Brazil Fires Bolsonaro-Era Ambassador to “Israel”

By Staff, Agencies

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira has fired his country’s envoy to the Zionist entity, Gerson Menandro Garcia de Frietas, apparently as part of a wider shake-up.

Vieira also removed Brazil’s ambassador to the US and the consul-general in New York from their posts.

According to the Axios news site, newly inaugurated Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has vowed to take a more “balanced and traditional” approach to the “Israeli”-Palestinian conflict than his predecessor.

The new Brazilian President vowed to haul Brazil out of Jair Bolsonaro’s era of “devastation”, and barbarism. He promised to lead Brazil into a new chapter of environmental protection, social progress, and a “rational democratic” government.

Without mentioning his right-wing predecessor by name in his 30-minute address, Lula excoriated the damage done by Bolsonaro’s four-year administration during which nearly 700,000 Brazilians died of a mishandled COVID outbreak, millions were plunged into poverty, and Amazon deforestation soared.

The “criminal behavior of a denialist and obscurantist government that treated people’s lives with callousness” during the coronavirus pandemic should not go unpunished, Lula told Congress.

However, it is not clear how Brazil's foreign policy will pivot or how quickly that will happen, especially as the socialist president will face a Congress widely dominated by Bolsonaro's allies.