On Wednesday morning, two foreign ministers pulled back a curtain in Jerusalem. Behind it: a new embassy sign, Colombia's flag beside it. Israel's Gideon Sa'ar affixed a mezuzah — the small parchment scroll Jewish tradition places on doorposts — to the entrance, signed the guest book, and called it a historical day. Colombia had just become the tenth country in the world to put its embassy in Jerusalem.
It was also, unmistakably, a political demolition. Everything about the ceremony was designed to bury the previous two years.
Join us live now for the official opening ceremony of the Colombian Embassy in Jerusalem with FM @gidonsaar and Colombian FM Omar Bula Escobar! (Israel’s Foreign Ministry, @IsraelMFA)
Join us live now for the official opening ceremony of the Colombian Embassy in Jerusalem with FM @gidonsaar and Colombian FM Omar Bula Escobar! 🇮🇱🇨🇴https://t.co/qan75fjqUU
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 14, 2026
The break
In May 2024, then-president Gustavo Petro — Colombia's first leftist president — severed diplomatic relations with Israel over its military campaign in Gaza. He closed Colombia's embassy in Tel Aviv, recalled his ambassador, terminated the two countries' free trade agreement and halted coal exports to Israel. Israel called the moves antisemitic and a reward for Hamas. By the time Petro left office, the relationship was effectively dead.
Abelardo De La Espriella, the right-wing president sworn in this August, campaigned on resurrecting it. Before his election, he told Sa'ar at a meeting in Buenos Aires that if he won, he would move Colombia's embassy to Jerusalem immediately. "He promised — and fulfilled," Sa'ar wrote on Wednesday.
The choreography this week was deliberate. On Tuesday, the free trade agreement Petro had killed was reinstated. On Wednesday, the embassy opened — and Sa'ar and his Colombian counterpart, Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar, sat down for bilateral talks the same day.
Why Jerusalem matters
To a global reader, the geography needs explaining, because the geography is the politics. Israel regards Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state. The city's status is one of the most contested questions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and nearly every country keeps its embassy in Tel Aviv instead.
Only a small club has broken ranks: the United States moved its embassy in 2018, followed by Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Nauru and Somaliland. Colombia is now the tenth. Sa'ar noted the club has doubled since he took office less than two years ago — and said the Democratic Republic of Congo has already agreed to become the eleventh, "very soon."
"Opening an embassy in Jerusalem is not only recognition of the simple political fact that Jerusalem is Israel's capital," Sa'ar said at the ceremony. "It is also recognition of a historical truth that no honest person can deny."
Escobar answered in kind: "Today, we are taking a concrete step towards restoring diplomatic relations between our countries, relations that should never have been broken. Israel is a strategic partner. It always has been, and from now on, it will be an even stronger one."
The other audience
Not everyone applauded. Palestinian officials denounced the inauguration the same day, calling it a violation of Palestinian national rights and urging Colombia to reverse course — a reminder that every embassy that lands in Jerusalem lands on contested ground. The move comes as Israel faces mounting international pressure over Gaza and raids on NGOs and a hospital in Ramallah last week, and days after Washington sanctioned the International Criminal Court over its investigations.
That is the context in which this embassy should be read. De La Espriella is not just repairing a bilateral relationship; he is placing Colombia on one side of a widening global divide — with Washington and a small group of Jerusalem-embassy states on one side, and much of the rest of the world on the other. Petro used the rupture to make Colombia Latin America's loudest critic of Israel. His successor is using the repair to make it Israel's loudest friend.
Whether the repair outlasts the presidency that ordered it is the open question. Trade deals can be reinstated and embassies can be reopened; they can also be closed again. Colombia has now done both, in opposite directions, within thirty months.
