Carlos Frederico Pereira da Silva Gama
Greater Noida, India, October 25, 2024
The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas and subsequent Israeli reprisals have transformed the Gaza Strip into a global arena where transcontinental alliances transcended local clashes between Israel, Palestine and Iran.
From the Middle East, Egypt and Turkey reiterated their claims of mediation.
The rise of China and India provided counterpoints to former European empires such as France and the United Kingdom, both of which had colonial ties to Palestinian territory.
Growing ties of trade and investment between China, India, and the wealthiest Middle Eastern economies amplified the voices from Beijing and New Delhi.
“The Decolonisation Process”
From a global south perspective, Brazil has framed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian groups as a continuation of the decolonisation process.
Arab populations have been baffled and disillusioned by the persistent resistance of colonial powers to political devolution, evidenced by the United Kingdom’s Balfour Declaration (1917), the United Nations Partition Plan (1948), and the non-implementation of UN Security Council resolutions mandating an end to Israeli occupation, approved after the Six-Day War (1967).
Brazilian perceptions of a near-colonial occupation of Palestine significantly influence its foreign policymaking. Brazil presided over the UN session that officially recognised the creation of the state of Israel, and since then, successive Brazilian administrations have declared their support for a two-state solution. The country has also attempted to reignite its peacekeeping credentials, which were prominent during the administrations of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president from 2003 to 2010 and again from 2023.
As a significant supporter of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Brazil had previously sought to play a major role in the Middle East. In 2009, Brazil and Turkey sponsored a nuclear fuel swap deal between Iran and Western powers, which was ultimately undermined by resistance from the United States and France.
BRICS support to Palestine
Brazil also attempted to mobilise the BRICS coalition of emerging states — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — in support of Palestine during early efforts to incorporate Egypt into the group following the Arab Uprisings of the 2010s.
Alongside ongoing efforts to mediate the Russian-Ukrainian conflict from a global south perspective, Lula’s government offered its good offices just days after the October attack, reflecting a long-standing public perception of peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jewish populations in Brazil, home to millions of migrants and their descendants since the 1850s.
These initiatives, however, clashed with previous political ties between the Israeli War Cabinet led by Benjamin Netanyahu and former right-wing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
As Brazilian citizens faced precarious conditions in the Gaza Strip while awaiting Israeli authorisation for their repatriation, the Israeli ambassador in Brazil met Bolsonaro privately.
Brazilian authorities condemned the meeting as a diplomatic error, followed by official denunciations of the Israeli occupation of Gaza during a humanitarian summit in Cairo.
The government hardened its stance after Israel was accused of genocide in Gaza, a case opened at the request of South Africa at the International Court of Justice in December 2023.
The Brazil-Israel conflict
Since then, Brazilian authorities have characterised Netanyahu’s policies as either genocidal or detrimental to global stability, leading to the eventual withdrawal of the Brazilian ambassador to Israel in March 2024, followed by the freezing of diplomatic relations.
Even under Bolsonaro, whose presidency marked the rise of Christian evangelism as a political force, Brazil did not shy away from its ties with predominantly Muslim Middle Eastern states.
The legal dimensions of the ongoing dispute remain relevant within Latin American political thought and tradition, making Brazil’s swift alignment with South Africa’s call for action unsurprising. Brazil’s self-perception as an emerging democracy from the global south also informs its actions in the Gaza conflict.
At a time when significant upheavals in international relations countered the optimistic liberal forecasts popularised after the Cold War, Brazil seeks to counteract polarisation with an eclectic mix of voices from the global south articulated in the language of Western tradition.
Brazil has promoted a long-standing commitment to “peaceful diplomacy” since the end of the War of the Triple Alliance (1870), which has shaped its early attempts to address the Gaza conflict with equanimity and neutrality.
However, frustrations over mediation have pushed Brazil towards a more explicit global south stance, distancing it from Netanyahu and Israel.
Nonetheless, Brazil’s position remains cautious.
Iran’s inclusion in BRICS did not bring it closer to Tehran’s hardening stance in direct conflict with Israel. Brazil has also joined the European Union’s efforts to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Despite sharp disagreements between (Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) Lula’s and Joe Biden’s policies on Palestine, Brazil and the US continue to cooperate in promoting democracy in the Americas and “on the world stage,” particularly following the overlapping right-wing populisms of Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.
Israel remains an important economic partner and is admired by many Brazilians, especially among the various Christian denominations that comprise 90 per cent of the population.
Carlos Frederico Pereira da Silva Gama is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Greater Noida and author of four books including Global Essays, ‘From Arab Spring to Brexit, 2011-2020.’ The above article and picture, first published by 360info, has been reproduced here under Creative Commons.
