Short answer: Yes: Nayib Bukele is one of the most vocally pro-Israel heads of state in Latin America, despite his own Palestinian Christian family background. He has visited Israel, prayed at the Western Wall and toured Yad Vashem, accepted millions of dollars in medical aid from a Jerusalem-linked foundation early in his presidency, and after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks publicly compared Hamas to the MS-13 gang and said Palestinians would be better off without it. El Salvador's embassy remains in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem, and El Salvador has continued formal relations with the Palestinian Authority.
What Nayib Bukele has actually said and done
- February 2018: As mayor of San Salvador, Bukele traveled to Israel on a government-sponsored trip, invited by then-Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, to attend the 32nd International Mayors Conference. He met then-Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, prayed at the Western Wall, and visited Yad Vashem, according to the Times of Israel.
- February 2018: During that same trip, Bukele told Israeli officials, including Jerusalem's mayor, that his wife Gabriela has Jewish-Sephardic roots on her grandfather's side. Bukele's own family is Palestinian Christian on his father's side; his father later converted to Islam and became a prominent imam in San Salvador, both the Times of Israel and Forward report.
- June 2019: Shortly after taking office, Bukele announced on his own account that Fundación Jerusalem had donated medicines worth $5 million to El Salvador ("Hoy, la Fundación Jerusalem nos ha donado medicamentos valorados en 5 millones de dólares," June 4), followed on June 20 by a further $3 million in medicines earmarked for the police, the military, and the health ministry. The money moved toward El Salvador, not away from it. He also reshared his 2018 Western Wall photos after the election, as covered by JTA.
- In the years since: El Salvador has continued to maintain formal diplomatic relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority through Bukele's presidency. El Salvador's diplomatic mission in Israel remains in Tel Aviv; no Salvadoran embassy has moved to Jerusalem.
- October 2023: After the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel, Bukele posted on X that "the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear," comparing Hamas to El Salvador's MS-13 gang and warning that supporting the Palestinian cause should not mean siding with Hamas "criminals," as reported by the Jerusalem Post.
- 2021, Sheikh Jarrah crisis: Analysts and Palestinian-diaspora commentators noted that Bukele stayed conspicuously quiet during the 2021 Sheikh Jarrah evictions and Gaza flare-up, in contrast to his more vocal pro-Israel statements at other times, an inconsistency flagged by Middle East Eye.
- In late 2025: As Bukele became a major deportation partner for the Trump administration, Jewish and Israeli press revisited his Israel ties, reaffirming his reputation as a pro-Israel president of Palestinian descent with an unusual personal history connecting him to both Muslim and Jewish family threads, per the Times of Israel.
An unusual family story behind the politics
Bukele's case stands out because his pro-Israel posture coexists with a Palestinian Christian family background: his grandparents came from Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and his father converted to Islam and became a well-known imam in San Salvador. Rather than downplaying that history, Bukele has leaned into the contrast. He visited Israel as mayor in 2018, prayed at the Western Wall, toured Yad Vashem, and has repeatedly distinguished "the Palestinian people," whom he says he supports by heritage, from Hamas, which he has called a criminal organization akin to El Salvador's MS-13 gang.
El Salvador still maintains formal ties with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and its diplomatic mission in Israel stays in Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem. Coverage of Bukele on this subject comes mainly from Jewish and Israeli outlets (JTA, Forward, Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post) alongside Middle East-focused and Palestinian-diaspora outlets that read his stance as more convenient toward Israel than consistent toward the Palestinian cause. No evidence surfaced of Bukele participating in any anti-Israel boycott; if anything, his 2018 trip was explicitly framed by Israeli organizers as part of an effort to counter the BDS movement.
The bottom line
The core facts hold up well across independent, reputable sources: the 2018 visit and prayer at the Western Wall, the meeting with then-Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, and pro-Israel statements after the October 7 attacks. Two corrections worth flagging, because both circulate in the wrong form online: it is Bukele's wife, not Bukele himself, who has cited Jewish-Sephardic ancestry, and the 2019 Fundación Jerusalem money moved toward El Salvador as medical aid, not from El Salvador to Jerusalem. With that nuance in place, Bukele remains accurately described as one of the strongest pro-Israel voices among Latin American heads of state, even as El Salvador keeps formal relations with the Palestinian Authority.
Wear your own answer
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Last updated July 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
