Israel Summons Brazil Ambassador After Lula’s Comments on Gaza

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, speaks during meeting at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. Lula met with Rio Grande do Sul officials following deadly storms that have devastated the southern most state of Brazil.

(Bloomberg) — Israel summoned Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva compared its war on Hamas with Adolf Hitler’s extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.

“The words of the Brazilian president are shameful and serious,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “No one will harm Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Lula helps set the tone for the Global South as the current rotating president of the Group of 20 nations. South Africa has also challenged Israel’s war tactics, bringing allegations of genocide to the International Court of Justice. Several Latin American countries have pulled their ambassadors and reevaluated their relations with Israel over the conflict.

Israel has rejected the accusations, saying it’s heeding international law and seeking to minimize civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip while it fights Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union.

Israel has been at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, during which some 1,200 people were killed by Palestinian militants and more than 200 were taken hostage. Since the fighting began, more than 28,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory.

“What’s happening now hasn’t happened in any other time in history, but when Hitler decided to murder Jews,” Lula said, speaking with reporters in Ethiopia as he wrapped up an official visit to African countries. He said Brazil will defend the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state before the United Nations and asked for humanitarian aid not to be suspended. He has also called Israel’s prosecution of the war “genocide.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined with Katz in seeking to summon Brazil’s ambassador. “Comparing Israel to the Nazi Holocaust and Hitler is crossing a red line,” he said.

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