Brazil a 'Christian Jewish country,' Bolsonaro tells 'Post'; pitches pro-Israel reset - interview

Part of the magnetism was political, part of it was visual. Bolsonaro is the spitting image of his father, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, only younger. The same face, the same expressions, a familiar silhouette for anyone who has watched Brazil’s recent drama play out on screens.

His younger brother, Eduardo, felt more comfortable in English and filled the gaps with anecdotes and commentary. Yet the dynamic between them stayed consistent. Eduardo looked to Flavio with visible respect, the posture of a man who knows who the leader is, even if he is the one doing most of the talking.

Flavio came with a message tailored for an Israeli audience, and for American Jews reading from afar: he wants Brazil back in Israel’s corner, he wants Brazil’s foreign policy dragged away from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s worldview, and he wants the evangelical and conservative forces reshaping Latin America to see Israel as a symbol of shared values and shared enemies.

The quarrel did not stay at the level of rhetoric. Brazil later moved closer to the activist state bloc, pushing legal and diplomatic pressure on Israel, including steps related to South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

This is the political atmosphere Flavio Bolsonaro is trying to reverse. He framed Lula as aligned with “dictators” and singled out Iran as a symbol of the current administration’s direction. He described his camp’s foreign policy as values-driven, anchored in “Judeo-Christian values,” with Brazil partnering with democracies and countries that share a worldview centered on national sovereignty, free speech, and conservative social norms.

Then he went for the clean political line. The best thing Brazil can do to fight antisemitism, he told me, is to remove Lula.

The conference itself made that kind of political messaging easier. “Generation of Truth” was presented as a serious, official international summit, with roundtables on global antisemitism and the post-October 7 surge.

It also drew criticism, including over the presence of certain far-right European figures, and over the way the event blurred the line between fighting antisemitism and building political alliances.

That friction was part of the backdrop in the hallway: diplomats moving past activists, politicians posing for photos, and a sense that everyone came with two agendas, one public and one personal. Flavio Bolsonaro’s public agenda was solidarity with Jews and Israel. His personal agenda was building a plausible path to Brazil’s presidency.

That matters because Jair Bolsonaro’s political fall has left a vacuum on the Brazilian right. Flavio is pitching himself as heir, while also trying to look like something more than “the son of.” In Jerusalem, he leaned into both identities. He used the family brand, and he framed himself as a future head of state.

Flavio and Eduardo both leaned heavily on evangelical language. Flavio called Brazil a “Christian, Jewish country” built on shared values. He spoke about family, faith, human rights, democracy, and freedom of speech. Eduardo made the argument sharper: support for Israel is “the right thing to do,” a principle that sits above negotiation and day-to-day politics.

This rhetoric lands inside a Latin America that is changing religiously, while staying intensely religious in practice.

A new Pew Research Center report published last week found Catholic affiliation has declined across Latin America over the past decade in six large countries surveyed: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. In each, the Catholic share fell by at least nine percentage points, while the share of religiously unaffiliated adults rose by at least seven points.

Brazil is a headline case. Pew found that about 46% of Brazilian adults now identify as Catholic, 29% identify as Protestant, and about 15% are religiously unaffiliated.

Yet belief remains extremely high. Pew found that 98% of Brazilian adults surveyed say they believe in God, and daily prayer in Brazil is among the highest in the region.

This is the key point that is important for politics: religious affiliation is loosening, but religious energy remains strong. In practice, that favors groups that organize well, mobilize well, and communicate well. Evangelicals often do all three, and they increasingly treat Israel as a badge of identity inside a broader culture war.

If anyone doubts how much this extends beyond Brazil, look north. Pew also noted that fewer Hispanics in the US identify as Catholic today than a decade ago.

This is the larger current Flavio was swimming in. The Bolsonaro camp is selling a story about what kind of civilization Latin America should be, and who its friends should be.

Then came the most tangible pledge.

Eduardo also spoke about the “Isaac Accords,” an initiative linked to Argentine President Javier Milei’s effort to build stronger Israel–Latin America ties. The Genesis Prize Foundation describes the Isaac Accords as a vision to deepen economic, cultural, and diplomatic ties between Israel and Latin America, modeled on the spirit of the Abraham Accords.

The name choice is deliberate. It is meant to sound familiar to American readers and to signal a Western Hemisphere version of normalization, partnership, and public alignment with Israel.

Flavio’s team seems to understand that symbols drive politics. An embassy move is a symbol with immediate diplomatic weight. “Isaac Accords” is a symbol with longer-term brand value. Both are designed to tell the same story: Brazil’s right wants to plant a flag, and it wants that flag planted in Jerusalem.

At one point, the conversation drifted into the family’s familiar territory: distrust of institutions, anger at media, suspicion of sabotage.

Eduardo told a story about a breakfast meeting during his father’s 2019 presidency, where a journalist sat nearby and reported details of the conversation, including something trivial about Portuguese spelling. The point of the story was not the spelling. The point was the mood. He wanted Israelis to recognize the music because Israelis have their own version of it: the sense that systems, media, courts, and bureaucracies close ranks against a movement.

This grievance works very well for a politician online.

In 2026, politics has become WhatsApp groups, Telegram channels, influencer clips, and short videos stripped of context and engineered for emotion. In that world, Israel becomes a content object. A selfie with Flavio Bolsonaro becomes a signal to his base. A clip about moving the embassy becomes a loyalty test. A quote about “Judeo-Christian values” becomes a shareable identity marker.

Even inside the conference hallways, you could feel the logic: the selfie became a political asset.

Flavio also framed the next few years as a wider Latin American opening for the right, hinting at a regional wave and a chance to reshape the hemisphere’s alignment.

That part of the pitch is where Israel, Latin America, and the US intersect.

In Lula’s Brazil, Israel became a target for moral condemnation and legal pressure.

In the Bolsonaro worldview, Israel becomes a civilizational ally, and a way to signal membership in the global conservative camp that includes Trump-style politics in the US and Milei-style politics in Argentina. That is why Flavio’s language kept circling back to “values,” and why Eduardo insisted that support for Israel sits above negotiation.

It is also why the audience was important. Many in the room were diaspora Jews. Many Brazilian olim came looking for a connection to home. For American Jews watching from a distance, the Bolsonaro message is meant to be simple: Brazil is a major democracy, Lula made it hostile, and a Bolsonaro return would change that fast.

Whether Brazil actually turns that way depends on Brazil, not on applause in Jerusalem. Brazil’s economy, institutional trust, and social polarization will decide the election. Jair Bolsonaro’s legal and political situation will hang over everything.

Still, Jerusalem offered a preview of the Brazil campaign’s international messaging strategy: treat Israel support as a moral axis, frame evangelical solidarity as a bridge, define Lula as aligned with hostile regimes, and sell a clean promise that fits on a banner.

The most revealing thing about Flavio Bolsonaro in Jerusalem was not the embassy pledge, or even the Isaac Accords talk. It was how easily he turned Israel into a prop for Brazil’s internal struggle.

For his camp, Israel is the story of a democracy under siege that refuses to fold. It is also a convenient stage to perform strength, faith, and civilizational certainty. It plays well on social media, and it plays well in a region where religious identity is shifting while belief remains intense.

Israelis should understand what they are seeing. A Brazilian politician came to Jerusalem and was treated as a president-in-waiting. He took selfies like a celebrity. He was embraced by olim hungry for recognition. He offered promises that would thrill Israel’s right and irritate much of Brazil’s diplomatic establishment.

Some of that is genuine affinity. Some of it is campaign theater. Both can be true at the same time.

The question that follows is larger than Flavio Bolsonaro. Latin America is in a religious reshuffle, a political reshuffle, and a media reshuffle. Leaders who understand symbols and organize believers can turn foreign policy into identity politics. Israel increasingly sits inside that story, sometimes as an ally, sometimes as a villain, often as a tool.

If Brazil swings right in 2026, Israel will feel it. If it stays with Lula’s camp, Israel will keep paying the price of being a moral battleground in someone else’s domestic war.

And if Flavio Bolsonaro does become president, the selfies from Jerusalem will look less like fan behavior and more like early campaign footage for a new chapter in the Americas.