Israeli Consul in Costa Rica: ‘Radical Iranian Forces’ Present in Nicaragua

Amir Rockman, Israeli Consul to Costa Rica, said in an interview on Tuesday that his government has reason to believe that Iranian-linked terrorist groups are freely operating in Nicaragua, a country that recently broke ties with Israel.

Rockman spoke to Despacho 505 on Tuesday, one of the several Nicaraguan outlets now operating in exile as a result of the repressive actions of communist dictator Daniel Ortega. The interview took place within the context of Ortega’s recent order for his country to break ties with Israel, marking the third time Ortega has broken ties with Israel in roughly four decades. 

The Israeli diplomat, who described the Nicaraguan regime as a “kleptocracy,” expressed that while Ortega’s decision neither surprises Israel nor changes much, Nicaragua is a territory of “political concern” for Israel due to the free reign the communist regime has given to Middle Eastern terrorist groups. Rockman pointed out that Iranian interests — particularly, its proxy terror group, the Shiite jihadist group Hezbollah — are “installed in Nicaragua.”

“The regime of the Ortega family not only gives free passage to radical Iranians, but also to other terrorist groups that act freely on Nicaraguan soil and that we do not know the purposes of their actions yet, but we are very concerned,” Rockman said.

Rockman explained that Ortega had been eroding the strength of the bilateral relationship with Israel since August 2023, when the regime removed the Israeli honorary consul post and denied direct communication and consular visits in Nicaragua. The Israeli Embassy in Costa Rica, presently led by Ambassador Michal Gur-Aryeh, was concurrent with Nicaragua. The consul pointed out that the Ortega regime did not issue an official letter notifying Israel of the rupture in diplomatic relations.

The difference between the previous rupture of ties with Israel and the most recent one, Rockman stressed, is that this time the involvement of Iran and other anti-democratic efforts in Nicaragua “has increased a lot” in recent years. He stated that he believes the rupture in relations will last longer than the previous ones because “the interests of the Iranians, Hezbollah, and other anti-democratic groups that are now installed in Nicaragua, play a bigger role than in the past years.”

“We regret that the regime of Daniel Ortega, now I can say it freely, does not represent the people of Nicaragua,” Rockman said. “In my two years in Costa Rica, where I have met many Nicaraguans, I have not had the opportunity to meet a Nicaraguan who is in favor of this dictatorship, kleptocracy.” 

“We regret the decision of this regime to choose the welfare of the Iranian government, which, I do not know what interest the Nicaraguan people have with the Iranian regime, but the Ortega family has many interests with the Iranians and that is why they chose to go with this world axis of the Iranians,” he continued.

The rupture of relations, Rockman stated, does not affect Israel much, as Israel does not have any national interests in Nicaragua that the communist regime could confiscate, but the diplomat stressed that it “clearly affects us” every time Iran attracts more support in the world.

Rockman asserted that it is “curious” that Ortega, “supposedly a leftist, a socialist,” is allied with a fundamentalist religious regime that is on the “two extreme sides of the political map.” 

“But I agree that in the end dictatorships are dictatorships and it does not matter if one preaches in the name of socialism and [the other] preaches in the name of God,” he continued, “the two regimes are the same in the way they manipulate and use their own people because in the same way that the radical Islamist Iranian regime does not represent the people of Iran, also the Ortega regime does not represent the people of Nicaragua.”

The Israeli consul referred to Ortega’s accusations that Israel is committing a “genocide” in Gaza, which the dictator used to justify the diplomatic cut, Rockman said that the use of the word genocide is a “commercial or advertising success, it is one of the biggest in recent years but it has nothing to do with reality.”

“There is no genocide happening in Gaza or anywhere else that borders Israel. The accusations we receive of this come from marginal groups and marginal governments as well, like this one in particular,” Rockman said. 

“The situation in Gaza is serious, painful, it affects the civilian population very much and we are at war with the Hamas terrorist group which, like [Ortega] in Nicaragua, took power and speaks in the name of the Palestinian people, but Hamas does not represent the interests of the Palestinian people or the people of Gaza and they are using the Gazan people as human shields, literally, to protect themselves and, secondly, to accuse Israel,” he continued.

Rockman stated to the Nicaraguan outlet that regimes like Iran’s are engaging in manipulation against the free world with other regimes to sell the idea that they are “human rights defenders in the Middle East.”

“It’s not democratic countries like Israel, like the United States, like Germany. It is dictatorships like Iran, Syria, Nicaragua. Only they know what the real meaning of human rights is and let them explain to us how to defend human rights,” Rockman said.

“I, as a free Israeli, who supports international democracy, am part of the free side of the world, like Germany, the United States, which is a part that is not perfect, but has values, one of which is the defense of life,” he continued. “On the other side, the radical part of Iran, Qatar, Nicaragua and Venezuela use the democratic discourse to cover their crimes against their own people and to distort the discourse in the free world.”