PINA

Israel has officially opened its embassy in Suva, marking a new chapter in diplomatic relations between Fiji and Israel.

The embassy was formally opened on Tuesday by Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Israel’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gideon Sa’ar in a ceremony described by both leaders as a significant milestone in bilateral ties.

Addressing guests at the opening, Prime Minister Rabuka welcomed Israel’s decision to establish a permanent diplomatic presence in Fiji.

“You have blessed Fiji by deciding to open your Embassy here in Fiji,” Prime Minister Rabuka said.

He described the occasion as a landmark moment for the country.

“This is a proud moment for Fiji,” Prime Minister Rabuka said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the opening of the embassy reflected the growing partnership between the two nations.

Sa’ar said the opening of the Embassy would be remembered as a milestone in strengthening bilateral relations and reaffirming the shared commitment between the two nations.

Located on Level 9 of the Fijian Holdings Limited (FHL) Tower in Suva, the embassy will serve as Israel’s diplomatic mission in Fiji and a base for expanding engagement across the Pacific.

According to officials, the new embassy will focus on strengthening diplomatic relations, increasing economic cooperation and promoting closer people-to-people links between Fiji and Israel.

The opening follows a period of growing engagement between the two countries and signals a further commitment to deepening cooperation in areas of mutual interest.

Ambassador Maya Yaron heads the Israeli Embassy in Suva.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has labelled the opening of the Israel embassy in Fiji as the beginning of a “golden era” in relations between the two countries.

Rabuka made the remarks Tuesday at a joint press conference marking the first official visit to Fiji by Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Sa’ar.

Sa’ar said the mission would strengthen ties between Israel and Fiji for generations to come.

“I thank you for your true friendship, for your hospitality,” Sa’ar said.

“I came from very far, but I feel very close and I feel at home.

“I came to inaugurate the Israeli Embassy in Fiji, the Pacific Islands in order to strengthen our great bilateral relations for the next generations.”

Sa’ar described it as an honour to be welcomed to Fiji and acknowledged the country’s traditions and heritage.

“It’s an honour to be greeted by your great tradition and heritage and to be accepted here in your distinguished country,” he said.

Prime Minister Rabuka said the opening of the Israeli Embassy in Suva completed a diplomatic milestone that began with Fiji establishing its own embassy in Israel.

“We have officially opened Fiji’s embassy there in Israel. The first time Fiji establishes a mission in the Holy Land and in doing so, Fiji became the seventh nation in the world to establish its embassy in Jerusalem and the 100th diplomatic mission in Israel,” Rabuka said.

“We come full circle, and Saar’s presence in Suva marks the reciprocal visit or reciprocal opening or reciprocation of that commitment as we gather to officially inaugurate the resident embassy of the State of Israel right here in the capital of Fiji, in Suva.”

Rabuka said the presence of Israel’s foreign minister underscored the growing importance of the relationship.

“His physical presence cements our ties and ushers in a golden era of our relations.”

The Prime Minister said discussions between the two countries had moved beyond historical and symbolic ties and were now focused on practical cooperation in areas critical to Fiji’s future development.

“Our discussion this afternoon proved that friendship between Fiji and Israel is no longer just a symbolic or historic relationship.

“It is dynamic, it’s tech-driven, and it takes on board today’s realities, the emerging issues of our time and a clear-eyed view of what is ahead of us.”

Rabuka said Fiji saw significant opportunities to work with Israel in areas where the Middle Eastern nation has internationally recognised expertise.

“These include cooperation in health, digital transformation, cyber security, where strengthening resilience and protecting critical national systems is important for Fiji and throughout and through Fiji for the region.”
He said agriculture and food security were also key areas for future collaboration.

“We see immense opportunities in agriculture and food security, particularly in enhancing productivity, climate resilience and innovation, particularly in our private sector.”

Rabuka added that Fiji valued continued support in diplomatic training, human resource development and institutional capacity building.

He also highlighted security cooperation as an area of growing importance, particularly as Fiji confronts rising threats from illicit drugs and organised crime.

“We recognise the importance of security cooperation, including institutional linkages and capacity building that support national and regional stability, and Fiji’s fight against illicit drugs, transnational organised crime, will benefit from Israel’s depth of knowledge and technology-based solutions,” he said.

A treaty between Australia and the Solomon Islands is on the cards as the Pacific nation’s new prime minister prepares for talks with Anthony Albanese.

Matthew Wale is in Canberra for his first overseas trip since he was elected by his country’s parliament in May.

Wale has long been an advocate for diplomatically tying his country to Australia, but it’s the Pacific nation’s relationship with China that has drawn attention.

The Solomon Islands and China signed a security pact in 2022, which partially eclipsed the bilateral security arrangement Australia has had with its Pacific neighbour since 2017.

Wale has been critical of the Solomons’ relationship with China, using the 2024 elections to accuse his political opponents of “sleazing up” to Beijing.

He promised to release details of the secretive 2022 security pact if elected, although the information is yet to be made public.

The Solomons and Australia will likely sign an agreement to set aside $190 million (US$136 million) for expanding and training the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.

A further deal between the countries is also expected to be discussed, but details have not been released.

Australia has in recent times finalised treaties with Tuvalu, Nauru and Papua New Guinea, while a security pact with Fiji is in the works.

A wide range of topics were likely to be canvassed during the visit, Australian National University Pacific scholar Anouk Ride said.

“Anything substantive, we are going to have to wait a while to see,” she said.

The Solomons is the only Pacific country to sign a security deal with China, so the visit remains significant regardless of diplomatic milestones reached.

“Maybe his early visit here is sending a signal of who he wants to engage with,” Dr Ride said.

“We will have to wait to see how deep that relationship goes and if it supersedes that of other countries.”

Albanese said the decision of Wale to visit Australia as his first destination emphasised the importance of ties between the two nations.

A plan by the United States, Japan, India and Australia to collaboratively invest in port infrastructure in Fiji is a step towards challenging China’s hegemony over supply chains in the region while simultaneously signaling to Pacific island countries that the four regional powers can give them a better deal than Beijing can, experts told Radio Free Asia.

The plan was unveiled earlier this week in New Delhi, after a meeting of foreign ministers of member nations in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) alliance, or Quad.

Fiji was likely chosen because of its strategic location as a convergence point for many global shipping lanes, Gregory Brown, director of the Alliance Futures Initiative, a Washington-based think tank, told RFA.

“Fiji sits at the crossroads of the South Pacific and is the natural logistics hub for everything moving between Australia, New Zealand, and the wider island chain,” said Brown.

“If you’re going to build one port that serves the whole Pacific, you build it where the shipping lanes converge—and that is Suva, the fulcrum for the region.”

According to a fact sheet published by the U.S State Department, the Tuesday’s meeting focused on maritime and transnational security, economic prosperity and security, critical and emerging technology, and humanitarian assistance and emergency response.

“Following the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership conference hosted in India in October 2025, the Quad committed to identifying critical port projects that it can support to increase trade and economic prosperity by increasing port infrastructure and capacity for key Indo-Pacific corridors,” the fact sheet said.

“As such, we are proud to announce that the Quad countries will work with the Government of Fiji, to advance port infrastructure and associated activities in the country.”

The port project would be a major Western infrastructure project in a region that has seen increasing investments from China in recent years, as Beijing and the West jostle for geopolitical influence.

Through the port project, the Quad hopes to send a message to Fiji and other Pacific Island countries that there are alternatives to working closely with China.

In recent years, Beijing has been aggressively investing in Pacific Island infrastructure as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

The plan has been criticised as a “debt-trap”—partner countries borrow heavily to finance bridges, roads or seaports, but when they struggle to repay, China gains leverage and control.

Fiji owes roughly US$110 million to Chinese state banks, or about 6.5 percent of its external debt, according to its Ministry of Finance. While this figure is relatively small compared to other creditors like Japan (9.7 percent) the World Bank (36.3 percent) and the Asian Development Bank (38.7 percent), the nature of loans from the other major creditors are “highly concessional,” and have longer payback windows than the Chinese loans.

“China’s model in the Pacific is loans,” said Brown. “The debt becomes a strategic instrument.”

Brown noted that the Quad’s plan is to fund the Fiji port project primarily through grants, allowing Suva to avoid falling into a debt-trap.

“China lends, the Quad gives,” he said. “For a country the size of Fiji, that’s the entire calculation.”

China also provides grants to international partners, but only at a fraction of the United States. According to a March 2025 report by the Washington-based Brookings Institution, Chinese aid spending totaled about 14.6 percent of that of the United States between 2013-2018, and grants totaled 47.3 percent of this aid.

The report said that grants are “traditional foreign aid projects in the Western definition” and said that it was a “common misperception” that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is aid.

Still, the prospect of a partnership with Beijing for these projects is attractive. Brown recalled how Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka toured ports during a visit to China in 2024 and discussed potential partnerships for port modernisation.

“The Quad didn’t randomly choose Fiji,” he said. “This pitch is a direct counterbid.”

He said that Fiji is the biggest, most visible island nation in the Pacific, and should the project be successful, it would send a message that “resonates across the region.”

“I think the whole point is to show the Pacific island countries that there’s a better deal available than Beijing’s,” said Brown.

Should the Quad’s port project in Fiji prove successful, the climate could be ripe for port upgrades in other parts of the region.

U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a press conference following the Quad meeting that the Fiji project would “serve as a model for other projects in the future.”

Port infrastructure in the Pacific is much needed, Cleo Paskal, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies research institute, told RFA.

“The choice of Fiji is a relatively easy first step – a location that is relatively high profile and dovetails with Australian and Indian priorities,” she said. “Ideally the next choice will be infrastructure in locations that make an even stronger statement, and difference, such as Bina Harbor in Solomon Islands.”

She also noted that the Pacific Island countries that still recognise Taiwan–Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu–would be ripe for cooperation with the Quad, because Chinese infrastructure projects in those countries would be problematic from Beijing’s point of view.

“I expect this is a pilot. If it works, we’ll replicate it,” said Brown. “The real question is whether the Quad can deliver this project on time and within budget.”

Though the port has been announced, construction will not start overnight, as Fiji has yet to agree to the project, Fiji’s foreign minister Sakiasi Ditoka said to Indian news outlet The Hindu.

Ditoka confirmed that Fiji was in discussions on port infrastructure with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, a bilateral U.S foreign aid agency.

The U.S State Dept announced in March that the MCC signed an agreement with Fiji for a US$12 million grant “to support design and feasibility studies,” which Ditoka said were focused on ports and Fiji’s business regulatory environment.

When asked about the port and an initiative on maritime surveillance discussed at the Quad meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning restated China’s stance on the Quad that cooperation between countries should not target a third party, and that China opposes “forming exclusive groupings or engaging in bloc confrontation.”

Beyond the port and maritime surveillance, other projects unveiled at the meeting included a minerals investment framework, an initiative on energy security, and a promise to ensure that countries in the region are connected via undersea cables “by 2026.”

Brown believes these commitments indicate a “qualitative shift” away from talking about Pacific strategy to announcing “concrete deliverables.”

“The Pacific is where great power competition will be decided, and the Quad just acknowledged it,” Brown said. “That is, the U.S has limited resources and has to concentrate them where the strategic stakes are highest.”

He said the port is the Quad’s “belated recognition” that it needs to compete in the region.

“The Quad is essentially saying: we’re not going to let one country control the infrastructure through which strategic resources move,” he said.

Pasifika for Palestine Australia and the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) have strongly condemned the opening of Israel’s embassy in Suva, accusing the Fiji Government of deepening ties with Israel despite ongoing international criticism over the war in Gaza and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

The criticism comes as Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar visits Fiji to officially inaugurate the new diplomatic mission.

In a joint statement, the two groups said the embassy opening represents a further strengthening of relations between Fiji and Israel, following Fiji’s decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem in September 2025.

Sa’ar reportedly described Fiji as “one of Israel’s most consistent supporters in the United Nations.”

The groups argued that Fiji’s diplomatic engagement with Israel contradicts international legal obligations and raised concerns about growing cooperation between the two countries in trade, security and technology.

The statement highlighted to a cybersecurity Memorandum of Understanding signed in October 2025 and discussions regarding the possible supply of Israeli patrol boats to the Fiji Navy.

“We stand in solidarity with our Pasifika community calling out the opening of an Israeli embassy in Fiji. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been unequivocal: states must not recognise, assist or normalise Israel’s unlawful presence in occupied Palestinian territory. Fiji is doing all three. Across the Pacific our complicity in genocide and apartheid must end.”

Kavita Naidu, spokesperson for Pasifika for Palestine, said Pacific communities and Palestinians share a common struggle.

“From the Pacific to Palestine, we stand together in our responsibility to end Israel’s genocide, occupation and apartheid. The opening of the Israeli embassy in Suva and the repression of those protesting is an act of complicity. Where the governments of Australia and Fiji have failed, the people will continue to resist.”

APAN Executive Officer Katie Shammas said Fiji’s support for Israel would surprise many Australians.

“Many Australians would be shocked to know that far from its paradise image, Fiji has become one of the most active supporters of Israel’s conduct in the Pacific bloc. The Fijian government is also repressing communities who are protesting against the ongoing atrocities in Gaza and West Bank.”

Shammas also questioned Fiji’s priorities at a time when the country faces social and economic challenges.

“Fiji is grappling with a health and economic crisis, so it boggles the mind that their priority is not on their people but on building diplomatic relationships with an apartheid state committing genocide.”

She added: “It is a profound embarrassment that Pacific governments demand the world to respect international law on climate change while actively covering up violations of that same body of law for Palestine.”

The two organisations called on the Fiji Government to close its diplomatic mission in Jerusalem, suspend all security and military cooperation with Israel, and protect the right to peaceful protest.

They also urged the Australian Government to oppose Fiji’s diplomatic moves and reject any involvement in Israeli military or security cooperation in the Pacific.

The groups further called on members of the Pacific Islands Forum to uphold international law and resist what they described as Israeli efforts to build diplomatic support within the Pacific region.