The Brazilian and Russian Presidents, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Vladimir Putin, spoke yesterday about the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the urgency of a ceasefire and humanitarian corridors, and joint work at the United Nations to de-escalate the crisis and make a peace process a priority. Brazil chairs the UN Security Council this month.
This is the first war in human history where the greatest number of the people dying “are children, who are not in the war,” Lula exclaimed today in his weekly Conversation with the President broadcast. “My role [is] to try to create the conditions so that we can get back to the negotiating table.”
He reported that he has spoken to the Presidents of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, France, and the U.A.E., and the head of the European Union; talks with the Presidents of China, South Africa, and Qatar come next. “I’m talking to everyone so that we can achieve three things. Firstly, guaranteeing a humanitarian corridor so that people can receive water, food and medicine. Ensure that there is no shortage of electricity in hospitals so that people can be treated and ensure that no more children are killed….
“If you don’t talk about peace every day, every day, every day, people forget that it’s possible to build peace. So when I see the authorities talking about war. `Because so-and-so has to kill so-and-so, because so-and-so has to be defeated.’ That’s not how we solve the problem. No one dies at a negotiating table. It costs less and we can find a solution. We need to make sure that in the Middle East, Israel gets its territory, which is demarcated by the UN, and the Palestinians have the right to their land. It’s as simple as that….
“Don’t people have a sense of humanity, of responsibility? Where is humanism? Where’s fraternity? What about solidarity? Where is our passion for children? Where is our thought for the future? In other words, what is the future? Is it war? That’s what we’re going to promise our children. It’s death, death, death, death….
“Israel does not have to kill millions of innocent people because Hamas committed a terrorist act against Israel…. If the UN had strength, the UN could interfere more. The United States could interfere more. People want war, people want to encourage hatred, people want to stimulate hatred….
“Where are we, what kind of world do we want to create? My indignation against poverty, my indignation against inequality, is turning into indignation against the stupidity of human beings. Ignorance. People are no longer human. People are being irrational. So I’m trying to talk to everyone to see if one day we can sit down at a table and say: `Look, it’s going to be more sensible to negotiate… so that we can get back to building the possibility of a better world.”
