Lula facing backlash after claiming Israel was created by the UN
During a speech in Spain, Lula stated that the UN created the State of Israel in 1948, but did not say the same in relation to the Palestinians
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) is facing fresh backlash from his country's Jewish community after claiming the United Nations (UN) founded the State of Israel.
During a speech in Spain, Lula stated that the UN created the State of Israel in 1948, but did not say the same in relation to the Palestinians. “The UN was so strong that, in 1948, it managed to create the State of Israel. In 2023, it fails to create a Palestinian state,” Lula said.
In a statement reacting to the Brazilian leader's words, StandWithUs Brazil said that “contrary to what the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said, Israel was not created by the United Nations.”
“In 1947, what the UN Partition advocated was the creation of two countries, one for Jews and the other for Arabs. The Jews accepted, the Arabs did not. The State of Israel was founded after a war waged by the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq against the Jews,” the organization said. The statement was personally signed by André Lajst, executive president of StandWithUs Brazil.
"As for a State for Palestinians, neither the UN nor other international organizations currently have the role of creating it, unless Palestinians and Israelis themselves come to seal the peace independently," the statement added.
Lula's statement is not the first he has come at odds with the Jewish state. In March, Israel criticized Brazil's decision to allow two Iranian warships to dock at its port in Rio de Janeiro.
The Brazilian leader—a veteran leftist politician who was already a former president of Latin America's most populous country—has a long track record of pro-Palestinian statements.
In 2009, then-president Lula warmly welcomed former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a notorious Holocaust denier who vowed to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth" during a visit that sparked international criticism.
A year later, Lula became the first Brazilian head of state to visit Israel since Emperor Pedro II visited the Holy Land in 1876. He had, however, refused to go to the tomb of Theodor Herzl, which was part of the itinerary planned for foreign officials visiting for the 150th anniversary of the father of Zionism. A few days later, he laid a wreath at Yasser Arafat's grave in Ramallah. Finally, in the last month of his previous term, his government officially recognized a Palestinian state.