Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has decided that if Brasilia refuses to approve the appointment of former Yesha Council chairman Dani Dayan as ambassador, the acceptable response is to reduce the level of Israel’s representation in Brazil. 

According to a Channel 2 report on Wednesday evening, Netanyahu has decided to keep Dayan’s appointment pending indefinitely.

Even if Brazil ends up declining the appointment or if Dayan in the meantime is appointed to another diplomatic role – he will remain Israel’s candidate for ambassador to Brazil. 

Officials in the Foreign Ministry have recently become more vocal about the diplomatic mess, accusing Brazil of delaying Dayan’s appointment out of a “personal boycott.”

Dayan addressed the affair last weekend on Channel 2’s “Meet the Press,” asserting, “Whether or not I’ll be ambassador is not as important as if the next settler appointed ambassador will be able to fulfill the role or if 700,000 Israelis are banned from diplomatic service.”

“Up until a month ago, there was the assessment the issue would be resolved – in Jerusalem and in my home in Samaria, so we kept quiet,” Dayan noted. “There’s an optical illusion here – they think think it’s a mutual a issue between Israel and Brazil, but Brazil has found itself, not to its credit, on the side of BDS here.” 

“Saeb Erekat is working to kill my appointment; he’s calling me a war criminal and we need to respond to it,” he added. 

“Just as Israel is opposed to the labeling of (Jewish) products, it should also be opposed to the labeling of people,” Dayan charged. “The labeling of people is more severe than the labeling of products, it’s an escalation. The government needs to take a stand on this issue.”