Genesis Prize Chairman and Co-Founder Stan Polovets Points to a Shifting Political Landscape as Latin America Draws Closer to Israel

For much of the past two decades, many governments across Latin America maintained cool or openly hostile postures toward Israel, particularly at the United Nations, where Latin American votes most often sided with the Palestinian Authority and its allies. That pattern has begun to change. A cluster of recent political developments, from Argentina’s embrace of the Isaac Accords to a wave of parliamentary pledges signed in Buenos Aires this past June, points to a region reconsidering its relationship with the Jewish state.

Stan Polovets, chairman and co-founder of The Genesis Prize Foundation, has watched this shift unfold from close range. His foundation’s decision to award the 2025 Genesis Prize to Argentine President Javier Milei, the first sitting head of state to receive the honor, placed the foundation at the center of a broader regional realignment that political analysts are only beginning to fully map.

A President Who Changed the Conversation

Milei’s ascent to Argentina’s presidency in December 2023 coincided almost exactly with the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and his response set him apart from many of his regional counterparts. Rather than joining the chorus of governments that criticized Israel’s military response in Gaza, Milei visited Israel days after the attack, designated Hamas a terrorist organization in July 2024, and ordered a freeze on its assets. Polovets has pointed to that early positioning as a defining moment for the region. “Since Oct. 7, President Milei has been without a doubt one of Israel’s staunchest supporters,” Polovets said. “When many of its allies remained quiet or condemned, pressured and, in some cases, sanctioned Israel, President Milei stood strong with Israel and was one of its most visible, vocal, and unequivocal supporters.”

Milei’s approach extended beyond rhetoric. His administration pledged to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem, reversed the country’s voting pattern on Israel-related resolutions at the United Nations, and committed to pursuing accountability for the 1992 and 1994 terrorist bombings of Jewish targets in Buenos Aires. He also ordered the declassification of intelligence related to the death of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who had investigated the AMIA bombing. Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who accompanied Milei on a February 2024 visit to Kibbutz Nir Oz, destroyed by terrorists on October 7, credited the relationship for strengthening bilateral ties between the two countries beyond what had existed in decades.

From Recognition to a Regional Framework

What distinguishes the current moment from earlier periods of warmer Israel-Latin America relations, according to Stan Polovets, is the shift from individual gestures of goodwill to organized, multinational frameworks intended to outlast any single administration. Milei’s own contribution to that effort came with his vision for the Isaac Accords, a set of principles modeled loosely on the Abraham Accords and aimed at building economic, security, and technological cooperation between Israel and Latin American nations rooted in shared values.

The Genesis Prize Foundation moved to support that vision by establishing the American Friends of Isaac Accords (AFOIA) in 2025, a nonprofit designed to operate at the intersection of public and private diplomacy across the U.S., Israel, and Latin America. That infrastructure supported AFOIA and the Israel Allies Foundation’s ability to host the Latin America Chairmen’s Conference in Buenos Aires, drawing legislators from a dozen countries to formally commit to the Isaac Accords framework. Stan Polovets, whose career bridges international business and philanthropic diplomacy, described the summit as evidence that political momentum in the region has moved from words to action. “The Buenos Aires summit marks a major step in translating President Milei’s vision of the Isaac Accords into parliamentary action,” he said, noting the gathering came shortly after the Inter-American Development Fund announced the launch of an Isaac Accords Fund and the American Jewish Committee established a Global Partnership of the Isaac Accords.

What the Numbers Suggest

The commitments that emerged from Buenos Aires give some indication of how far the political conversation has shifted. Legislators from 12 Latin American countries signed the Isaac Accords principles at the summit and pledged to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism in their home legislatures, a step several Latin American governments had previously resisted. Lawmakers also committed to championing the relocation of their countries’ embassies to Jerusalem and to strengthening domestic legal frameworks aimed at countering terrorism and extremism, an issue with particular resonance in a region that has experienced its own history of attacks against Jewish institutions.

Josh Reinstein, president of the Israel Allies Foundation, which coordinates more than 1,600 legislators worldwide through 64 national caucuses, framed the turnout as proof that support for Israel among Latin American lawmakers runs deeper than public perception might suggest. Deputy Sabrina Ajmechet, co-chair of Argentina’s IAF caucus, made a similar point from the host country’s vantage, describing the gathering of legislators from more than a dozen nations as itself a statement about where the region is heading.

Polovets on Sustaining Political Momentum

Stan Polovets, in public remarks tied to the foundation’s decade of work, framed these developments as the product of sustained relationship-building rather than a single election result or diplomatic breakthrough. That philosophy has shaped how The Genesis Prize Foundation approaches its philanthropic mission more broadly. Since the Prize’s founding in 2013, laureates have redirected their $1 million awards to causes tied to their own platforms, and the foundation has repeatedly built lasting institutional structures around those moments of recognition rather than treating them as one-time ceremonies.

The AFOIA model reflects that same instinct applied to geopolitics. Ambassador S. Fitzgerald Haney, the organization’s managing director for Latin America, has described its work as building Israel’s long-term security “relationship by relationship, legislature by legislature, friendship by friendship.” That approach mirrors language Stan Polovets has used to describe the foundation’s broader philanthropic strategy, in which matching donors and institutional partners are brought in to multiply the effect of an initial gesture. “None of us can do this work alone,” Polovets has said of the foundation’s approach to philanthropy generally, a sentiment that appears to extend naturally to its diplomatic ventures in Latin America.

A Region in Transition

There is work to be done to turn the commitments made in Buenos Aires into embassy moves, formal legislative adoption of the IHRA definition, and deeper economic ties. Still, the scale of parliamentary engagement, coming from a dozen nations in a single summit, marks a departure from the more cautious diplomatic posture many Latin American governments maintained toward Israel over the preceding decade.

For Stan Polovets, the developments offer a data point in a longer argument he has made about the role recognition and philanthropy can play in shaping public conversations. Milei’s Genesis Prize, awarded for his advocacy on behalf of Israel and Argentina’s Jewish community, has since become a reference point for a regional movement that now includes formal pledges from legislators across Latin America. The foundation’s continued involvement through AFOIA suggests it intends to keep tracking and supporting that movement as it develops in the months and years ahead.

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