Sao Paulo
After reprimands against President Lula (PT), who compared Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip to the Nazi Holocaust, the Foreign Ministry of the Benjamin Netanyahu government declared the Brazilian leader “persona non grata” this Monday (19).
“We will neither forget nor forgive,” said Chancellor Israel Katz. In a message to the Brazilian ambassador to the country, he continued: “Tell President Lula on my behalf and on behalf of the citizens of Israel that he is persona non grata in Israel until he takes back what he said.”
The statement came in a somewhat unusual way: Katz spoke to press offices together with Brazilian Ambassador Frederico Meyer. The two visited Yad Vashem, the main Holocaust memorial. He called Lula's actions “an antiSemitic attack.”
“I have brought you to a place that testifies more than anything else to what the Nazis and Hitler did to the Jews, including members of my family,” Katz told the Brazilian diplomat, who is nominated for the post in 2023, according to Compiled was statements by The Times of Israel. “The comparison between Israel’s war against Hamas and the atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis is a disgrace.”
In practice, the Latin term for “undesirable person” refers to a state's practice of banning a diplomat (or in this case, a head of state) from entering the country on an official trip. Last week, Tel Aviv also gave this definition to Italy's Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories and one of the most vocal voices against the Israeli operation in Gaza.
During his trip to Africa, Lula classified Tel Aviv's military operation into Palestinian territory as genocide and, in an addendum that launched Brazil's latest diplomatic crisis, added that the deaths of civilians were reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's crackdown on the Jews.
Israel's warnings were prompt and continued throughout Sunday night (18) and Monday morning.
Meanwhile, the president of Yad Vashem said Lula's statements were not only outrageous but evidence of ignorance. Dani Dayan said: “It is disappointing that Lula has resorted to distorting the Holocaust and spreading antiSemitic sentiments.”
The Argentinianborn Israeli businessman is also a household name among PT governments: in 2015, Netanyahu even considered him as ambassador to Brazil. But his name was not popular in Brasília because for years he led the organization of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Several Jewish organizations said President Lula's speech “desecrated the memory of those who died in the Holocaust.” Persecution by the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews.
In a new report, the Hamascontrolled Gaza Health Ministry said the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip exceeded 29,000.
A senior official from the Qatarbased terror group also gave Portal a figure unusual for the publication: He said at least 6,000 Hamas members had died in more than four months of war. The figure of 29,000 deaths is believed to include this figure in addition to the thousands of civilian deaths.
This text will be updated.