Netanyahu reacts to Lula's Holocaust speech, summons ambassador
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded on Sunday (Feb. 18) to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's statements criticizing Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip and the cutting off of humanitarian aid to the region's inhabitants.
Netanyahu said that Lula's statement was equivalent to "crossing a red line", referring to an excerpt from Lula's speech, made during an official trip to Ethiopia. At a press conference, the Brazilian president called the civilian deaths in Gaza "genocide," criticized developed countries for reducing or cutting humanitarian aid to the region, and said that "what is happening in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian people has never existed in history. In fact, it existed when Hitler decided to kill the Jews."
"The words of the president of Brazil are shameful and serious. It trivializes the Holocaust and seeks to harm the Jewish people and Israel's right to defend itself," wrote the Israeli premier on X, formerly Twitter.
He added that he had ordered Brazil's ambassador to Israel to be summoned for a stern reprimand. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz also posted on X that Lula's speech was "shameful" and confirmed that the Brazilian ambassador had been summoned for clarification.
The president's statement caused a reaction from organizations such as the Israeli Confederation in Brazil (Conib), which issued a declaration repudiating the comparison and stating that the president's remarks constituted a “perverse distortion of reality.”
"The Nazis exterminated 6 million defenseless Jews in Europe, just because they were Jews. Israel, on the other hand, is defending itself against a terrorist group that invaded the country, killed more than a thousand people, carried out mass rapes, burned people alive, and advocates in its founding charter the elimination of the Jewish state," the Conib text reads.
The Palestinian Arab Federation in Brazil commented on Netanyahu's assertion by suggesting that “it might be time to cut relations with Israel.”
