The diplomatic crisis between Brazil and Israel escalated on Monday, February 19, when the Hebrew state announced that Lula was now “persona non grata” in Israel. The day before, the Brazilian president called Israel's war in Gaza a “genocide” and compared it to the Shoah. In light of this rare escalation between two allied countries, Brasilia summoned its ambassador in Tel Aviv and the Israeli ambassador in Brasilia for consultations.
Published on: 02/20/2024 – 00:24
5 minutes
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had already caused an uproar by accusing Israel of committing “genocide” on Sunday, February 18 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, drawing a comparison between the Israeli offensive and Nazi Germany's extermination of Jews during World War II. “What is happening in Gaza is not a war, it is a genocide,” President Lula told the press from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he was attending an African Union summit. This is not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It is a war between a well-prepared army and women and children. »
“What is happening to the Palestinian people in Gaza has never happened at any other time in history. In fact, this has already happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.” hammered the Brazilian leaderVeteran leftist, at the same time condemned Hamas' attacks.
Following these comments, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared on Monday that Lula was “persona non grata” in Israel. “I have informed President Lula that he is persona non grata in Israel until he apologizes and retracts his statements,” said the head of Israeli diplomacy during a visit to the Yad Vashem Shoah memorial in Jerusalem. He had summoned the Brazilian ambassador to Israel. “Brazilian President Lula’s comments comparing the State of Israel’s just war against Hamas, which murdered and massacred Jews, to Hitler and the Nazis are a disgrace and a serious anti-Semitic attack on the Jewish people and the state.” of Israel,” he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned “shameful and serious” statements on Sunday.
A way to publicly “humiliate” Brazil?
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira responded by recalling for consultations on Tuesday, February 20, “the Brazilian ambassador in Tel Aviv, Frederico Meyer, who will leave for Brazil.” “Given the seriousness of the statements made by the Israeli government this morning, Minister Mauro Vieira […] “Israeli Ambassador Daniel Zonshine has been summoned to Rio de Janeiro,” the Brazilian ministry also said in a statement.
These announcements were made during a press conference in the presence of the Brazilian diplomat in the Holocaust Museum. For some Diplomats in an interview with the Brazilian broadcaster GloboNewsit is a way to publicly “humiliate” Brazilian Ambassador Frederico Meyer, and thus Brazil itself. “This is not done in diplomacy,” another diplomat added Brazilian daily newspaper Folha de São Paulo. The ambassadors are normally warned in the Chancellery.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz speaks to the media alongside Brazilian Ambassador to Tel Aviv Frederico Meyer after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva denounced the Gaza War with the Holocaust at Yad Vashem at the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem on February 19 had compared, 2024. © Dedi Hayun / Portal
Lula's comments are the most vicious ever made by Lula on the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, a prominent voice from the south and the left whose country currently holds the rotating G20 presidency.
Hamas welcomed Lula's comments as “an accurate description of what (his) people are suffering in Gaza” and revealing “the enormity of the crime committed by Israel.”
The 78-year-old left-leaning Brazilian president condemned the October 7 Hamas attack as a “terrorist” act. But he has performed very well since then Criticism of Israel's military retaliation campaign.
Earlier in the day, a message from First Lady Rosângela da Silva, Janja, defending the president made it clear that Lula had no intention of retracting his comments or apologizing to Israel, as the Netanyahu government is demanding. Lula's controversial statement “referred to the genocidal government and not to the Jewish people,” she commented on X, taking aim at the Israeli authorities. She expressed her “proud” in her husband, who “since the beginning of this conflict in the Gaza Strip has defended peace and, above all, the right to life of women and children, who represent the majority of victims.”
Orgulho do me marido que, from the beginning of the conflict in Faixa de Gaza, he defended paz, mainly or directly in the lives of the people and the criminals who saw the Maoria the vítimas. Now it is certain that if President Lula lived during the Second Guerra period, this was his death…
— Janja Lula Silva (@JanjaLula) February 19, 2024
Lula's statements also sparked reactions in the Brazilian Jewish community. The Israeli Confederation of Brazil (Conib) said that the Lula government was “abandoning the tradition of balance and the search for dialogue in Brazilian foreign policy.” The Israeli Federation of the State of São Paulo also regretted the president's speech.
Brazil has a history of neutrality between the two sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He had been “In 2010, it was the first country to recognize the Palestinian state “, had Lula shouted back to Addis Ababa.