The Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT – Workers’ Party) condemned on Tuesday (17) the intensification of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and on Iran. During his speech at the G7 Summit Extended Session, in Canada, Lula classified the actions from Israel to the Palestinian population as an “indiscriminate massacre”. The president also reported the use of hunger as a weapon of war. The statements are contrary to the group’s position that was published the previous day.
“In Gaza, nothing justifies the indiscriminate massacre of thousands of women and children and the use of hunger as a weapon of war”, said Lula, before the leaders of the main powerful nations of the world gathered in Kananaskis. The Brazilian president also criticized the international silence in the face of the ongoing repression: “There are countries that still resist recognizing the Palestinian State. It is something that highlights their selectivity on the defense of the rights and justice”.
On Monday (16), the G7 leaders – USA, Canada, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan – shared a statement in defense of Israel and condemning the supposed threat represented by Iran. The Persian country is pointed out in the text as a “source of instability and terror” in the Middle East.
Lula’s declaration was given amidst a new escalation in the region. Since last Friday (13), Israeli attacks in Iran have left at least 224 dead and around 1.2 thousand injured, according to the Iranian Ministry of Health. The Iranian government reacted, launching attacks that killed 20 people in Israel.
Lula warned that recent attacks on Iran “threaten to turn the Middle East into a single battlefield, with immeasurable global consequences”. For the president, “there will be no energy security in a conflagrated world” and it’s urgent to develop protagonism for the United Nations (UN), with a representative group committed to peace.
The Brazilian president also pointed out military expenses as a symptom of international disorder. According to him, investments in weaponry achieve the equivalent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Italy, around US$ 2.7 trillion each year. “It’s US$ 2.7 trillion that could be invested to fight hunger and the fair transition”, he stated.
About the war in Ukraine, Lula declared that “neither side will achieve their goal by military means”. He also argued that the dialogue is the only path towards a ceasefire and to build permanent peace.
Popular pressure for concrete measures
Lula’s participation in the G7 meeting happens in the middle of the pressure from popular pro-Palestine movements in Brazil. They shared a document that requires concrete measures from the Brazilian government, such as immediately cutting diplomatic ties with Israel.
Last weekend, while Canada prepared to receive G7 leaders, thousands of protesters went out on the streets at several Brazilian cities and international capitals, in defense of the Palestinian people.
The scenario is also of repression of the international initiatives that challenge the Israeli blockade. Last Sunday (15), Egyptian forces used violence to disperse the Global March for Gaza in the Rafah frontier. Last week, activists from the Flotilla Coalition, such as the Swedish Greta Thunberg and the Brazilian Thiago Ávila, were detained by the Israeli Navy. They were trying to take humanitarian help by sea to the Gaza Strip.
Defense of the energy transition and sovereignty over minerals
Lula also used the G7 leaders meeting to present the Brazilian experience regarding green energy and to defend the sovereignty of developing countries over their natural resources”.
Brazil was the first country to largely invest in renewable alternatives. 90% of our electric grid comes from clean sources”, the president remembered.
While he highlighted strategic reserves of niobium, nickel, graphite and rare earth elements, Lula criticized the extractive standards from the past: “During centuries, mineral exploitation produced wealth to few and left traces of destruction and misery to many”. He supported that the benefit of raw materials should go to the countries that produce them, as a way of disrupting the logic of economic dependence.
