A-Infos (en) Brazil, FOB: Beyond the controversy: Pressing for Brazil to break diplomatic, military and economic relations with the State of Israel (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Since Lula compared the genocide that Israel carries out against 
Palestine to the Nazi holocaust, the subject has taken over the media in 
a controversial way. The polarization of the public debate means that 
the question is whether to defend or attack the president's speech. 
However, this smokescreen obscures the main question that must be asked: 
What actions has the Brazilian government taken in support of the 
Palestinians who are suffering this massacre? ---- The symbolic and the 
material ---- It is in the interest of governments that the symbolic 
prevails over the material in public debate. After all, the symbolic can 
be manipulated in various ways, while the material reveals the real 
interests involved in the struggle for power. The rise of the plateau 
ramp in this 3rd term of Lula represents this image game. 
Representations of the oppressed climb the ramp, but economic policy is 
played with the same colonial and capitalist whip as always.

Commercial links between bravado
On February 19, one day after Lula's speech, the Brazilian ambassador to 
Israel was summoned by him to return to the country. This comes after 
Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would reprimand the ambassador for the 
president's speech. There is already talk of a diplomatic crisis, a 
break in diplomatic relations, but important points must be raised.

Brazil is the 5th largest importer of military equipment from Israel . 
So the Israeli war industry and Brazilian militarization that kills 
black people in communities feed each other. The trade flow between 
Israel and Brazil in 2022 was approximately 4 billion dollars . 
Something that is even encouraged by the Mercosur-Israel Free Trade 
Agreement where 90% of the products that Mercosur exports to Israel have 
reduced import duties.

Lula and Netanyahu can exchange bravado, but it is the duty of the 
working class to press for Brazil to truly take a stand in favor of the 
Palestinian people. Such as, for example, reviewing the Lula 
Government's position denying humanitarian residence to Palestinian 
refugees .

There is no justification
There are no economic justifications for maintaining relations with 
Israel when it comes to Brazil: a continental country with full capacity 
to build sovereignty in the manufactured products it imports from there. 
There are no moral justifications for conniving at a massacre that 
continues by piling up corpses, approximately half of which are children.

Collusion is only justified through the interests of strengthening 
Zionist policy, which finds its imperialist allies within the West. To 
the point where, despite being insufficient, Brazil's ceasefire proposal 
was vetoed by the United States at the UN. This inefficiency of the UN 
has reached such a point that even the entity's Director of Human Rights 
resigned from his position because he recognized that it was incapable 
of responding to the ongoing genocide.

Internationalist challenges for the working class
Brazil's economic, military and diplomatic break with Israel will not 
come through President Lula's sold conscience. It will be the result of 
the mobilization of the people who, with their conscience, must tear up 
Zionist propaganda and understand that literally the bullet that kills a 
brother is literally from the same rifle that kills a Palestinian child.

However, it is with great pain that this challenge must be seen in its 
entirety. The large mass organizations in Brazil, unfortunately, do not 
have the necessary class independence to push the government in the 
right direction. The objective of most of them remains to first support 
the government and only then, if appropriate, carry out some criticism.

As the saying goes, you have to change the wheel while the car is 
moving. It is in this process of politicization of the people through 
the actions of truly autonomous organizations that a force can be built 
that can respond to this genocide.

In this sense, FOB reaffirms its solidarity with the Palestinian people 
and undertakes to be united to defend a combative position against the 
State of Israel without conceptions of Zionism disguised as national 
interests.

Long live the resistance of the Palestinian people!

Break relations with the State of Israel!

FOB National Announcement

https://lutafob.org/para-alem-da-polemica-pressionar-para-que-o-brasil-rompa-relacoes-diplomaticas-militares-e-economicas-com-o-estado-de-israel/
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