The new Ambassador of Chile, Santiago Benadava, formerly a chairman of a Zionist youth organization, presented his credentials yesterday to President Yitzhak Navon, in the wake of his government’s decision to move the embassy to Tel Aviv.
“The fact is that I am Ambassador to Israel,” he said. “it is not up to me to regret or not to regret the decision to move the embassy. It is the decision of my country.”
Benadava, 49, is a professor of international law. His family migrated from Izmir, Turkey in the 1920s. Benadava’s predecessor, Jose Berdichevsky, was also Jewish, as was his predecessor, Samuel Gleiser. Benadava served in the past in the Vatican, The Hague and London.
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