abuses. Israeli advisers gradually introduced tactics modeled on Israel's own occupation strategies in Palestine. Among these were scorched-earth operations that Guatemalan forces emulated in their campaigns to destroy more than 600 villages.

Israeli influence also extended to military infrastructure, with Guatemalan troops adopting Israeli-designed field camps, communication systems, and weaponry such as Galil assault rifles and Uzi submachine guns. Additionally, Israel's Nahal program — fusing military training with agricultural settlement — served as a blueprint for Guatemala's "Beans and Bullets" strategy, aimed at pacifying rural populations through the provision of basic services such as health care, education, and other benefits to Indigenous communities who cooperated with the government, while meting out harsh punishments against communities suspected of supporting guerrillas.

The Israeli-Guatemalan collaboration continued swimmingly under the regime of General Efraín Ríos Montt, who ruled from 1982 to 1983. In addition to being backed by the United States, his government received crucial military support from Israel, including Arava transport planes and armored vehicles, fueling one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala's history.

While Israel helped Guatemala wage a brutal civil war, many Guatemalans sought solace in religion. Evangelical churches provided a sense of community and hope amidst widespread suffering. The Guatemalan earthquake of 1976, which killed over 22,000 people. was another key moment in the spread of evangelicalism in Guatemala. It devastated many communities, and evangelical organizations, particularly from the United States, saw this as an opportunity to provide extensive humanitarian aid and grow their influence. These groups filled gaps left by the government, offering food, shelter, and emotional support. Their efforts gained them significant numbers of converts as they presented both material and spiritual solutions during a time of crisis.

In this process, General Ríos Montt would become Guatemala's first evangelical Christian president during his brief time in office. His government promoted evangelicalism as part of its agenda, allying with the U.S.-based evangelical groups and figures such as Pat Robertson. Ríos Montt's government actively supported evangelical churches while marginalizing Catholicism by accusing it of being linked to liberation theology and leftist movements during the Central American country's civil war. This political backing helped solidify evangelical influence in the country.

Though Ríos Montt's tenure was brief, evangelicalism endured as a potent force in Guatemalan politics, with later presidents like Jorge Serrano Elías (1990–1993) and Jimmy Morales (2016-2020) openly embracing the faith as a defining feature of their public identities. The latter, who is an evangelical entertainer with a Baptist seminary degree, was particularly zealous about his pro-evangelical credentials and his devotion to the Jewish state.

As Guatemala's third evangelical president, Morales prioritized Israel since his election in 2015. His first official visit outside of the Americas was Israel itself. "Guatemala has a special relationship with Israel, and we know we can continue to work together in partnership and hand in hand," Morales said to then-Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem during a diplomatic visit he made to Israel in 2016.

In 2018, the United States broke a major diplomatic taboo by moving its embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — a move that unraveled seven decades of global consensus, Jerusalem's status as a contested capital traces back to the aforementioned UN Resolution 181, which designated the city as a corpus separatum under international administration. The plan was rejected by Arab states, leading to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the division of Jerusalem into Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem and Jordanian-held East Jerusalem.

Israel's capture of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War further complicated the city's status, with Israel asserting sovereignty over the entire municipality—a claim unrecognized by the United Nations and most nations. The international community, including the United States until 2018, maintained embassies in Tel Aviv to avoid influencing the outcome of final-status negotiations.

However, when Donald Trump took the White House in 2016, Israel's political fortunes took a fortuitous turn. As a public figure with deep connections to organized Jewry that span multiple decades, Trump could be counted on to carry out Israel's bidding. Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem was one of Trump's most notable pro-Israeli gestures.

As both a vassal state of the United States and a loyal friend of Israel, Guatemala would shortly follow Uncle Sam in moving its embassy to Jerusalem. Morales described the move as a continuation of Guatemala's pro-Zionist legacy, stressing "love, peace, and fraternity" with Israel.

In Guatemala, Israel has a reliable toady. The Guatemalan parliament regularly celebrates Israel's anniversaries and has established a Guatemala-Israel Parliamentary Friendship League with over 80 deputies. Guatemala and Israel also bolstered trade ties by signing a free trade agreement in March 2024.

As the United States renews its focus on Latin America, its diplomatic posture is increasingly likely to hinge on each country's stance toward Israel — effectively sorting allies and adversaries along that axis. Being a polity run by and for the benefit of Jews creates such a strange dynamic. For its warm relationship with Israel, Guatemala appears to have received a get-out-of-jail-free card.

It's an open secret that Mexico has the largest population of illegal aliens in the United States at roughly 5 million per DHS figures — a conservative estimate if we're being honest. In second place, Guatemala has 750,000 illegal aliens living in the United States. Additionally, there are close to 2 million Hispanics of Guatemalan origin living in the United States.

Like most diasporas from the Global South, Guatemala is largely dependent on remittances. Remittances to Guatemala reached a record $21.5 billion in 2024 — constituting nearly 20 percent of the country's GDP.

Despite having such a large number of migrants sullying the United States' venerable soil, Guatemala receives mild criticism from the United States. Contrast that to Colombia, whose president Gustavo Petro has offended the DC foreign policy consensus by criticizing Israel's genocide in Gaza and cozying up to China. Indeed, Colombia has a sizable illegal alien population of 240,000, but it still trails considerably behind Guatemala's.

Regardless, at the start of the second Trump administration, Colombia received massive tariff threats and a nasty tongue lashing from the Trump administration. Michael Oren, the former United States ambassador to Israel, praised Trump for his tariff threats against Colombia, saying, "I applaud President Trump's resolve in confronting Colombia's openly anti-American government. Let this be a message to the world's terror-supporting regimes: America is back."

Remarkably, Oren previously praised Guatemala for its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital on December 24, 2017. He exclaimed, "Viva Guatemala! It takes courage for a superpower to stand up for justice and recognize Jerusalem as Israel's eternal capital. But it takes even more —immense guts—for a small nation to do that. People of Guatemala, the people of Israel will never forget your support and bravery."

One thing is clear: A credible anti-Zionist threat is not coming out of Guatemala anytime soon.

As of 2023, evangelical Christians comprise an estimated 44.2 to 45.6 percent of Guatemala's population, making evangelicalism the country's largest religious affiliation—surpassing Catholicism, which now accounts for approximately 42.4 percent. This marks a profound transformation in the nation's religious landscape, driven in part by vigorous proselytizing and the movement's resonance during periods of political upheaval and natural disaster. In turn, it has helped establish a lasting pro-Zionist sentiment within the Guatemalan populace.

In the wake of Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, the Jewish state has had to walk a delicate public relations tight rope. The Israel Defense Force's punitive campaign against the population of Gaza, often resembling an industrial scale child ritual murder act that would make an extremist Hasidic cult blush, has horrified large swatches of the globe.

While Israel enjoys the special privilege of being supported by the world's pre-imminent superpower in the United States, no country's super power status is permanent. It is for that reason, as I've detailed previously, Israel has courted nations such as India as part of a plan to have backup options in a world where the United States can no longer be counted to be the unipolar power.

In such a multipolar environment, the Jewish state will be looking to recruit all manner of allies big and small. Guatemala, as backwards and geopolitically irrelevant as it may be, will be one of the few nations who will back Israel unconditionally, no matter what skullduggery Israel is involved in.

However, with Javier Milei as President of Argentina, Guatemala could have stiff competition in being Israel's most loyal house slave in the Spanish-speaking world.

Not exactly something to be proud of.