The Isaac Accords: A New Covenant of Faith and Freedom Between Israel and Latin America

A one-million-dollar prize, a rabbi-turned-ambassador, and a president who calls himself a friend of Zion have combined to produce the boldest realignment in the Western Hemisphere’s relationship with Israel since the state’s founding.

In 1947, a Guatemalan diplomat named Jorge García Granados rallied Latin American votes behind the United Nations partition plan that midwifed the modern State of Israel. Nearly eighty years later, that same hemisphere is being called back into covenant with the Jewish state — this time under a name drawn straight from Scripture: the Isaac Accords.

Signed in Jerusalem on April 19, 2026, by Argentine President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Accords are an explicit sequel to the 2020 Abraham Accords — this time extending the model of normalization and partnership beyond the Middle East and into the Western Hemisphere, among what organizers call “the descendants of Isaac and nations of the Judeo-Christian tradition,” according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

From a Prize to a Pact

The story begins not with statecraft but with a rabbi. Argentina’s ambassador to Israel, Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish — Milei’s own personal rabbi before his diplomatic posting — first floated the concept in June 2025. Two months later, at a Jerusalem ceremony honoring Milei with the 2025 Genesis Prize, sometimes called the “Jewish Nobel,” the Argentine leader made it official, pledging his entire $1 million prize purse as seed funding for the initiative.

That gift became the founding capital of the American Friends of the Isaac Accords (AFOIA), an organization built by the Genesis Prize Foundation and led by S. Fitzgerald “Fitz” Haney, the former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica. Genesis Prize Foundation chairman Stan Polovets described the effort as bringing the spirit of the Abraham Accords to the Western Hemisphere — deliberately built through civil-society and business partnerships rather than treaty language alone, so it could move faster than traditional diplomacy.

“You have brought our people closer. Now we’re bringing them even closer.” — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the Jerusalem signing ceremony

What the Accords Actually Do

Unlike the original Abraham Accords, which centered on formal diplomatic normalization, the Isaac Accords package is built around a bundle of practical agreements. According to reporting from the signing in Jerusalem, the package includes a nine-article counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing memorandum, an artificial-intelligence cooperation agreement linking Israel’s National AI Headquarters with Argentina’s National Innovation Secretariat, and a new commercial air route — El Al’s first direct Tel Aviv–Buenos Aires flights, set to launch in November 2026.

The timing was not incidental. Days before the signing, Argentina expelled its top Iranian diplomatic representative in Buenos Aires. Milei’s remarks at the ceremony invoked the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy and the 1994 AMIA bombing — the two deadliest terrorist attacks in Argentine history, both attributed by Argentine courts to Iranian state planning. Framing the Accords as unfinished justice as much as new partnership, Milei has already designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization and renamed a Buenos Aires street once called “Palestine Street” in honor of the Bibas family, according to a Genesis Prize Foundation statement.

A Region Watching Closely

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, present at the ceremony, cast the signing as part of a broader Trump-era realignment, saying he stood alongside two of President Trump’s greatest allies. Washington’s interest is not incidental: analysts note the Accords give the U.S. a way to counter the growing footprint of China, Russia, and Iran across a hemisphere it considers its own backyard, per an American Jewish Committee explainer on the initiative.

Bridges Already Built

Even before the April signing, the groundwork had been laid across the continent. Costa Rica signed a free-trade agreement with Israel in 2025 centered on medical technology and sustainable energy. Panama began weaving Israeli cybersecurity and fintech know-how into its banking and logistics sectors. Guatemala, Honduras, and Paraguay all now keep embassies in Jerusalem — what organizers call the “gold standard” of alignment with the Accords — while Costa Rica and Ecuador have opened Innovation Offices there with formal diplomatic standing, according to coverage from The Times of Israel’s Blogs section.

Bolivia, under President Rodrigo Paz, has restored full diplomatic relations with Israel and lifted visa requirements. Ecuador has formally designated Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as terrorist organizations. Honduras and Chile have each elected presidents seen as sympathetic to Israel. In late June, more than twenty lawmakers, ambassadors, and religious leaders from across the region — including from Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia — gathered in Argentina for a chairmen’s conference co-hosted by AFOIA, where Haney described the alliance as operating at the crossroads of public and private diplomacy.

The Road Still Ahead

Not every ambition has been realized yet. Milei has twice promised, and not yet delivered, the relocation of Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem — a step organizers view as the true marker of commitment. Brazil, whose landmass covers nearly half of South America, remains the biggest prize still out of reach, its outgoing government locked in open conflict with Israel over Gaza. All eyes are now on Brazil’s October 2026 presidential election as a potential turning point, according to analysis from The Jerusalem Post.

Still, Milei framed the moment in unmistakably historic terms at the signing, calling it a historic moment for our nations — one he said would strengthen not only Argentina’s bond with Israel, but chart a path toward a freer, more prosperous hemisphere.

Why It Matters for Faith and Freedom

For readers of this publication, the Isaac Accords are more than a diplomatic press release. They are a case study in how shared civilizational conviction — a belief in the Judeo-Christian moral inheritance, a rejection of terror, and a commitment to religious liberty — can still reorder the map, even in an age of cynicism about faith in public life. Whether the Accords fulfill their founders’ hopes or stall short of Brazil and beyond, they already stand as proof that a rabbi’s idea, a president’s prize money, and a shared refusal to be intimidated by terror can still move nations.