Brazilian journalist Breno Altman answered our questions about the war in Gaza and the policies of the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments.
Breno Altman is a renowned Brazilian journalist, founder of the news portal “Opera Mundi”, an independent journalism website. He has interviewed President Nicolás Maduro and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, among other prominent figures in Latin American and world politics.
This Friday, June 14, Breno Altman, who arrived in Caracas to participate in the International Seminar: “A new holocaust in the 21st century,” spoke about the accusations against him to establish a position in favor of the Palestinian people, as well as analyzed Venezuela-Brazil relations.
It is important mentioning that, recently, Breno Altman, of Jewish origin, has been the object of strong attacks in his country, by the influential Jewish community of Brazil, which accuses him of being anti-Semitist due to his defense of the Palestinian Cause and for denouncing the genocide by the Israeli government in Gaza. The Brazilian Israelite Confederation (CONIB) accused him civilly and criminally of anti-Semitism. The pressure from the CONIB on the Brazilian Justice has been so strong that the journalist has more than 10 cases against him, and in addition, he had to remove from his social networks some of his publications in defense of the right of the Palestinian people to resist against the Zionist aggression; Fortunately, all their platforms continue to function, unfortunately, the judicial processes and the attack on freedom of expression continue as well.
A Brazilian Jew, defender of the Palestinian Cause
Present in Caracas to participate as a speaker at the event “A new holocaust in the 21st century. Zionism threatens the world”, activity organized by the Rómulo Gallegos Center for Latin American Studies (CELARG) and the Bolivarian University of Venezuela (UBV); Breno Altman is a Jew who does not deny the legacy that different people of the Jewish religion, from different regions and countries, have left for the history of humanity (especially in the Western world but also in Eurasia), for example, he highlights Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky, among others. Nor does it deny the holocaust of the Nazi regime against the Jews in Europe that caused millions of deaths, among which the majority can be counted Jews. However, the Brazilian journalist is clear and forceful: “A genocide is happening in Palestine before the eyes of the world.” “It is the first time in history that we have experienced an online genocide.” “Zionism is the racist and colonial response to anti-Semitism,” stated Altman.
To get into context, what is happening in Palestine today?
I consider it to be the first genocide transmitted online in the history of humanity. Since October 2023, we are living and seeing this genocide all day, every day, every week, every hour of our day, it is there on our screens. So far we have 37,000 deaths, of which almost 70% of the human losses are civilians, and a large part of them are women, girls and boys. Proportionally, it is the largest massacre in a war of children in history. We are talking about 14,000 children having been murdered by the Zionist government of Israel. We are talking about around 15,000 women have been murdered. These are figures from the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip that have been confirmed by the United Nations. It is a situation where the word, the horror of the concept “genocide” is clearly applied, because it is not a collateral effect of a war, it is a target, an objective, a calculation of the Israeli army.
What the Netanyahu government is doing is part of a normal strategy in a genocide, children are killed so that they do not become adults and women are killed so that they do not have other sons and daughters. They seek ethnic cleansing, they seek to eliminate the Palestinian people.
In your personal experience, how much is Zionism accepted within the Jewish community in Brazil? And how is the receptivity of the anti-Zionist Jew within the Jewish community in Brazil?
The majority of Jews in the world today are Zionists. In Brazil, we have the third most important community in the Americas, the first is that of the United States, the second is that of Argentina, and then there is us with 150,000 Jews who live in Brazil. I come from an anti-Zionist Jewish family that goes back three generations, my parents, my grandparents, have been important in the Jewish community, but they have always been anti-Zionist. So, there is a very harsh confrontation against every anti-Zionist Jew.
For example, I am currently responding to 13 or 14 legal cases in Brazilian justice, because Zionist organizations accuse me of anti-Semitism. And a distinction must always be made to clear up a confusion that exists between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism is the fight against a certain political ideological current, and it is the political ideological current represented by the State of Israel. Anti-Semitism is the persecution and racism against Jews. They are different things. He who is against Zionism is not against the Jews, just as he who was against Nazism was not against the Germans, and he who was against fascism was not against the Italians.
But Zionist entities try to put everything in the same bag or place, for them if you criticize Zionism you are anti-Semitic. The Zionists treat me like a Jew who hates himself, they say that I practice, against the Jews – even though I am Jewish – the crime of racism and the crime of anti-Semitism.
Zionism, in reality, is from the same family as fascism and racism. It is part of the root of national-chauvinist, ultra-nationalist, xenophobic, supremacist doctrines.
Let’s talk about Lula. There is a perception that the Brazilian president has distanced himself a little from Venezuela and Palestine. Do you think this has been the case?
I believe that Lula has had a fairly clear and firm position on Palestine, I even believe that he was the first world leader who – in addition to speaking out against the genocide in Gaza – equated Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime with Nazism. That is to say, Lula publicly demonstrated the great contradiction of Israel by applying methods against the Palestinians very similar to those applied by Hitler’s Germany. However, we must move on to another phase, not just remain declarative.
Now, can Lula do that? take a step further. It’s difficult, because Brazil is 5th. largest oil exporter to Israel. Brasilia is 5th. Israel’s largest importer of weapons and security technology. But also, Brazil has already withdrawn the Brazilian ambassador from Israel, and, in my opinion, is inclined to follow the same line that South Africa followed to end Apartheid.
Finally, can you explain to us that “ambiguous” relationship that President Lula has had towards Venezuela?
I do not consider President Lula to be ambiguous. Lula has always maintained a position of solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, with the government of President Chávez and with the government of President Nicolás Maduro. However, the internal and external pressure against Venezuela and the Bolivarian Government is very strong.
Venezuela within Brazil has a negative image, the enemies of Venezuela have managed to build a negative image of the country. And all the time that image is used to compromise and attack the Brazilian left. On the other hand, Lula is not a revolutionary leader, Lula is not Chávez, Lula is not Maduro, Lula is not Fidel. Lula is a popular left-wing leader, but he acts within a Brazilian institutionality that is a liberal democratic institutionality, a conservative institutionality. Furthermore, in Brazil there is no revolutionary process underway, as there is in Cuba, Nicaragua and, of course, in Venezuela.
So, Lula chooses to balance between some criticism and some defenses for and against Venezuela, because otherwise the political cost to pay would be too high. Despite everything, Lula has remained supportive and close to the Bolivarian Revolution.
