Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shocked many in the global community when he compared the violence of Israel’s military actions in Gaza — which followed terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas in October — to the atrocities committed against the Jews by Nazi Germany.
“What is happening in Gaza to the Palestinian people hasn’t happened in any other moment in history. Actually, it happened when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” said the president.
Unsurprisingly, the statements sparked a diplomatic crisis with Israel.
Israel summoned the Brazilian ambassador for a meeting — which turned into a public scolding — and declared Lula a persona non grata. Brazil responded by recalling its ambassador to Israel.
Both Brazil’s and Israel’s moves are giving the other side little room to lower tensions, and the diplomatic crisis could continue escalating.
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In this episode:
- Daniel Buarque is an executive editor of Interesse Nacional, an online magazine about Brazilian diplomacy. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo and King’s College in London and studies Brazil in Global Perspective. He is also the author of the upcoming book “Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power.”
Background reading on Brazil-Israel relations:
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lula crossed a “red line” by comparing Israel to Hitler. The quickly escalating diplomatic crisis may also create problems for his domestic politics.
- In January, the Brazilian government decided to support South Africa’s genocide charges against Israel at the International Court of Justice. The move split opinions domestically.
- When Hamas attacked Israel, we told you that the Middle East crisis would be a challenge to Brazilian diplomacy.
- Our Latin America Weekly newsletter showed that there has been a wave of Latin American governments distancing themselves from Israel as the death toll from its military campaign in Gaza continues to rise. The exception to that rule is Argentina’s Javier Milei.
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Transcript of this episode (by Cockatoo)
Gustavo Ribeiro: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shocked many in the global community when he compared the violence of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which followed terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas in October, to the atrocities committed against the Jews by Nazi Germany. “What is happening in Gaza to the Palestinian people hasn’t happened in any other moment in history,” Lula said on Sunday. “Actually,” he continued, “it happened when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”
Unsurprisingly, the statements sparked a diplomatic crisis with Israel.
Israel summoned the Brazilian ambassador for a meeting, which turned into a public scolding and declared Lula persona non grata. Brazil responded by recalling its ambassador to Israel. Both Brazil’s and Israel’s moves are giving the other side little room to lower tensions, and the diplomatic crisis could continue to escalate.
My name is Gustavo Ribeiro, editor-in-chief of the Brazilian Report, this is Explaining Brazil.
To discuss what may stem from this crisis between Brazil and Israel, we invited Daniel Buarque, Executive Editor of Interesse Nacional, an online magazine about Brazilian diplomacy. He holds a PhD from the University of São Paulo and King’s College in London, and studies Brazil in global perspective. Daniel is also the author of the upcoming book, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power. Daniel, thanks for being with us this week.
Daniel Buarque: Thanks for having me, Gustavo.
Gustavo Ribeiro: How does President Lula’s comparison of Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany align with Brazil’s historical stance on the Palestine-Israel conflict?
Daniel Buarque: Well historically, Brazil has maintained some type of continuity in its relations to Israel and to Palestine. If you look since the 1940s, Brazil has supported the creation of Israel and has always supported Israel’s right to self-defense. It has always supported Israel’s right to existence. At the same time, since the 1970s, especially, Brazil has supported Palestinian people.
And since the 2000s, and 2010 specifically, has supported a solution of two states and has supported a creation of a Palestinian state and has even acknowledged the existence of Palestine. So in terms of the bureaucratic relation of Brazil and Israel and Palestinians, there has been continuity. But if you look at the past ten years, there has been a change in terms of rhetoric, especially when you look at the person leading the country politically, leading Brazil politically. Ever since 2014, under Dilma Rousseff, there has been a stronger rhetoric when condemning Israel’s policy in actions, in military actions, especially in the Gaza Strip.
So Dilma Rousseff has spoken openly about that, even in the UN General Assembly, has criticized Israel, has created a little bit of a confusion in diplomatic relations between the two countries then. After that, Bolsonaro had a very different type of relation with the country where he Israel promised to change the embassy in Israel was very closely related to the Israeli government and to Israeli diplomats in Brazil. And after the end of the Bolsonaro administration with Lula, a more critical view of Israel has returned to power in Brazil. And what we see now is an escalation of that with Lula.
Lula has been critical of Israeli military action and now has openly criticized the attacks in Gaza by comparing it to the Holocaust. So what we see is that we see a continuation of the diplomatic ties in terms of the bureaucracy. We see a continuation of the formal relation between the two countries and a little bit of a change in the rhetorics of the leaders, especially on Brazil’s side and some people in the diplomatic side in Israel.
We have to remember that, as we are seeing now Lula being considered persona non grata in Israel. In 2014, there was a very strong speech by the Minister of Foreign Relations of Israel calling Brazil a diplomatic dwarf, which was very complicated, was very badly received in Brazil. So what we see now is an escalation of that. Lula has been critical since the beginning of the main global leaders determined to be in this position of criticizing Israel.
Gustavo Ribeiro: You wrote that you don’t believe this was a Freudian slip. Lula may improvise when talking, but he always says what he means and means what he says. He knew what he was doing when he compared Israel to the Nazis, right?
Daniel Buarque: I wouldn’t say that Lula always knows what he’s saying, always means what he’s saying. But in this specific case, yes, I think it’s clear that it’s part of a strategic positioning of Brazil. And there has been some reports today that Lula has talked to his ministers and explained why he said what he said and that he knew what he was doing.
And what I think is noticeable from this speech is that Lula is trying to position Brazil as a country that is prepared to lead a global criticism towards Israel. The perception is that Israel is losing international support and we’ve seen today in the UN Security Council that there has been a vote in favor of a ceasefire and only the United States has vetoed this position of the UN Security Council. So most of the Brazil believes that most of the international community is turning against Israel’s actions in Gaza and he wants to be in the forefront of that movement.
The speech comparing Israel’s actions to the Holocaust is actually a nod to the global south, showing that Brazil is willing to lead these countries, that since the beginning of the war has not supported Israel openly, and Brazil is nodding to them to show that it is prepared to be the voice of this group of smaller powers and medium powers, saying that it is not prepared to accept what Israel is doing in Gaza. And it’s very easy to notice that when you look at what Celso Amorim has been seeing the reaction to Lula’s speech as a success, as something that was good for Brazil.
Gustavo Ribeiro: Celso Amorim being Lula’s main foreign policy advisor, just as a piece of context.
Daniel Buarque: So, it’s not a surprise that Lula said that. It’s easy to see since October last year that there has been an escalation been treating the conflict and talking about the war. And now it is very clear that this speech is a nod to this group of other countries that Brazil is willing to say the harsh things that other countries are not willing to say.
And it’s accepting, creating an escalation in the tension with Israel, trying to become this leader of groups that want to put themselves against the war.
Gustavo Ribeiro: Now, Daniel, to your point, there has been a trend of South American states that have upped their criticism of Israel, with Javier Millet’s Argentina being a notable exception, right?
Daniel Buarque: Yes. Actually, we should not talk only about South America, because Foreign Affairs Magazine has written last year about how Israel was losing the support of the Global South as a whole. So when you look at all the discussions about the war at the UN, at the Security Council, most of the support Israel gets still comes from the United States. Other countries are abstaining from voting or are being critical of Israel, and most of the countries in the global south are defending a ceasefire and are defending an end to the war.
So yeah, Israel is mostly being supported by the US representing the west, but most of the global south has been critical of it. And this is something that is is showing that Brazil has some space to gain leadership, looking at these countries and seeing that a lot of them are critical of Israel and there is not one of them leading this group and that’s what Brazil is trying to do now. So it is trying to reach all the South American countries that are critical of Israel, but also countries in other parts of the world such as South Africa, because South Africa was actually the one who first introduced the measure to try to compare what Israel is doing to genocide.
And Brazil followed South Africa then. And now with this speech, Lula is showing that it is willing to go even beyond what South Africa did then and is open to strengthening the rhetorics and saying things that most countries are not, were not still prepared to say. And from what Celso Amorim has been saying since the speech on Sunday, there are some other countries that are willing to come forward and to follow Lula in this part. There hasn’t been any support so far, at least I haven’t seen anything, but apparently Brazil
But apparently, Brazil believes, the Brazilian government believes that other countries are willing to follow this line of thinking, this line of criticizing Israel. But if there hasn’t been vocal support for Lula’s words in other countries, there has not been much open backlash either.
Gustavo Ribeiro: Is President Lula’s comparison of Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi atrocities primarily a domestic news story within Brazil and Israel, or is it gaining significant attention on the global stage, potentially impacting Brazil’s image and influence as it assumes the presidency of the G20?
Daniel Buarque: I don’t think it’s not, I don’t think this has any global relevance, as some people are trying to say it does. This is a bilateral matter. This is something that is related just to Brazil and to Israel. If you look at the international media, for example, the New York Times is treating it as Brazil angers Israel, Israel responds. So, there is no public outcry from either side. There hasn’t been support for Lula and there hasn’t been support for Israel either.
The Israel government has actually asked for public support from other countries on social media, but I haven’t seen anything. And I’ve seen a lot of people trying to find international reaction to that. And there hasn’t been any outcry from either side. So a lot of people is paying attention to that. We’ve been talking about this nonstop for two days in Brazil. Apparently, it’s also gathered a lot of reaction in Israel as well. But in the rest of the world, people really do not care as much about this.
Especially because even though this may be one of the first times that a leader of an important country such as Brazil uses this type of rhetoric, this is not the first time people use some type of strong language to criticize Israel. South Africa has been using a parallelism with apartheid for a long time. A lot of people have been talking about Gaza being a concentration camp or some type of camp of a ghetto, for example. So this is not something completely out of the blue.
It’s not something completely new. The novelty here is a political leader from a country as big as Brazil using this type of language. But what I think is the matter is a lot of people are paying too much attention to the language used. A lot of people are paying too much attention to whether they think this is right or wrong.
And not a lot of people is thinking about the reason for Brazil using that. Not a lot of people is talking about the strategic reasoning behind that. And not a lot of people is really analyzing the possible impacts that that can have. Because people tend to think that it is going to be good or bad based on what they believe.
People who are supporting Israel say that it was a gross mistake by Brazil. People who are critical of Israel are saying that this was a great step by Brazil. But there hasn’t been any clear indication of where this is really going. This is a political bet that Brazil is doing and this can go either way. Brazil is betting that there will be a political outcry against Israel in the long term. Brazil is betting that in the long term, this war will be seen as a very strong political problem for Israel and the world. And it wants to put itself in the forefront of this global perception.
If the world comes to see this war in Gaza as a genocide or as a massacre, if this is a narrative that wins hearts and minds over the world through time, Brazil will be remembered as one of the first countries to come forward and say it like that and put in the question like that. On the other hand, if you think that many other wars in Gaza, many other wars in the Middle East have come and gone without changing the global support for Israel in the long term, without changing the status quo in the Middle East.
In that process, Brazil will lose credibility as a possible mediator, as a possible partner, as a country with a possibility to have a leadership role in negotiating peace in that area. So right now, we can’t really know what’s going to happen.
Gustavo Ribeiro: But hasn’t that ship already sailed? I mean, can Brazil be accepted by Israel as a mediator at any point now?
Daniel Buarque: Brazil was never accepted as a possible negotiator in the Middle East. Not in this war, not in any past wars. And Mauro Vieira has openly said that Brazil is not willing to be a mediator, but it is supposedly not trying to be one. So this is actually a way that Brazil has tried to take advantage of the fact that it is not accepted as a country to be a mediator there. That is a change from a traditional foreign policy view in Brazil.
Brazil has historically tried to be mediators in many wars. Brazil has openly talked about mediating the war in Ukraine right now. But in this case in Gaza, Brazil has been talked about since fire, but Mauro Vieira has openly said that Brazil is not trying to be a mediator there, and Brazil has openly criticized Israel from the beginning, and openly criticized what he calls disproportionate use of force.
So, yeah, Brazil is not being accepted as a mediator there, but the political position of the Lula administration is that it’s not trying to be one. So, yeah, this is a political game in which one country tries to be a mediator, is not accepted, then it says, I didn’t want to be a mediator anyway and actually I’m criticizing your position and I want you to stop fighting this war.
So the problem there is not just looking at Israel, it’s looking at other countries because other countries could look at Brazil as a possible country, not to necessarily mediate the war, but to have importance in the negotiations and to play a role in the negotiations. And the risk is if this war goes away without changing anything the status quo in the Middle East and in global relations as a whole, then Brazil will be seen as a country that took a stance against Israel and that can in the long term change the relation between the two countries and that can be problematic.
But if the Brazilian bet pays off, there will be a change in the Middle East in its fight against Gaza and all the Palestinian territories. And this may be good for Brazil as it leads all the countries pressured in Israel to accept a different solution that is not necessarily occupying Palestinian territories.
Gustavo Ribeiro: The Israel-Nazi comparison was not the first eyebrow-raising statement Lula made during the weekend. He also criticized what he called, quote, a rush to condemn Vladimir Putin for the death of Alexei Navalny, one of his highest-profile detractors. Many saw this as utterly disingenuous, considering that a. Navalny had been the victim of a poisoning with the Kremlin’s fingerprints all over it. b. Navalny was a political prisoner who died under the custody of the Russian state. and c. There is absolutely no way that an independent investigation can take place in Russia.
Now, the Brazilian press says that Lula is quickly consuming the goodwill the global community had for him. Do you agree with that? I mean, how can this crisis affect Lula’s image and Brazil’s image abroad?
Daniel Buarque: Well, although I completely agree with your assessment of Lula’s position on the death of Navalny, there is a very Western-centered view in what you’re saying, in what the Brazilian media is saying. Because when it’s talking about international support for Brazil, it is looking only at the West and specifically at the US and maybe some countries in Europe. But what Brazil is doing is completely, what Brazil is doing in terms of the situation in Russia is completely aligned with what it’s doing
in the situation in the Israeli war in Gaza. a way of sending signals to the global south and sending signals to countries that are not aligned with the US and are not aligned with the West, that it is not going to blindly follow the West and the United States specifically. So what Brazil is doing,
I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong, but I’m saying that it follows a clear strategy of sending signals to the global south. Ever since the beginning of the two wars, it’s clear that Brazil has not been against Russia all the time. It has criticized Russia, it has criticized the West, it has criticized Ukraine as well, but it has had some some spats with the Ukrainian government as well. So what Brazil did now with the situation of the death of Navalny is completely aligned with this position of the country as a leader of the global South.
And the global South is not willing to blame Russia for all the problems and is not willing to support the United States in all its positions. And there is right now with these two wars a very clear situation in which there is hypocrisy on most of the sides.
Most of the sides have been hypocritical because if you look at the US, the US is fast and quick to criticize Russia for invading Ukraine, but it ignores what people have been calling a massacre in Gaza, because it supports Israel. And at the same time, Brazil has not openly criticized Russia, but it is criticizing Israel.
So what we’ve seen is not necessarily any country defending human rights or any country defending necessarily peace, and each country defending their own positioning in a broader geopolitical game. What Brazil is doing is betting in a multipolar world in which the West is going to have less influence and in which Brazil wants to position itself as a leader of the global South. And with that, it wants to increase its status and become a global leader representing this part of the world. It’s not necessarily a good bet, but this is the bet.
The Brazilian government believes in a multipolar global order and it’s trying to position itself in terms of using this multipolar global order in a situation in which itself can become a representative of a pole. So, this is why Brazil has been positioning itself in terms of not criticizing Russia openly because it wants the support of countries that support Russia and it wants Russia not to be against itself.
This is why Brazil is not openly criticizing China for anything that happened in China and this is why Brazil has chosen to be critical of Israel. This is not necessarily a discussion about peace, this is not necessarily a discussion about human rights, this is a discussion about geopolitics.
From all countries’ point of view, this is a matter of geopolitics. The US is defending their side when it criticizes Russia all the time and it supports Israel all the time, and Brazil is doing what the government believes is the best strategy to pursue higher status for Brazil. And the way to do that, it believes, is to be the leader of the global south.
And to do that, it doesn’t want to engage critically with Russia, and it wants to be a leader in the criticism of Israel. And so, if you look at those two positions, they make sense. Again, I’m not saying this is the right way to go, it’s the right strategy
But you can look at them and see that it is a unified the strategy that makes sense in terms of what Brazil’s trying to do what he believes is going to be a multipolar global order, right? I see your point we have to look at the situation of the flu of lunar speech about Israel and the Holocaust and see beyond The language and the terms used, they are important, of course. It is really important that a global leader is using this type of rhetoric.
I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter. It matters, but we have to go beyond that. And we have to go beyond thinking about if the parallelism is right or wrong, and if we agree with it or not, and we believe this strategy is right or not. We have to look at it as a broader strategy and try to understand what is the political reasoning behind what Lula is doing.
This is not a slip, this is not a chance argument that Brazil is presenting, this is part of a strategy of a country that believes that the world is going towards a multipolar global order. And this is the political strategy that Brazil is developing, and this is the political strategy of Brazil’s government since Lula took power. And it is trying to engage with the world, with building very strong relations with different countries.
And the biggest novelty here is Brazil willing to step away from a view in which it is a country that stays on the fence and avoids taking sides?
And Brazil is starting to take sides to make sure that the country sees it as a country that is willing to lead, even if it comes with political costs. Brazil is really… The Brazilian government is accepting, strengthening a political tension with Israel and position itself as a critic of Israel and by comparison a critic of the US foreign policy. And it is doing that because it believes that the US is not going to be an hegemonic power in the world for a long time and it believes that it’s not going to be a bipolar order between the US and China.
He believes that it’s going to be a multipolar order and it has a strategy to navigate that and he’s trying to use that to pursue more status for Brazil and he wants the country to be one of the leaders in this possible multipolar order. Again, everyone can criticize that. We can say that this is a mistake, that this is not going to happen, but this is the reasoning behind most of what Brazil is doing in terms of its foreign policy under Lula.
Gustavo Ribeiro: Daniel, thank you very much.
Daniel Buarque: Thank you, it was a pleasure.
Gustavo Ribeiro: Daniel Buarque is the executive editor of Interesse Nacional, an online magazine about Brazilian diplomacy. He holds a PhD from the University of São Paulo in King’s College in London, and he studies Brazil’s image abroad. Daniel is also the author of the upcoming book, Brazil’s International Status and Recognition as an Emerging Power. If you like Explaining Brazil, please give us a 5-star rating wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re listening on YouTube, don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to our channel.
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