10/28/2023 8:00 a.m., updated 10/27/2023 7:11 p.m
The Israeli government attended Lula’s meeting with singer Roger Waters. However, after several disagreements with Itamaraty, he preferred not to express a clear opinion on the meeting that took place on Monday (October 23) at the Palácio do Planalto.
The column asked Israel’s ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Zonshine, about possible restrictions the meeting could bring to relations between the countries. Zonshine responded with subtle diplomatic irony. “Everyone has different tastes in music,” he said.
However, the ambassador did not shy away from explaining that Waters had “known antiSemitic political positions.”
The founder of Pink Floyd has been accused of antiSemitism since he called for a cultural boycott against Israel. As a defender of the Palestinian cause, Waters has tried for years to persuade artists not to perform in the country. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were some of the names who received and ignored letters from Waters with this motivation.
Itamaraty called Zonshine for an interview on the 18th and expressed discomfort with the diplomat’s statements about Brazil’s role in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The ambassador had also suggested that the PT supported Hamas.
Zonshine decided to delay the event. “We don’t have problems with the Brazilian government, we have differences in definitions. The relationships [entre os países] they haven’t changed. “Nothing like that happened,” the diplomat said. “We have different opinions about what Hamas is. In our view, Hamas is a terrorist group and there are no other definitions or words that could be used.”