José Dirceu says the reaction to Lula’s speech against Israel is “hypocrisy”

Former Minister of the Civil House José Dirceu stated this Monday (19) that the reaction to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) speech against Israel is “hypocrisy”. This weekend, Lula compared the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust. In addition to defending the president, the former minister said that Israel “needs to face the consequences of its policy of occupation, apartheid and genocide.”

“It is immense hypocrisy to discuss Lula’s statement instead of what is happening in Gaza, the 700 thousand Israeli settlers illegally settled in the West Bank and instead of discussing the need for a ceasefire and negotiations that lead to peace” , said Dirceu in an interview with the Monica Bergamoat Folha de S. Paulo. “What is happening in Gaza is, yes, a genocide and is comparable to Nazi atrocities. Lula did not talk about the Holocaust”, she highlighted.

Entities harshly criticized Lula’s statement. The Brazilian Israeli Confederation (Conib) and the Brazil-Israel Institute stated this Sunday (18) that the Brazilian president trivialized the Holocaust. “What is happening in the Gaza Strip does not exist at any other historical moment, in fact, it existed when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” said Lula about the conflict. Opposition parliamentarians presented a request for impeachment against the president.

The Israeli government declared the PT member as a “persona non grata” in the country. Dirceu stated that it is “absurd” to define the president’s speeches as anti-Semitic. “Whenever Israelis are walled in, like now, they invoke anti-Semitism so that the essential thing cannot be discussed. Which, today, is peace,” added the former minister.