Lafer says Lula’s talk about the Holocaust was insensitive – 02/20/2024 – Panel

Former chancellor Celso Lafer states that the comparison made by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) between Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip and the Holocaust shows a lack of sensitivity in relation to the extermination of Jews by Germany Nazism during the Second World War, clashes with the history of national diplomacy and could harm Brazil’s international relations.

Lafer spoke to the Panel after participating in the inauguration ceremony of Aldo Rebelo as Secretary of International Relations and Renato Nalini as Secretary of Climate Change under the Ricardo Nunes (MDB) administration, in São Paulo, this Monday (19).

“Diplomacy is carried out with gestures and words. And concepts have meaning. When the president [Lula] equates Israel’s conduct in the war with the Holocaust and genocide, not only is there a slip in the use of the word, but there is also something that amounts to a profound insensitivity towards what the Holocaust was,” said Lafer, who served as minister of Foreign Affairs in 1992 and from 2001 to 2003.

“There are other matters that can be discussed, but the way in which he [Lula] dealt with the matter was one that does not correspond to the tradition of Brazilian diplomacy and compromises the ability of the president and Brazil to act on the international level. Brazil gains nothing from the demonstration, which does not correspond to facts, values ​​and sensitivity”, he added.

Last week, Lafer sent a letter to Mauro Vieira, current Minister of Foreign Affairs, in which he questioned Brazil’s decision to support South Africa’s complaint to the UN International Court of Justice against Israel. According to the accusation, Israel commits genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

According to the former chancellor, the definition of genocide clearly establishes that it is the intention to destroy all or part of a group. “That is not the intention of Israel’s conduct,” he assesses.

Lafer says that Israel’s reaction, which declared Lula “persona non grata” this Monday, was “driven by emotions”.

“And for the fact that, like the Prime Minister himself [Binyamin Netanyahu] said, President Lula crossed the red line of what was morally acceptable, and then you naturally had a reaction that was not diplomatic, but was emotional. Which corresponds in intensity to the feelings that his statement [Lula] brought”, he concludes.

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