Many still don’t understand why President Lula chose to withdraw Brazil from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), especially considering it’s neither an Israeli organization nor officially tied to the Israeli state. In fact, the IHRA was founded in the late 1990s by a Swedish initiative, and Israel only joined after its establishment.

The alliance’s core mission is to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and educate future generations about the genocide of the Jewish people by the Nazis, while also fighting antisemitism around the world.

Given that the IHRA is not a state-run Israeli body and holds no formal ties to the Israeli government, the question remains: why did Lula go out of his way to pull Brazil out of it?