The Brazilian government
recalled its ambassador in Tel Aviv for consultations and summoned the Israeli ambassador
, Daniel Zonshine, after Israel declared this Monday the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, persona "non grata" for having compared the Israeli offensive against Gaza with the Holocaust.
The Brazilian Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira,
summoned the Israeli ambassador
to appear this Monday at the Itamaraty Palace in Rio de Janeiro, where he is for the meeting of G20 foreign ministers next Wednesday and Thursday, according to the Foreign Ministry of the South American country. .
Likewise, he called for consultations the Brazilian ambassador in Tel Aviv, Frederico Meyer,
who will return to his country on Tuesday
, after having been summoned this Monday by the Israeli Government to convey to him the harsh response of the Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the words of Lula.
Meyer was summoned by the Foreign Minister of that country, Israel Katz, in a place full of symbolism such as the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, instead of the headquarters of the Foreign Ministry, as is usual in these cases, which
generated a " enormous discomfort" in Brazilian diplomacy
, according to official sources told EFE.
The Israeli Government declared Lula
persona "non grata"
and assured that it will maintain that status until he apologizes for having compared the Israeli offensive in Gaza with Adolf Hitler's crimes against the Jewish people.
"We will not forgive nor forget
: on my behalf and on behalf of the citizens of Israel, I informed President Lula that he is a 'non grata' personality in Israel until he apologizes and retracts his words," Katz declared.
Israeli female soldiers pose for a photograph at a position on the border of the Gaza Strip in southern Israel.
AP Photo
The controversy broke out the day before, when in statements to the press, during a trip to Ethiopia, Lula compared the Israeli military campaign in Gaza to what happened in the Holocaust.
Lula said the confrontation
"between a very prepared army and women and children"
had not occurred before in history, except "when Hitler decided to kill the Jews" in World War II.
The International Affairs Advisor to the Brazilian Presidency, Celso Amorim,
considered it "absurd
" for Israel to declare the Brazilian president "persona non grata."
For his part, the Minister of Communication of the Presidency, Paulo Pimenta, recalled that, since the beginning of the conflict, Brazil "
condemned the terrorist attacks by Hamas in all forums."
However, he stressed that "the international community cannot remain silent in the face of the massacre of a people that cannot suffer extermination for the crimes of a group that must be punished for what it did."
Source: EFE
P.B.