Honduras: The Making of a Controlled Democracy

IMAGE: Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA) Praises Honduras’ Opening Diplomatic Mission In Jerusalem & Later Its Embassy.  The President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Conference in Washington, DC, that it had made the decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem. (Source: Zionist Organisation of America | ZOA)

Tegucigalpa, 2025 — The streets of Honduras’ capital were tense as the results of the 2025 elections unfolded, a nation holding its breath amid suspicion, polarisation, and uncertainty. Beneath the visible turmoil lies a deeper story: for over a century, foreign powers have shaped Honduran politics, society, and culture, deliberately fracturing communities and weakening democratic institutions. Once a predominantly Catholic country with a cohesive social fabric, Honduras now grapples with divisions along religious, social, and racial lines, leaving its citizens vulnerable to manipulation and its democracy under strain.

Israel’s influence in Honduras extends far beyond diplomacy or military cooperation. Historical ties, dating back to the early 20th century with figures like Samuel Zemurray, established patterns of economic and political leverage to control Honduran leadership while advancing pro-Zionist objectives. In modern times, presidents, including Juan Orlando Hernández, have strengthened these ties through military cooperation, arms purchases, and symbolic gestures, such as relocating the Honduran embassy to Jerusalem in 2021. Israeli influence also penetrates civil society, promoting Zionist ideology, synagogue expansion, and religious conversion programs, including Protestant-to-Judaism conversions, that embed loyalty to Israeli interests within key segments of society. Four figures who held or effectively controlled the Honduran presidency, Juan Lindo, Ricardo Maduro, Juan Orlando Hernández, and Samuel Zemurray, have been Jewish or closely aligned with pro-Zionist interests, highlighting the deep historical roots of Israel’s influence in the country. These interventions reinforced a pro-Israel political bloc, cultivated an environment where dissent is socially penalised, and subtly shaped political allegiances, a dynamic clearly evident in the 2025 elections.

IMAGE: Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, right, shakes hands with his Honduran counterpart, Lisandro Rosales as Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, top right, speaks with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez during the signing of bilateral agreements at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, June 24, 2021. (Source: Heidi Levine/AFP via Getty Images)

The CIA has complemented Israel’s long-term strategy by employing ostensibly humanitarian or religious NGOs, such as USAID, World Vision, and Church World Service (CWS), to fracture Honduran civil society. By promoting Protestantism over the historically cohesive Catholic majority and supporting programs that exploit divisions along religious, racial, and social lines, including tensions within the Garifuna community influenced by organisations such as OFRANEH, the CIA created fertile ground for ideological manipulation and elite control. Together, the actions of Israel and the CIA have destabilised Honduran society, skewed politics in favour of external interests, and amplified societal divisions. The 2025 elections starkly revealed these dynamics, exposing a democracy heavily shaped by decades of foreign intervention and manipulation.

While Honduras showed some symbolic independence, such as recalling its ambassador from Israel in November 2023, there is a strong case to argue that the deep structural influence of Israel and the U.S, reinforced over decades through military, economic, religious, and civil society channels, created a 2025 electoral landscape strongly favourable to a pro-Israel government, as confirmed by The Times of Israel. Nasry Asfura, promoted by President Trump, embodied this alignment, openly supporting Israeli interests and continuing policies that reinforced the country’s pro-Zionist orientation, making the elections less a contest of domestic politics and more a predictable outcome of long-term foreign influence.

Honduras is a nation under the shadow of powerful foreign influences, where politics, religion, and society have been quietly shaped for decades. The following article investigates how Israeli interests, CIA-backed NGOs, and elite manoeuvring have fractured communities, manipulated loyalties, and set the stage for the tensions that exploded during the 2025 elections…

IMAGE: Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, right, visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem, September 1, 2019 (courtesy Western Wall Heritage Foundation)

Thomas Tomczyk writes for PÄYÄ Magazine…

Hondurans Curiously Ambivalent On Palestinian Genocide.

Hondurans have been mostly silent regarding the reported genocide taking place in Gaza over the past two years. The question is: Why such silence? Are Hondurans unaware of the massacres and starvation used against Palestinians in the occupied territories? Do they not care, or are they perhaps afraid of something? “To learn who rules over you, simply find out whom you are not allowed to criticise,” the saying goes. 

There was one example of Hondurans protesting Israeli crimes against Palestinians during the Gaza war after the Hamas attack and Israeli stand-down operation of October 7. On October 23, 2023, dozens of Honduran Palestinians demonstrated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Tegucigalpa. Since then, the longestablished and influential Arab Palestinian community has been mostly silent about the plight of their Palestinian relatives amid Israel’s escalating atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank. 

There is certainly a disconnect, as the 300,000 members of Honduras’ Christian Palestinian community are the third and fourth generations to be born outside of Palestine. Their ancestors began arriving in Honduras from Palestine in the 1890s, and today their connection to and knowledge of Palestine and Israel is mostly superficial. Most Honduran Palestinians don’t know the full scale or nature of the barbarism inflicted on their compatriots who stayed behind and continue to face Israeli oppression, violence, discrimination and now genocide. A Honduran Palestinian businessman told me that many in his community are afraid of being accused of anti-Semitism and facing potential consequences. Simply acknowledging that a systematic genocide may be occurring in Gaza is viewed by some as anti-Semitic. 

It is hard not to notice. Since October 2023, Israeli military actions have resulted in the deaths of many Christian civilians in Gaza who have nothing to do with Hamas. In October 2023 Israeli military bombed a Christian orthodox church and murdered 18 Christians. In December 2023, Israeli snipers executed two Palestinian women on the Gaza Holy Family Catholic church property. In July 2025, Israeli soldiers fired a tank shell at a cross of the same church, killing three and wounding a catholic priest. While this all fell on deaf ears in Honduras, it does seem that the Israelis don’t like Christians very much. 

One person who spoke with concern about the plight of Palestinians was President Xiomara Castro. In November 2023, the Honduran government recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations due to escalating massacres of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. President Castro described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide during a U.N. speech in September 2024. Still, words have not turned into actions. Honduras is nowhere near recognising Palestine as an independent state or moving its embassy from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv. In fact, Honduras remains firmly in the pro-Zionist camp as it continues to support Israel’s military by purchasing 15 Black Mamba military vehicles. Pro-Zionist sentiment is strong in Honduras. Israeli flags are flown throughout the country. Hondurans increasingly wear the Star of David around their necks, and taxi drivers display the Israeli emblem on their vehicles. Honduran roots of Zionism and Judeophilia run deep, well over a century. 

The country now counts three of its presidents to be Jewish: Juan Lindo, Ricardo Maduro and Juan Orlando Hernández. In fact, you could argue that there was a fourth Jewish president of Honduras who ruled the country from 1911 well into the 1950s. Samuel Zemurray, the Banana King, was responsible for the 1911 Honduran presidential coup that secured land and concessions for his United Fruit banana company. American mercenaries hired by Zemurray deposed President Miguel Dávila and made Honduras his “banana republic.” Zemurray installed his puppet, Manuel Bonilla, as president and received 20,000 acres of land in return. After President Bonilla’s death in 1913, Zemurray continued to be a virtual puppet master of several other Honduran presidents. 

In 1947, the World Zionist Organisation tasked Zemurray with delivering Honduras’ U.N. vote in support of the creation of the state of Israel. Reportedly, in a personal phone call, Zemurray tried to bribe then-Honduran President Tiburcio Carías Andino. Because of pressure from the Honduran Palestinian community, Honduras abstained from voting for Israel. Since then, and with plenty of CIA help, Christian Zionism has made many inroads in Honduras. CIA fronts such as World Vision, USAID and Protestant Church World Service for many decades worked to undermine the cohesiveness of Honduran society. 

Since the 1950s, the CIA, which some critics considered an Israeli-captured agency, promoted the establishment and expansion of Protestant churches in Latin America. The excuse given was that Protestants were more anti communist and a good alternative to Liberation. Theology movement preached in many Catholic parishes.

“Israel’s investment in JOH obviously paid off”

The percentage of Catholics in the country fell from 97% in the 1960s to 47% today. Protestant denominations undermined the Catholic cohesion of Honduran society. Religiously divided Honduras is much easier to manipulate, with one denomination pitted against another. Sixty years later, those Catholic-to-Protestant converts have not only become Zionists, but they are also actually converting to Judaism. According to El Heraldo, 37 families converted to Judaism and, in 2022, established Honduras’ first synagogue. The San Pedro Sula Mishkan Shlomo synagogue members advertise their plans to Judaise and convert thousands of Hondurans.

“The plan is for the expanded synagogue to be a six-story, shaped like a Star of David building and be able to accommodate 456 people. This would make it the biggest synagogue in Latin America.” 

Ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández was key in the expansion of Judeophilia and Zionism in Honduras. Just in terms of economy, according School of the Americas, between 2013 and 2019, Honduras purchased $342 million in military and surveillance equipment from Israel. Basically, Honduras has been supporting Israel to the tune of around $5 million a month for that period. Road to conversion of Juan Orlando Hernández began in the early 1990s when he completed a one-year Mashav leaders course in Israel. Israel’s investment in JOH obviously paid off as he learned Hebrew, moved Honduras’ embassy to Jerusalem in 2021, and converted to Judaism with his entire family in 2021. The last one, right before going to a US jail for 45 years, was convicted of decade’s long drug and arms smuggling operation.

Honduras is likely getting set up for a rough ride. Israel funded military dictatorships where even the CIA would not venture. Israel trained and supplied arms to many bad actors that destabilised the region: the genocidal regime in Guatemala in the 1980s, Colombian drug smuggling death squads, Los Zetas drug lord Heriberto Lazcano. “Israel has given its soldiers practical training in the art of oppression and in methods of collective punishment. Some of those officers choose to make use of their knowledge in the service of dictators,” said Israeli general Mattityahu Peled. 

“Honduras will likely become an increasingly polarized and violent society.”

There is also a growing Israeli pressure on the Honduran public by co-opting its anti-Gaza genocide sentiment into nebulous movements. The normally restrained Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs complained that Israeli Ambassador Nadav Goren meddled in internal Honduran affairs by meeting with Protestant church leaders preparing for the August 16 March for Peace and Democracy. “We express to the Honduran people our deep discomfort at their participation in said public event. The involvement of a diplomat not only ignores his limitations,” stated the Honduran ministry. There are plenty of other players seeping discord. Until its recent defunding by the Trump administration, San Pedro Sula was also home to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). The worldwide HIAS organisation does not assist Palestinians, Arabs or Christians in moving to Israel, but uses U.S. tax dollars to help move undocumented migrants through Honduras to the United States. 

For decades, certain interest groups have promoted racial resentment —particularly among Black communities— while fostering a sense of guilt among white, European and Christian populations. In Honduras, this strategy is reflected in the 23-year-old movement known as the Fraternal Organisation of Honduran Blacks (OFRANEH), which has received funding from organisations such as American Jewish World Service and the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros. These groups have been involved in fermenting revolutions, protests and underhanded political activism around the world. Just as with organisations such as Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA, which were recently designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organisation, OFRANEH fosters division, racial tension, grievances and expectations of compensation in the historically well-integrated Garifuna community. Honduras, in the second quarter of the 21st century, will likely become an increasingly polarised and violent society. Powerful interest groups are working hard to implement this, and Roatan is increasingly a party to those tensions. In September 2025, OFRANEH conducted demonstrations in Cayos Cochinos, and in March 2025, there were protests in Diamond Rock. Tensions on Roatan are just starting to heat up.

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