Standing in Jerusalem on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day, Argentine President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the Isaac Accords on Sunday, launching what both leaders called a new strategic framework to strengthen ties between Israel and like-minded nations across the Western Hemisphere.
The signing caps a process that began formally in December 2025, when Milei launched the framework during a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Buenos Aires. Sunday’s ceremony in Jerusalem made it official and named it in unmistakable biblical terms.
The Yitzhak Accords, named for the biblical patriarch Isaac, explicitly frame the alliance as one rooted in shared Biblical values. The joint statement describes the goal as bringing together “the descendants of Isaac and nations of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in defense of freedom and democracy, and in the fight against terrorism, antisemitism, and drug trafficking.” The initiative is modeled after the Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalization agreements between Israel and Arab nations brokered under President Donald Trump.
Milei, a non-Jewish head of state who reads the Torah daily, consults a rabbi regularly, and moved Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem because it was “the capital chosen by King David”, chose this name indicating a personal connection to Israel that speaks to something deeper than diplomatic branding.
The accords target Iran’s expanding terrorist networks across Latin America as a primary concern. Participating countries will coordinate against Iranian operational presence in the hemisphere and align in international forums. This is a direct counter to the anti-Israel consensus that has dominated global institutions for decades. The initiative also aims to expand cooperation in technology, innovation, trade, and economic development, with the first phase focusing on Uruguay, Panama, and Costa Rica.
The financial architecture behind the accords carries its own weight. The Genesis Prize Foundation, whose award is sometimes called the “Jewish Nobel”, gave Milei the $1 million Genesis Prize earlier in 2025. Milei declined the personal prize money and directed the foundation to donate it as seed funding for the American Friends of Isaac Accords, a new nonprofit established in New York to implement the initiative.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee attended the signing. “I stand here alongside two of President Trump’s greatest allies,” Huckabee said. “I know of no leaders he respects more or with whom he has a closer personal bond.”
Netanyahu, whom Huckabee jokingly called “Ambassador Maccabee,” was expansive about where the accords could lead. “We had Abraham, we had Isaac, what will be the Jacob Accords?” Netanyahu said. “I’m thinking about it right now. But we have time to advance that, too. This is our first step.” He also announced a major logistical breakthrough accompanying the signing: direct flights between Israel and Argentina, cutting through what he described as layers of bureaucracy. “I have one great pleasure — to take a machete and chop through the bureaucracy,” Netanyahu said.
Milei called the moment “historic.” “It will not only strengthen the relationship between Argentina and Israel, united by shared values, but also represent a step toward a freer and more prosperous hemisphere,” he said.
Less than a year after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, murdering over 1,200 people and kidnapping hundreds more, Argentina became the first Latin American country to formally designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. Paraguay followed earlier this year. At the 90th anniversary of Argentina’s Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations, Milei said: “While the vast majority of the free world decided to turn its back on the Jewish state, we extended a hand to it.”
Argentina is home to approximately 250,000 Jews, the sixth-largest Jewish community in the world and the largest in Latin America. Milei, raised Catholic but deeply engaged with Jewish texts and tradition, has said openly that he considered converting to Judaism. He has visited the grave of the Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and describes Israel and the United States as Argentina’s “natural” allies.
Netanyahu, for his part, sees the accords as a compass pointing beyond Argentina. “I think this is also a map for other countries, not only for their internal reforms but also for their external reforms — that is, coming back to the alliance of freedom,” he said Sunday. “It begins with the two of us.”
