Netanyahu backs Flávio Bolsonaro after surprise first-place finish in Brazil election

Pro-Israel challenger Flávio Bolsonaro tops left-wing incumbent Lula da Silva in first round of Brazil’s presidential election.

By World Israel News Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw his support behind Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro on Monday after the pro-Israel senator stunned pollsters by finishing ahead of incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election.

Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, won roughly 47% of valid ballots in Sunday’s vote, compared with about 45% for Lula. Neither candidate crossed the 50% threshold required for an outright victory, sending the two into an October 25 runoff.

“Congratulations Flavio Bolsonaro on yesterday’s vote and good luck in the final,” Netanyahu wrote Monday.

“I look forward to restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil,” he added. “Best wishes for your great victory, my friend.”

The Israeli prime minister’s open statement of support highlights one of the sharpest foreign-policy contrasts in an already deeply polarized Brazilian election.

Bolsonaro, 45, has positioned himself as an unequivocal supporter of Israel and pledged to reverse the deterioration in relations between Jerusalem and Brasília under Lula.

During a visit to Israel earlier this year, Bolsonaro promised that, if elected, he would move Brazil’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“Brazil must stand with Israel, with the Jewish people and with democracies fighting terrorism,” Bolsonaro said during the visit.

He has also attacked Lula over his repeated condemnations of Israel, accusing the president of antisemitism and promising that Brazil would again have a leader welcome in the Jewish state.

“The next president of Brazil will not be persona non grata in Israel,” Bolsonaro said.

The comment was a pointed reference to the extraordinary diplomatic confrontation sparked by Lula in 2024, when the Brazilian president compared Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza to Adolf Hitler’s extermination of the Jews.

“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments,” Lula said at the time. “In fact, it did exist when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”

Israel declared Lula persona non grata until he withdrew the remarks, while Netanyahu accused him of trivializing the Holocaust. Brazil subsequently recalled its ambassador, and relations between the countries never fully recovered.

That record has made Israel policy an unusually visible feature of the 2026 Brazilian campaign. Bolsonaro has repeatedly appeared alongside Israeli flags, while supporters carrying the Israeli flag were again visible as he celebrated Sunday’s election result.

His performance exceeded nearly all expectations.

Opinion polls immediately before the election generally showed Lula narrowly ahead, and a polling average placed the incumbent several points in front. Instead, Bolsonaro emerged with a lead of roughly two percentage points and more than 56 million votes.

“I am very happy with the results. Brazil wants change,” Bolsonaro said after the scale of his showing became clear.
“It’s the end of the Workers’ Party era,” he added.

Lula acknowledged that the result caught his campaign off guard.

“These were unexpected results,” the 80-year-old president said. “I was sure I was going to win the election in the first round.”

“A new campaign begins tomorrow,” he added, describing Bolsonaro as representing “uncertainty for the country.”
The result gives Bolsonaro momentum entering the three-week runoff campaign but does not guarantee victory.

Both men must now compete for millions of Brazilians who supported eliminated candidates in the first round, while seeking to mobilize voters who abstained.

Polling conducted shortly before Sunday’s vote had suggested that a runoff between Lula and Bolsonaro could be extremely close.

The campaign has been dominated domestically by inflation and the cost of living, violent crime, corruption and Brazil’s strained relationship with the United States.

Bolsonaro has promised a far more aggressive crackdown on organized crime and has advocated designating some of Brazil’s most powerful criminal organizations as terrorist groups.

He has also called for closer relations with President Donald Trump and greater economic cooperation with Washington, including over Brazil’s vast reserves of critical minerals.

The result comes amid a broader shift to the right across parts of Latin America and could significantly alter Brazil’s international orientation if Bolsonaro wins.

Under Lula, Brazil has sought closer relations with China and pursued a foreign policy frequently at odds with Washington and Jerusalem. Bolsonaro has instead emphasized alignment with both Trump and Netanyahu.

Flávio Bolsonaro inherited leadership of Brazil’s conservative movement after his father was barred from returning to the presidency and later convicted over efforts to overturn his 2022 election defeat.

Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison, and his son has pledged to pardon him if elected.

The elder Bolsonaro cultivated particularly close relations with Netanyahu during his 2019-2022 presidency. He became the first Brazilian president to visit the Western Wall accompanied by an Israeli prime minister and repeatedly spoke of moving Brazil’s embassy to Jerusalem, though the move was never ultimately carried out.