Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is on an unprecedented and shameful crusade against Israel. In less than a week he has issued a strong series of critiques, arguing that Israel’s right to self-defense is actually an act of genocide against Palestine.
Far from honoring the message of the Brazilian flag (“Order and Progress”), Lula has returned to power, for the third time, with a retrograde and radical political vision. His alignment with Russia, Palestine, Venezuela and Cuba goes beyond ideology and borders on a defense of international crime.
During his recent tour across Africa, Brazil’s head of state took the opportunity to compare Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza with the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews, an aberrant and malicious analogy. The causes, numbers and lethality of the two events are not even remotely comparable. This type of approach strengthens a dangerous anti-Jewish narrative and adds pain to the nation victimized by Hamas’s vicious attacks against civilians.
For his outrageous conduct, the Brazilian president has been declared persona non grata in Israel. “He has crossed a red line,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lula, the host of this year’s G20 Summit, has also defended Vladimir Putin. He has redoubled his criticism of Israel and pretends not to notice the brutality of his neighbor, the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who is responsible for the exile of almost 8 million Venezuelans.
Lula feigns total ignorance of what is happening in Venezuela, including the arrest of civil leader Rocío San Miguel, the expulsion of the UN Mission, the blocking of opposition leader María Corina Machado from the ballot and the criminal violence of “Bolivarian fury.”
Lula’s eternal alignment with Russia is both sad and shameful. He not only rationalizes the war of aggression against Ukraine and the crimes of Hamas, but he also denies Putin’s murders. He refuses to condemn the murder of Alexei Navalny, the opposition politician who died in prison.
The leftist leader of Brazil has been consistent in his anti-Western policy and support for authoritarian regimes. With China, he continues to promote trade and investment, the neglect of human rights and the end of the hegemony of the dollar.
Lula also continues to oxygenate Cuba’s criminal dictatorship, which keeps more than 1,100 men, women and children behind bars as political prisoners. A few days ago, Brazil negotiated with the United Arab Emirates more than 50 million dollars to revive the island’s dying economy and keep its communist regime on life support.
Lula’s unusual efforts to defend autocrats abroad have caused him to renege on his promises at home. He has left waiting in line key allies such as the indigenous and environmentalist activists whose credulous support he exploited to win a third presidential term.
Brazil’s contradictions range between oil production and rainforest protection. With one hand Lula moves his green agenda, and with the other he winks and gestures to get closer to the oil organization OPEC.
Brazil, as a nation, enjoys extraordinary weight. Its prominent figures today preside over the Inter-American Development Bank, the Pan American Health Organization, the BRICS Bank and currently the G20. Unfortunately, all this leadership is overshadowed by Lula, who has lost his way and does not know the difference between democracies and autocracies.
His third term has been a tragedy in foreign policy, a cruel caricature of the political leadership he once exercised. As Paulo Coelho, one of his former defenders, would say, Lula represents “pathetic leadership.”
The Brazilian president’s false narrative against Israel ignores and ignites the prolonging suffering of the Jewish people and denies the fundamental causes of the conflict in Gaza. Israel did not start this war, but it is committed to ending it.
Arturo McFields is an exiled journalist, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS and former member of the Norwegian Peace Corps.