The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is expected in Brasilia in the evening, where he has a meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the agenda tomorrow.
The meeting - organized some time ago - takes place at the height of the storm between the governments of Brazil and Israel, after Lula's statements, who compared what is happening in the Gaza Strip with the extermination of the Jews carried out by Hitler.
Blinken's program also includes participation in the meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro (21 and 22 February), a forum of which Brazil holds the presidency this year.
The Brazilian Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira, summoned the Israeli ambassador to Brasilia, Daniel Zonshine, with whom he had a conversation lasting about half an hour last night in which he expressed "surprise and unease" at his government's position , who declared
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 'persona non grata'.
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Conversing with journalists last Sunday in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the 37th General Assembly of the African Union (AU), Lula argued that "what is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has not happened at any other time in the history", except one: "When Hitler decided to kill the Jews", unleashing the wrath of the Netanyahu government.
According to journalistic sources, there would have been no government apology to Zonshine, as Netanyahu had asked Lula.
Vieira, the same sources indicate, would have used a cordial but firm tone in defense of the position adopted by Brazil.
The summoning of the Brazilian ambassador to Tel Aviv, Frederico Meyer, and the public reprimand by the Israeli Foreign Minister during a visit to the Shoah memorial, were seen by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry as a "show" on the part of the Netanyahu government , something "unacceptable" and completely foreign to the practices of diplomacy, as reported by sources close to Vieira.
According to these sources, the Brazilian ambassador was "ambushed" in Tel Aviv.
And he had to listen to criticism
in Hebrew without an interpreter.
After the meeting, Meyer was recalled to Brasilia for "consultations".
Lula's wife defends him, 'His words were misrepresented'
The Brazilian 'primeira dama', Janja, intervenes on the diplomatic crisis with Israel and uses social media to defend her husband Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva: the speech in which she compared the actions of the Israeli armed forces to the actions of Adolf Hitler and Holocaust - explains Janja from his profile on X - "referred to the genocidal government and not to the Jewish people. Let's try to be honest in our analyses".
"I am proud of my husband who, since the beginning of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, has defended peace and above all the right to life of women and children, who are the majority of the victims. I am sure - she highlights - that if the President Lula had lived through the Second World War, he would have defended the right to life of the Jews in the same way."
“The world must be outraged by the murder of each of these children and urgently unite to build peace,” he concludes.
Bolsonaro: 'Brazil and Israel, sister nations'
“Brazil, Israel, sister nations.”
It is the text of the post published by the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, on his X profile, in the midst of the diplomatic crisis between the Lula government and that of Netanyahu.
In the publication, Bolsonaro attached a video of his official visit to Israel during his presidency in 2019, when Netanyahu accompanied him to the Wailing Wall.
On that occasion, Bolsonaro made some statements, reported in the video, explaining Brasilia's position close to that of Tel Aviv, with the intention of opening negotiations to move the embassy to Jerusalem.
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