Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!

So, for those who don't know, Paraguay has really close relation with Israel. Paraguay has been ruled by the conservative Colorado party (They are mostly Conservative, Neoliberal and Pro-Taiwan. There are some socdems inside the party though, these were part of the anti-Stroessner guerrilas) since the 1950's, with exception of a brief period in the late 2000's, early 2010's where the Liberals (Sometimes called the Blue Party, they are the Pro-PRC Socdems/Liberals) and Leftist actually won the elections with help from moderate and socdem Colorado politicians.

During the brutal far-right dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, Israel, under the goverment of Golda Meir, approved a plan to pay for 60,000 Palestinians to leave Gaza and go to Paraguay, where they would be used practically as slave labor. The Paraguayan regime saw the Palestinians as ideal immigrants, as they thought were not inclined towards communism because they were muslims.

Only 30 Palestinians immigrated to Paraguay as part of it, and they soon became impoverished. Two of them came to the Israeli embassy in Asuncion to claim money they claimed had not been paid to them, shot the embassy secretary to death because they thought she was calling the police, and wounded another employee.

During the trial, the two claimed that they were lured to immigrate from Gaza to Paraguay, and that they were promised that Israel would help them find a job and learn Spanish. They set off after receiving travel documents, $25 pocket money and plane tickets from Israel via London and Rio de Janeiro. In Paraguay they discovered that they had been misled and the promises made to them were not fulfilled.

The Israeli government placed the blame on Fatah members , but the organization denied involvement. The entire deal was eventually canceled.