Above photo: Petrobras.
Two of the largest federations of oil trade unions called on President Lula help prevent the ‘ongoing Nakba’.
And stay ‘on the right side of history’.
Two of Brazil’s largest federations of oil trade unions have called on the country’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to impose an energy embargo on Israel over its brutal war against the Gaza Strip.
The National Federation of Oil Workers and the Single Federation of Oil Workers signed a letter to the Brazilian president and a number of his ministers urging the government to take a firmer stance against the genocidal war against Palestinians.
The federations said Brazil must do more than make public statements and impose a full ban on oil sales to Israel in an effort to actively prevent the “ongoing Nakba” – using the Arabic word for catastrophe, which refers to the ethnic cleansing and mass exodus of Palestinians in 1948.
The letter notes that 2.7 million barrels of oil were exported from Brazil to Israel last year alone, which constitutes a significant portion of Tel Aviv’s supply of military fuel.
It added that Brazil has an obligation to avoid any complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity, as has been stipulated by legal experts and international organizations such as the Oil Change International (OCI) NGO.
President Lula has publicly denounced the genocide and has strongly criticized Israel’s war on Gaza.
The signatories urged Brazil to “honor its diplomatic legacy, affirm its position on the right side of history, and ensure that its economic policies reflect its ethical and legal commitments to human rights and international law.”
The letter also praised measures taken by other countries, including Colombia’s halt of coal exports to Israel last year.
The Chilean government announced earlier this week that it would pull all its military, defense, and air force attaches from Tel Aviv in protest against the war in Gaza.
A Chilean Foreign Ministry statement on 28 May said the decision is a result of “the extremely serious humanitarian situation currently experienced by the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip.”
The ministry condemned “the disproportionate and indiscriminate military operation by the Israeli army,” and the “constant obstacles to allowing aid” into the besieged strip.
Several Latin American states have been vocal about Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Late last month, Colombian President Gustavo Petro compared the plight of Palestinians to the suffering of Jesus Christ.
“At the moment of the Passion and death of Jesus, let us reflect on the Palestinian people, from where he came, now under a bloody genocide,” Petro wrote on social media in response to a post about Dr Hussam Abu Safia, a prominent Palestinian physician who was abducted by Israeli troops in Gaza last year and remains imprisoned, facing ill-treatment and torture.
In May 2024, Colombia announced the severing of diplomatic ties with Israel over the genocidal campaign. The year before, Bolivia cut its diplomatic relations with Israel and labeled the Israeli war in Gaza as “aggressive and disproportionate.”