Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has once again accused Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza, after recently igniting a diplomatic crisis by likening Israel’s attack on Hamas to the Holocaust. “What the state of Israel is doing is not war, it is genocide, because it is killing women and children,” Lula repeated during a ceremony in Rio de Janeiro on Monday after being declared “persona non grata” by Israel. made the same comment.
The Brazilian leader, who reacted for the first time since the controversy started by comparing Israel’s invasion to the Nazi Holocaust, maintained his position, repeatedly emphasizing the word “genocide”. “It’s a genocide. There are thousands of children dead and thousands missing. It’s not the soldiers who are dying, it’s the women and children in the hospital. If this isn’t a genocide, I don’t know what a genocide is,” Lula asserted.
Last week, Lula sparked a diplomatic storm by declaring: “What is happening to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has no parallel in any other moment in history. In fact, it existed when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called this “shameful and serious” and said it amounted to “trivializing the Holocaust and undermining the right of the Jewish people and Israel to defend itself”.
However, the poll conducted on Monday by CNN Brazil suggesting that the Brazilian public does not follow its leader. The survey showed that eight in ten Brazilians (or 83% of respondents) dispute the comparison to Mr. Lula, while 57% of 800 respondents believe Israel is on the right side of the conflict, while 28% agree. .
