Bolsonaro tries to inflate demonstration with Lula-Israel crisis – 02/19/2024 – Power

In a recycling of themes that marked the beginning of Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) mandate, allies of the former president are trying to use the crisis caused by Lula (PT) with Israel to inflate the demonstration scheduled for next Sunday (25) on Avenida Paulista, in Sao Paulo.

The act aims to create an image of support for the former president, subject of a Federal Police operation to determine his role in the coup plot during the government transition, from 2022 to 2023.

Bolsonaro’s handyman, lawyer Fábio Wajngarten wrote on well received and welcomed.”

Lula provoked the anger of the Israeli government and the Jewish community by comparing the war in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust during a trip to Ethiopia, late Sunday (18). This Monday (19), the Foreign Ministry in Tel Aviv declared that the Brazilian is “persona non grata” in Israel, further escalating the crisis.

The issue of the extermination of 6 million European Jews by the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler is the most sensitive in Israeli politics. The basic argument is obvious: Israel launched its war due to the mega-terrorist attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, an act of defense.

He is being questioned about the proportionality of his actions, which is different from having been accused of genocide — there is an investigation opened at the request of South Africa at the International Court of Justice, but it did not accept the classification in its preliminary analysis .

Since the beginning of the war, Lula has irritated the Israelis, influenced by the historical position of the Brazilian left in favor of the Palestinians. He called the war a genocide and signed the South African petition to The Hague.

Ambassador Zonshine, in turn, found himself exposed for directly criticizing the government in a meeting with Bolsonaro deputies in the Chamber. Here, the ongoing plot goes back to Bolsonaro’s first year in power.

At his empty inauguration, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was the main highlight. Bolsonaro soon visited the Jewish State, in March 2019, and promised that he would move the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, repeating a campaign commitment — now repeated by Argentine Javier Milei, idol of Bolsonaro supporters.

The Brazilian gesture, which never materialized due to protests from Arab countries, major buyers of the country’s animal protein, would mean taking a side: as both Palestinians and Jews claim Jerusalem as their capital, the vast majority of nations maintain their diplomatic representation in Tel Aviv. Aviv.

All of this concerns evangelicals allied with Bolsonaro. Israel is an icon for a large part of this religious segment, and the more millennial fringes believe that without the Jewish State, there is no possibility of Jesus Christ returning to Earth.

There are several symbolic interconnections. The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God built a version of Solomon’s Temple in São Paulo, inaugurated by Edir Macedo dressed as a rabbi. Groups of believers being taken for baptism in the Jordan River are big business — even Bolsonaro did it, in 2016, at the hands of former presidential candidate Pastor Everaldo, now leader of Podemos and occasional tourist guide in Israel.

Evangelicals are one of the most resilient support groups for the former president, being among the strata that most consider themselves Bolsonarians, as shown by a Datafolha survey.

Among Jews, the situation is more complex. Proximity through evangelicals was greatly explored in the 2018 electoral dispute. Wajngarten and businessman Meyer Nigri, both Jews, were at the beginning of their precarious campaign. They ended up antagonizing other members of the community, further to the left, who pointed out that the image of Jews was being hijacked by Bolsonarism.

The conflict continued throughout the government, especially due to Bolsonaro’s irresponsible handling of the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, the situation is getting worse: even non-Bolsonaro Jews are shocked by Lula’s speeches about the Israel-Hamas war.

Bolsonarism wasted no time and sought the association, in addition to promising to try to provoke the impeachment of the PT member due to the crisis, which is evidently just rhetoric. For its critics, this also signals the fear of failure of the act.