Far-right Congresswoman Carla Zambelli, who in 2022 chased a man at gunpoint through the streets of São Paulo, filed a motion on Thursday to impeach President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for comparing Israel’s recent military operations in Gaza to the Holocaust.
The motion was signed by 139 House lawmakers, far short of the 342 votes needed to actually impeach a president. No signatures are formally required to file a motion for impeachment, a petition that ordinary citizens can also submit without the support of a lawmaker.
At the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa on Sunday, Lula said that “what is happening in Gaza and with the Palestinian people” has only one precedent: “when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”
Lula’s declaration was swiftly confronted by the Israeli government, including an outraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that “comparing Israel to the Nazi Holocaust and Hitler is crossing a red line,” and by Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, who declared Lula persona non grata in Israel.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said of Lula’s remarks that friends can “disagree” on how to approach issues, and praised the “quality of the conversation” he had with Lula earlier this week, a clear indication that the escalating diplomatic conflict between Brazil and Israel is not an obstacle to U.S.-Brazil relations.
Ms. Zambelli’s motion argues that the “highest point” of the crisis was when Brazil joined other countries in asking judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to declare Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal.
The motion argues that Lula violated the 1950 Impeachment Act for “committing an act of hostility against a foreign nation.”
Regardless of the number of signatures, it is up to House Speaker Arthur Lira to decide whether or not to form a committee to discuss a motion for impeachment. During Jair Bolsonaro’s term, Mr. Lira ignored dozens of such requests.
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