JERUSALEM — Forty-six years after the UN Security Council told governments to take their embassies out of Jerusalem, Colombia opened one there on Wednesday, the tenth country to do so.
Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar travelled to attend, alongside Israel’s Gideon Saar. Bula called the opening “a concrete step toward restoring diplomatic relations” that “should never have been broken,” and described Israel as a strategic partner. Saar called it “a recognition of the simple political fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” according to the Times of Israel.
The building matters less than the direction. President Abelardo de la Espriella, who vowed a Jerusalem embassy before he won, took office in August and has moved quickly to undo the policy of his predecessor, Gustavo Petro, who cut ties with Israel in May 2024 over the Gaza war. A free trade agreement Petro had suspended was reinstated on Tuesday.
The legal line is older than either government. Resolution 478, adopted on August 20, 1980 by 14 votes to none with the United States abstaining, censured Israel’s “basic law” on Jerusalem, declared measures altering the city’s character and status “null and void,” and called on states with diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw them. Most governments still keep embassies in Tel Aviv, arguing that the city’s status should be settled in a final agreement with the Palestinians, as the Times of Israel noted.
The reaction followed that script. The Palestinian foreign ministry called the opening a violation of international law and UN resolutions, Middle East Eye reported, and Jordan’s foreign ministry said the same, according to Al Jazeera. In July the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation had already called the plan “a flagrant violation of United Nations resolutions” and “a regrettable departure from Colombia’s historic positions.”
At home the policy is contested. Protesters rallied in Bogotá before the opening; one, Nicolas Isaza, told Al Jazeera that “today our government is no longer drawing a line against the atrocities being committed in Palestine.” Saar, for his part, said the Democratic Republic of the Congo would open its Jerusalem embassy “very soon” and suggested Brazil might follow.
What the reporting does not say is whether Bogotá has answered Resolution 478 at all, or what the tenth embassy gets Colombia that the first nine did not. The embassy opened in West Jerusalem. The city’s eastern half, occupied since 1967, is where the Palestinian claim sits.
