Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday evening recalled his ambassador to Israel, Frederico Meyer, for talks, hours after Foreign Minister Israel Katz gave him a reprimand at the Foreign Ministry following a tour at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum - and even called Lula "an unwanted personality in Israel" until he retracts his comments. At the same time, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Zohar-Zonstein was summoned to a reprimand in Brasilia.
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The storm started on Sunday, when in an extraordinary statement in its harshness against Israel, Lula not only accused the Jewish state of committing of genocide in Gaza, but likened Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip to Nazi despot Adolf Hitler's treatment of the Jews during World War II.
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Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, left, called Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva an 'unwanted personality in Israel'
(Photos: Ricardo STUCKERT / BRAZILIAN PRESIDENCY / AFP)
"What is happening in the Gaza Strip is not a war, but a genocide," Lula told reporters on Sunday during a visit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he attended the African Union summit.
"It's not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It's a war between a highly prepared army and women and children," added the veteran leftist. "What's happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn't happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews."
Israel's foreign minister on Monday gave the Brazilian ambassador to Israel a tour of Yad Vashem "I brought you to a place that testifies more than anything else to what the Nazis and Hitler did to the Jews, including my family members. The words spoken by the Brazilian president, who compared Israel's just war against Hamas and the act of extermination by the Nazis and Hitler against the Jews are a disgrace and a serious antisemitic attack."
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Foreign Minister Israel Katz (left) and Brazilian Ambassador to Israel Frederico Meyer (center) during tour of Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum i
Katz conveyed a message to the president through the ambassador: " We will not forget and we will not forgive. This is a serious antisemitic attack. In my name and in the name of the citizens of the State of Israel, inform President Lula that he is an unwanted personality in Israel until he retracts the statements."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted sharply to Lula's statements. "By comparing Israel's war in Gaza against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization, to the Holocaust, President da Silva has disgraced the memory of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis and demonized the Jewish state like the most virulent antisemite. He should be ashamed of himself," he said.
Netanyahu emphasized that "comparing Israel to the Holocaust of the Nazis and Hitler is crossing a red line. We are fighting for Israel's defense and securing its future until complete victory, while upholding international law."