Israel declares Lula ‘persona non grata’ for comparing Gaza war to Holocaust | International

The Israeli military response to the October 7 Hamas attack, which sparked the current war, continues to ignite sparks in international politics. Israel told Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday that persona non grata and closed the door to the country until it corrects the statements made this Sunday in which it compared the Gaza war to the Holocaust. The highest state authorities have reacted angrily to what they see as a direct attack on Israel, on Jews in general and on the right to self-defense. All this on the same day that the number of Palestinian deaths in the Mediterranean enclave exceeded 29,000, according to local health authorities. In response, Brazil recalled its ambassador to Tel Aviv for consultations, who returned on Tuesday, and summoned the Israeli envoy to Brasilia for that same afternoon, according to the Foreign Ministry. Meanwhile, Lula remains silent.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, summoned the Brazilian Ambassador, Frederico Meyer, this Monday morning. “We will neither forget nor forgive. This is a serious anti-Semitic attack. On my behalf and on behalf of the citizens of Israel, please convey this to President Lula, who is persona non grata in Israel until it backs down,” declared the head of Israeli diplomacy, who chose a symbolic location for the reprimand, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem.

“I have brought you to a place that bears witness more than anything to what the Nazis and (Adolf) Hitler did to Jews, including members of my family,” Katz said. “The comparison between Israel’s legitimate war against Hamas and the atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis is shameful and a serious anti-Semitic attack,” he added. Katz even showed the Holocaust Museum ambassador the names of his grandparents, Israel and Shaprinza Katz, in what is called Book of Nameswhich has, for the moment, nearly five million victims.

The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that “given the seriousness of the statements made this morning by the Israeli government”, it took a double decision: to call its ambassador in Tel Aviv, who returns on Tuesday, for consultations, and summon the special envoy. The Israeli in Brasilia, Daniel Zonshine, traveled to Rio de Janeiro on Monday afternoon for a meeting with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Silva. This crisis comes on the eve of the G20 foreign ministers meeting that Brazil is hosting this week in Rio.

While President Lula remains silent, his top adviser on international affairs, Celso Amorim, said the decision by Netanyahu’s cabinet “is absurd.” “This only increases Israel’s isolation. Lula is claimed all over the world and at the moment who is he (considered) unwelcome This is Israel,” the veteran diplomat said upon arriving at the presidential residence in Brasilia to meet the president.

The first lady, Janja da Silva, one of Lula’s top political advisers, tweeted about the controversy. She claims her husband’s comments “referred to the genocidal government of Israel, not the Jewish people.” And he adds that “the world should be outraged by the killing of each of these children (from Gaza) and urgently unite to build peace.”

The diplomatic bomb exploded on Sunday several thousand kilometers away. “What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has not happened at any other time in history. In reality, this happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” the president of Brazil declared on Sunday in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). “It’s not a war, it’s a genocide,” he declared during a press conference after a tour of several African countries. “This is not a war of soldiers against soldiers. “It is a war between a very prepared army and women and children,” added the president, also in a serious tone. Lula demanded a permanent ceasefire and peace negotiations and also criticized governments that suspended their contributions to the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in the face of Israeli accusations that Lula favors investigation.

Netanyahu’s response

These remarks posed a challenge from the start to the government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was quick to respond to Lula. “Today (Sunday), the President of Brazil, by comparing Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization, to the Holocaust, President Silva dishonored the memory of six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and demonized the Jewish state as the most virulent anti-Semite. “He should be ashamed of himself,” the president commented during a speech to leaders of Jewish associations.

“We often talk about the history of anti-Semitism and we say: how are these lies leveled against the Jewish people, these extraordinary falsifications, these incredible diatribes that have no basis in fact possible? How can they be believed by so many people? Well, this is exactly what is happening today in the case of Israel,” Netanyahu added.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog also responded, emphasizing that “Israeli soldiers are fighting a cruel terrorist organization whose stated goal is the annihilation of the Jewish state, and advocates the suppression of other religions and communities like the LGBT, and continues to brutally hold 134 babies, women and men hostage in Gaza dungeons. Even so, Herzog added, referring to the Brazilian president’s remarks, “there are still leaders who atrociously accuse the nation-state of the Jewish people of the evil represented by Hitler’s actions,” according to his network profile. social

Lula met on Saturday, alongside the African Union summit in Ethiopia, with the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mohamed Shtaye.

Israel’s response to the attack, in which Hamas murdered some 1,200 people on October 7, became the worst war the country has seen in its 75-year history. Throughout these four months, comparisons with what happened during the Second World War in the shadow of Nazism were recurrent. In the same way that Lula used this comparison, Israeli authorities have repeatedly done it in the opposite direction.

The extermination of six million people during World War II fueled the birth of the crime of genocide. It is on these pillars that the Holocaust Museum was built, where the Brazilian ambassador to Israel was summoned this Monday. In the shadow of the more than 29,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in Gaza, the international community has once again put the term genocide on the table. The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, found it “plausible” at the end of January that Israel was committing actions that constitute this international crime.

Netanyahu declared that “Hamas is the new Nazi.” Meanwhile, the war continues in Gaza.

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