Barbados–Israel Relations

Israel maintains non-resident diplomatic representation in Barbados through the Israeli embassy in Panama, whose ambassador is concurrently accredited to Barbados, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and CARICOM.[1] Israel also has an Honorary Consul-General in Bridgetown.[2] A 2014 report identified Benny Gilbert as having served as honorary consul since 1982, making him one of Israel's longest-serving honorary consuls worldwide.[3]

Barbados conducts much of its diplomatic activity through international organizations, consistent with its status as a small sovereign state.[4] It joined the United Nations in December 1966 and the Organization of American States in 1967. An archived 2007 profile listed its resident missions in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Venezuela, the European Union, and at the UN.[4] Israel was not among the states listed as having resident ambassadors or high commissioners in Barbados, or among the major trade partners identified in the profile's 2005 trade data.[4]

Israel's ties with Latin American and Caribbean countries were strengthened during the 1950s and 1960s through programs sharing Israeli expertise in agriculture, medicine, cooperatives, and rural and community development.[5] The regional relationship has included political, economic, and cultural cooperation. Friendly bilateral ties across the region have only partially been reflected in multilateral voting, in part because many countries retain traditional affiliations with the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77.[5]

Relations are reported as dating to the period around Barbados's 1966 independence. One diplomatic directory lists them as established in January 1966, while a separate recognition table gives August 29, 1967, as the date on which Barbados recognized Israel; the entries may reflect distinct diplomatic milestones.[6][7] In 2015, Israel's ambassador characterized the relationship as "very friendly."[8]

An important early diplomatic episode occurred in 1972, when Barbados's first Prime Minister, Errol Barrow, made an official visit to Israel and met with Prime Minister Golda Meir.[8] During that meeting, Meir asked Barrow about his Jewish ancestry, to which he reportedly replied, "Where do you think I get my brains from?"[8] Three years later, Barrow's personal connection to Jewish heritage shaped Barbados's position at the United Nations. At the November 10, 1975 debate over Resolution 3379 — which declared Zionism a form of racism — Barbados voted against the resolution.[9] Barbados argued that no case had been made to equate Zionism with racism, and that the resolution would divert the UN Decade Against Racism from its focus on Southern Africa, reduce broader support for the United Nations, and ultimately encourage the very evil it sought to eradicate.[9] Barrow himself was described as opposing any vote that denied the Jewish people's right to self-determination.[8]

In November 2012, the UN General Assembly voted 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions, to grant Palestine non-member observer state status.[10] Barbados was among the states that abstained and was one of only three Caribbean countries to do so.[2] A Barbadian historian and Israel's ambassador at the time attributed the abstention to Prime Minister Freundel Stuart's reluctance to vote against Israel on a consequential issue.[8]

In September 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Barbados Foreign Minister Kerrie Symmonds alongside representatives of four other Caribbean states on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.[11] The meeting focused on public-health and water-management challenges; Netanyahu pledged that Israeli experts would visit the Caribbean to offer assistance, and the Israeli embassy in Panama subsequently planned a course on intensive vegetable production in arid and semi-arid conditions.[11]

In April 2024, Barbados formally recognized the State of Palestine.[12][13] Foreign Minister Symmonds nevertheless described Barbados's ties with Israel as "exceptionally good ones" and said Barbados had benefited substantially from Israeli technical cooperation, particularly in food security, agriculture, drought response, and water-related challenges.[12] Symmonds framed the recognition as correcting an inconsistency between supporting a two-state solution in principle and not recognizing Palestine as a state.[12]

Practical cooperation between the two countries has spanned several sectors. Reported areas of collaboration include agriculture, coastal security, and solar-power energy.[14] The Israeli Foreign Ministry has offered entrepreneurship-training courses for Barbadian students both in Barbados and in Israel, and Israel provides annual scholarships for Barbadians to study in Israel.[14]

Israel's broader regional engagement in the Caribbean includes exports of chemicals, high-tech software, agricultural produce, machinery, and electronics, and Israeli banks, construction firms, and agricultural planning companies operate across Central and South America and the Caribbean.[5] While these activities are not documented as Barbados-specific, Foreign Minister Symmonds's April 2024 statement — citing Israeli technical assistance in food security, water management, and drought response as among the relationship's most tangible benefits — underscores how such regional expertise has been channeled into the bilateral relationship.[12]

The honorary consulate has also served a practical diplomatic and cultural function. Honorary Consul Benny Gilbert invited Israeli artists to perform in Barbados as a means of presenting a positive image of Israel, and assisted individual Israelis in distress, including one occasion on which he helped a stranded Israeli who had been robbed arrange care and a return flight home.[3]

The Jewish presence in Barbados predates the state of Israel by centuries and forms an important cultural backdrop to the bilateral relationship. A Jewish community was formally established in Bridgetown in 1654, when the Sephardic K. K. Nidhei Israel synagogue was consecrated there.[15] JewishGen preserves 595 burial records from the Nidhe Israel Congregation in Bridgetown, documenting names, ages, and dates of death in both Hebrew and Gregorian calendars — a testament to the depth and duration of Jewish communal life on the island.[16]

The Nidhe Israel Synagogue is described by the World Jewish Congress as the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere and stands within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison area.[2] A World Jewish Congress report from 1949–1951 recorded Barbados's Jewish community at approximately 100 people, noting that it maintained a Jewish Center and a WIZO organization and contributed roughly $1,000 annually to Zionist funds, though Jewish education was limited and religious services were generally attended only on holidays.[17]

Today the community remains small. The World Jewish Congress estimates approximately 100 Jews currently live in Barbados, while the Jewish Virtual Library places the figure closer to 40.[2][15] The Jewish Agency for Israel lists Barbados among countries with Jewish populations of 500 or fewer.[18] The Barbados Jewish Community Council serves as the country's affiliate of the World Jewish Congress.[2] The community also plays an initiating role in the Caribbean Jewish Congress.[15]

On March 17, 2017, antisemitic messages were spray-painted on the exterior walls of the Nidhe Israel Synagogue in St. Michael — an incident recorded by the Anti-Defamation League in its survey of global antisemitic incidents for that year.[19]

Despite the generally warm characterization of bilateral ties, Barbados's UN voting record on Israel-related resolutions has shown low coincidence with the United States. In 2023, the General Assembly considered 13 Israel-related resolutions and adopted all of them; across 12 roll-call votes, Barbados voted with the United States zero times, opposed it 10 times, partially aligned twice, and was absent zero times, producing a voting coincidence of 8%.[20]

In 2024, the General Assembly considered 16 Israel-related resolutions and adopted all of them; across 15 roll-call votes, Barbados voted the same as the United States once, opposed it 13 times, partially aligned once, and was absent from none, yielding a 10% voting coincidence.[21] The U.S. Department of State methodology counts a full point for votes in the same direction, zero for opposite votes, and half a point when one country abstained while the other did not.[21]

In a 2014 interview, Gilbert said Israel's Foreign Ministry had contacted him with instructions on messages to convey to Barbadian officials ahead of important votes. The report attributed several Barbadian abstentions, after the country had initially planned to vote against Israel, to his intervention.[3] Gilbert described his greatest success as persuading Barbados to abstain on a vote concerning Palestine's admission to the United Nations after the country had initially planned to vote in favor, though the specific resolution and year are not identified in the source.[3]