The government of Brazilian radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called another meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, set for Friday, to address the aftermath of the harrowing jihadist attack on Israeli civilians last weekend by Hamas.
Brazil holds the presidency of the Security Council, which has done nothing since Hamas stormed civilian areas in Israel on Saturday, brutally killing upwards of 1,300 and counting by shooting, stabbing, burning alive, and potentially beheading victims. Israeli authorities have reportedly found the bodies of dozens of babies in affected areas, as well as elderly and other defenseless victims. Among the victims, two were Brazilian nationals, and a third Brazilian citizen remains missing at press time.
Brazil will pass the presidency of the Security Council to the rogue government of China in November as per the Council’s alphabetical sorting rules.
The state-owned Agência Brasil news agency informed on Wednesday that Lula sent his Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira to New York to attend the Security Council meeting. Vieira was in Cambodia as part of his now-postponed official Southeast Asia work agenda through several of the region’s nations.
On Sunday, the U.N. Security Council also convened at Brazil’s request. The Council failed to reach a consensus and produce a statement that condemned Hamas for its heinous terrorist attack and invasion of Israel, which left thousands of Israeli and other international citizens dead and/or injured in addition to hundreds more kidnapped and missing.
An estimated 10,000 people answered a call to attend the funeral on Tuesday night of Bruna Valeanu, 24, a Brazilian immigrant to Israel murdered by Hamas terrorists during the ongoing assault on Israel that began on Friday. (Instagram)
Lula, much like other leftist Latin American heads of state, has personally failed to directly condemn Hamas’ terrorist actions, alleging that it is part of his government’s policy to “avoid giving publicity” to terrorist organizations.
Sources from inside the Brazilian Foreign Ministry nonetheless told CNN Brasil last week that sectors of the Brazilian government are sympathetic to Hamas and consider the terrorist group “important” for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.
On Wednesday, Lula published an “appeal in defense of Palestinian and Israeli children.” In it, he urged U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and the international community to end the Israeli-Palestine conflict in the Middle East.
“Children should never be taken hostage, no matter where they are in the world,” Lula’s message read. “Hamas must release Israeli children who have been kidnapped from their families. Israel must stop bombing so that Palestinian children and their mothers can leave the Gaza Strip through the border with Egypt. There needs to be a minimum of humanity in the insanity of war.”
“International humanitarian intervention is urgently needed,” the message continues. “A ceasefire is urgently needed in defense of Israeli and Palestinian children.”
A ceasefire, as Lula is calling for, would result in Israel and its military forces not being able to respond to Hamas’ terrorist attack and the killing of over a thousand civilians.
Gunshots and blood stains are seen on a door and walls of a house where civilians were killed days earlier in an attack by Hamas militants on this kibbutz near the border with Gaza, on October 10, 2023, in Kfar Aza, Israel. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Lula also asserted that Brazil will join efforts to bring an “immediate and definitive end to the conflict” while claiming that the South American nation will continue to “work to promote peace and defend human rights around the world.”
Local Brazilian media reported on Wednesday evening that a group of 61 federal lawmakers are seeking to formally request that the Brazilian Foreign Ministry declare Hamas a terrorist organization.
“The official declaration of Hamas as a terrorist organization is extremely important so that the Brazilian government can take firm measures against the organization,” the request’s document reportedly read.
The request is spearheaded by federal deputy Rodolfo Nogueira of the Liberal Party (PL), to which former President Jair Bolsonaro belongs. Brazilian Secretary of Africa and the Middle East Carlos Sérgio Sobral Duarte stated that the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group by Brazil will be discussed at the U.N. Security Council.
CNN Brasil reported on Wednesday that members of Lula’s ruling Workers Party (PT) want the leftist president to adopt a more critical stance against Israel. PT has historically maintained a pro-Palestinian stance.
“President Lula is right to maintain a balanced position. Not least because the country holds the presidency of the U.N. Security Council,” PT federal deputy Carlos Zarattini told CNN Brasil. “We have to find a solution to the conflict. But we have to be critical of both Hamas terrorism and the state terrorism practiced by Israel.”
Lula’s government received fierce criticism on social media following the confirmation of the deaths of Brazilian citizens Ranani Nidejelski Glazer and Bruna Valeanu, who were missing since Hamas’ weekend attack on Israel. The two Brazilians, both aged 24, were attending the Supernova music festival in southern Israel attacked by Hamas.
The Brazilian government issued a statement on Tuesday confirming their deaths but failed to mention Hamas and the organization’s role in their assassination, opting to describe their deaths as a “passing,” not as a “murder.”
Falecimento de cidadão brasileiro em Israelhttps://t.co/T9tGNGTjth pic.twitter.com/2HIZCS9Nng
— Itamaraty Brasil 🇷 (@ItamaratyGovBr) October 10, 2023
Brazil’s current two-year seat at the U.N. Security Council is set to end on December 31. Lula, during his U.N. General Assembly speech in September, made calls to reform the Council, claiming that it has progressively lost its credibility due to the “actions of its permanent members, who wage unauthorized wars in search of territorial expansion or regime change.”
Much like with Israel’s ongoing war, Lula — who has notoriously kept friendly relations with Hamas funder Iran and who has repeatedly insisted on a “two-state solution” for the Palestinians — sought to insert himself in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine this year. Lula presented himself as a worthy mediator in discussions with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping during his official visit to Beijing in April.
Lula himself made his desired “impartial” mediator role between Russia and Ukraine an uphill endeavor as a result of disparaging comments he made against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before he won the 2022 Brazilian presidential race, describing Zelensky as a “nice comedian” and suggesting that he was just as responsible as Russian strongman Vladimir Putin for the invasion of his country.
“I see the President of Ukraine, speaking on television, being applauded, getting a standing ovation by all the [European] parliamentarians,” Lula said in May 2022.“This guy is as responsible as Putin for the war. Because in the war, there’s not just one person guilty.”
“You are encouraging this guy [Zelensky], and then he thinks he is the cherry on your cake. We should be having a serious conversation,” Lula continued. “OK, you were a nice comedian. But let us not make war for you to show up on TV.”
The comments sparked tensions between Zelensky and Lula that continued through the start of Lula’s third presidential term in January 2023, with Zelensky reportedly blaming Lula for snubbing him out of a planned meeting in Japan during the G7 Summit on May.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York on September 20, 2023. (Twitter/Volodymyr Zelensky)
Both presidents finally held a meeting in New York in September, with Zelensky describing the encounter as “honest and constructive,” but Lula has not been invited to take on any other role in addressing the situation in Eastern Europe.
Lula’s calls for reform of the Security Council seem to count with the apparent blessing of Russia, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Russian state-owned Tass news agency on Thursday that Moscow views Brazil as a “natural candidate” for a permanent seat on a prospective reformed U.N. Security Council. Lavrov claimed that both Putin’s Russia and Lula’s Brazil share the aspiration to “build a more equitable multipolar international order based on the principles of the UN Charter and respect for the diversity of cultures and civilizations of the world.”
“Keeping in mind Brazil’s high standing and influence on the international arena and the fact that it consistently seeks collective solutions to global challenges and threats, we view Brazil as a natural candidate for a permanent seat on a reformed UN Security Council,” Lavrov said.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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