Israeli FM avoids Lula

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s “mission of peace” in the Middle East has hit a diplomatic pothole.

On Monday the Brazilian leader gave a special address at the Knesset where he called for a renewed push against violence in the region as well as “a Middle East free of nuclear weapons.” Sadly one key member of Israel’s government opted to ignore Lula:

Israel's foreign minister (Avigdor Lieberman) confirmed Tuesday that he boycotted meetings with the visiting Brazilian president, claiming he refused to visit the grave of the founder of modern Zionism...

Lieberman said he was upset at Silva's decision not to visit late Zionist leader Theodor Herzl's grave, especially while agreeing to lay a wreath at the tomb of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday.

"A person who is not prepared to visit Herzl's grave but is visiting Arafat's grave, I don't accept that," Lieberman told the Israeli news Web site YNet. He claimed the snub breached protocol.

A Brazilian government official anonymously told the AP that Lieberman’s claim was “odd” in that other heads of state recently visiting Israel skipped stopping at Herzl's grave. That explanation did not stop the World Zionist Organization treasurer to call Lula’s gesture “an insult to Israel’s citizens.”

As part of his tour Lula is expected to meet with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas before traveling later this week to the West Bank and Jordan.

Image- AP (“Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, lays a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Tuesday, March 16, 2010.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Ha’aretz, AP, Jerusalem Post, LAHT