Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this week slammed the UN’s inability to create a Palestinian State in the same manner that it established the state of Israel in 1948.
“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.
Speaking during an official visit to Spain, Lula continued: “We live in the world where the UN Security Council, the permanent members, they are the ones who sell the most weapons in the world, they are the biggest participants in wars in the world.”
“When the United States invaded Iraq, there was no discussion in the Security Council. When France and England invaded Libya and when Russia invaded Ukraine, there was no discussion either,” he added.
Astonished by the reduced role non-member states play in the international organisation, he asked the UN Security Council not to limit itself to its permanent members. “I am therefore left wondering whether it is up to us, other countries that are not permanent [members] of the UN Security Council, to make a change. Why aren’t Brazil, Spain, Japan, Germany, India, Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa [ permanent members]? The winners of the Second World War currently determine that, but the world has changed.”
“We need to build a new international mechanism that does things differently. I think it’s time for us to start changing things and it’s time for us to create a G20 of Peace, which should be the UN,” he said.
His calls were slammed by the pro-Israel group, StandWithUs Brasil, who said: “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.”
“As for a State for Palestinians, neither the UN nor other international organisations currently have the role of creating it, unless Palestinians and Israelis themselves come to seal the peace independently,” the statement added.
READ: Palestinian groups ask Brazil to denounce Israeli apartheid
