Brazil's Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira arrives for a meeting with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi (not pictured) at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia on January 19, 2024. (Sergio Lima/AFP)
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s foreign minister accuses his Israeli counterpart of “lying” as a diplomatic spat escalates over President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s comparison of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza to the Holocaust.
Mauro Vieira, whose country is hosting a G20 foreign ministers meeting this week, says statements by Israel Katz are “unacceptable in their nature and lying in their content” as well as “outrageous.”
Israel has reacted furiously after Lula said the conflict in the Gaza Strip “isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” and compared it to “when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lula had “crossed a red line,” and Katz declared the Brazilian leader “persona non grata in the state of Israel so long as he doesn’t retract his remarks and apologize.”
Katz summoned Brazil’s ambassador Frederico Meyer for a meeting Monday at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem.
Brazilian ambassador to Israel Frederico Meyer, left, and Foreign Minister Israel Katz tour the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem, February 19, 2024. (Michael Dimenstein/GPO)
In a tit-for-tat move, the Brazilian foreign ministry then summoned the Israeli ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Zonshinem, and recalled Meyer from Tel Aviv for consultations.
On Tuesday, Katz took to X to describe Lula’s comparison as “delusional.”
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