Israeli Minister Calls Out Blinken for ‘Rushing to Embrace a Holocaust-denying Antisemite’

Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs, called out U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Wednesday for “rushing to embrace a Holocaust-denying antisemite” by meeting with Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula.

As Breitbart News reported, Blinken had earlier publicized his meeting with Lula, and praised him, without mentioning that the Brazilian leader had recently abused the memory of the Holocaust to criticize Israel’s war of self-defense against Hamas terrorists.

Met with President @LulaOficial ahead of the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting. Brazil is a key partner on many issues including combatting the climate crisis and advancing human and labor rights. As we approach 200 years of U.S.-Brazil relations, our ties are stronger than ever. pic.twitter.com/wdVWL6KQ5j

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) February 21, 2024

In response, Chikli criticized Blinken — as well as the White House’s so-called “strategy” on fighting antisemitism (which, as Breitbart News reported at the time, was developed with an antisemitic group that the White House later had to disavow.)

Chikli posted on X: “What is the value of national strategic plans to fight antisemitism when the Secretary of State rushes to embrace a Holocaust-denying antisemite?” He included a screenshot of a post by the U.S. Holocaust Museum criticizing Lula.

What is the value of national strategic plans to fight antisemitism when the Secretary of State rushes to embrace a Holocaust-denying antisemite? https://t.co/Zbq1i8YTrx pic.twitter.com/aE0BXiP1kn

— עמיחי שיקלי – Amichai Chikli (@AmichaiChikli) February 21, 2024

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News in November, Chikli described the fight between Israel and Hamas as one that implicated the West as a whole, with Israel standing for the cause of truth, and Hamas standing for radical Islam and Marxism.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.