Israel says Brazil's president unwelcome until he apologizes for comparing Gaza war to Holocaust
ABC News
Israel’s foreign minister says Brazil’s president will not be welcome in Israel until he apologizes for comments he made comparing Israel’s war in Gaza to the Holocaust, accusing him of a “very serious anti-Semitic attack.”
JERUSALEM -- Israel’s foreign minister said Monday that Brazil’s president would not be welcome in Israel until he apologizes for comments he made comparing Israel’s war in Gaza to the Holocaust, accusing him of a “very serious antisemitic attack.”
On Sunday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that “what is happening in the Gaza Strip and to the Palestinian people hasn’t been seen in any other moment in history. Actually, it did when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.” Lula made the comments while speaking to reporters at the African Union summit in Ethiopia.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz summoned the Brazilian ambassador to Israel’s national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem on Monday for a reprimand.
“The things that Lula said when he compared the righteous war of the State of Israel against Hamas, which murdered and massacred the Jews, and Hitler and the Nazis is shameful and unacceptable,” Katz said.
On Monday evening, Lula recalled Brazil’s ambassador to Israel, Frederico Meyer, to the country for consultations, according to the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.
