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INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
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RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM 0033
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RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 0094
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 0145

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRASILIA 001391 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/02/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KHUM KPAL IS IR
SUBJECT: PERES AND ABBAS VISITS IN PERSPECTIVE 
 
REF: A. BRASILIA 1368 
     ¶B. BRASILIA 1112 
     ¶C. BRASILIA 658 
     ¶D. BRASILIA 391 
 
BRASILIA 00001391  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: Charge D'Affaires Lisa Kubiske for reasons 1.4 (b) and ( 
d) 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary.  The November visits by Israeli President 
Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, both 
shortly in advance of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's visit 
(ref A), led to few substantive results but helped Brazil 
craft its narrative as a hopeful emerging player in the 
Middle East.  During the Abbas visit, President Lula made 
separate comments criticizing the U.S. role in the Middle 
East and arguing that the United Nations, not the United 
States, should play a mediating role in the region.  The 
Israeli Embassy expressed satisfaction with the Peres visit 
but does not see Brazil as a viable neutral third party in 
the region, given the GOB's lack of regional knowledge and 
its lean against Israeli interests in efforts to accumulate 
supporters of a permanent Brazilian UN Security Council seat. 
 Diplomats representing Israel/Palestine's neighbors with 
whom we have spoken welcome Brazil's interest in the region 
and generally support Brazil's goals, but see the current 
aggressive outreach as largely a product of Lula's strong 
presidency, and expect little from Brazil besides an emerging 
commercial relationship.   End summary. 
 
Brief Summary of Peres and Abbas Visits 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) In his November 11-12 visit to Brazil, Shimon Peres 
met separately with President Lula and Defense Minister 
Jobim, then addressed a joint session of Congress, before 
departing to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro for meetings with 
business leaders (including Petrobras) and the Jewish 
community.  Various minor commercial agreements were signed. 
In many ways the agenda for the visit -- the first by an 
Israeli president since 1966 -- mirrored the November 23 
agenda of Ahmadinejad.  Iran was a consistent topic of 
discussion in Peres' visits with Brazilian officials, 
businessmen and politicians.  Local press coverage was 
relatively limited and highly favorable; nothing particularly 
interesting was said in the media during the visit. 
 
¶3. (C) President Lula met Palestinian President Abbas on 
October 20 in the state of Bahia on Brazil's northeastern 
coast.  Abbas was warmly supportive of a Brazilian role in 
the Middle East peace process.  In the Bahia press 
conference, Lula criticized the USG role in the region, 
saying, "As long as the United States is trying to negotiate 
peace in the Middle East there won't be peace...The one who 
should oversee the negotiations is the United Nations, and 
that's why Brazil wants to reform the UN system."  The 
following day he made similar comments blaming the United 
States for problems in the Middle East.  Despite this, Lula's 
policy prescriptions for the region were nothing outside the 
mainstream, calling for a halt to new West Bank settlements 
(but not removal of existing ones), and preservation of 
current borders for a future Palestinian state.  Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs (MRE or Itamaraty) officials from both the 
Iran/Central Asia and Israel/Palestine desks later told 
poloff that Foreign Minister Amorim weighed in with Lula and 
his advisors right after the Abbas visit to get him to 
refrain from directly criticizing the United States or other 
countries by name during the Ahmadinejad visit.  This effort 
apparently proved to be successful (ref A). 
 
Israeli and other Perspectives 
------------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (C) Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission Raphael Singer told 
poloff November 27 that he was happy with the Peres visit 
outcomes, and content with the Abbas visit outcomes.  Peres' 
joint session before Congress was a particular point of 
pride, since it was difficult to set up, drew several dozen 
sympathetic senators and deputies from a wide range of 
parties, and contrasted sharply with Ahmadinejad's relatively 
frosty courtesy call with the presidents of the Senate and 
Chamber of Deputies.  He was also proud of setting up a 
widely run photo of Peres with soccer star Ronaldo.  Singer 
acknowledged concerns about Lula's rhetoric during the Abbas 
visit but believed the visit was helpful at least to the 
extent that Abbas explained to Lula how Iranian assistance to 
Hamas and Hezbollah undermines his position and peace in the 
region generally.  Media reports assert that Abbas pressed 
 
BRASILIA 00001391  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
Lula to push Ahmadinejad to stop such assistance.  (Comment: 
Previous poloff discussions with MRE indicate very little 
institutional Itamaraty understanding of Iran's role in 
Israel/Palestine/Lebanon.  End comment.) 
 
¶5.  (C) The MRE Israel/Palestine desk officer offered general 
pleasantries about the visits and had no comment on President 
Lula's remarks in Bahia concerning the USG role in the Middle 
East.  He told poloff that MRE has committed to providing 
additional support to the Palestinian Authority (PA), but 
allocation decisions won't be made until 2010.  Singer told 
poloff that the Israeli Embassy has no problems with the GOB 
providing funding to the Palestinian Authority, but would 
appreciate advance consultation with MRE, which did not 
happen before Amorim's March announcement that Brazil would 
provide 20 million reais (then USD 10 million) to the PA (ref 
D). 
 
Getting in the Game? 
-------------------- 
 
¶6.  (C) Leading Brazilian officials, including Undersecretary 
Jaguaribe, have described -- to us and to other diplomatic 
missions -- their initiatives in the Middle East as an effort 
to "get in the game."  Lula took that metaphor literally in 
meetings with his counterparts, frequently calling for a 
soccer game between Israelis, Palestinians, and Brazilians as 
a precursor to peace.  Singer takes exception to Brazil's 
tendency to look at the Middle East through this prism, 
arguing that it underscores the point that Brazil's 
involvement has to do more with burnishing its own self-image 
than being an honest broker in the Middle East.  While he 
describes Israel-Brazil relationships as amicable, Brazil's 
tendency to look at the region in terms of potential votes 
for a theoretical UN Security Council seat consistently puts 
them against Israeli interests.  Peres, he said, was 
particularly annoyed with Lula's "unserious" response to 
Peres' inquiries about Brazil voting consistently for 
anti-Israel resolutions in the UN. 
 
¶7.  (C) Singer emphasized Brazil's lack of capacity in the 
region, a point also made by diplomats from neighboring 
states who are much more favorably inclined to Brazil's basic 
policy.  The Jordanian DCM, who has been in Brasilia nearly 
three years, told poloff recently that he has never spoken 
Arabic with anyone at Itamaraty in a work situation and said 
he doesn't know of anyone in MRE not of Syrian-Lebanese 
Christian descent who can comfortably speak the language. 
(Note: MRE admits it has no Farsi speakers, and the Israeli 
Embassy counts one passable Hebrew speaker in MRE.  End 
note.)  There is also an awareness among many that Lula and 
his advisors in the Presidency are the driving force behind 
this effort, one that might have difficulty outlasting Lula's 
presidency.  In a mid-November conversation with poloff, the 
Turkish Ambassador and DCM spoke in glowing terms of a recent 
Turkish congressional visit to Brazil and envisioned robust 
growth in Turkish-Brazilian commercial relations.  They also 
talked about how Lula's personality draws world leaders into 
wanting a closer relationship, and joked about how there was 
no way that Lula's handpicked presidential candidate Dilma 
Rousseff could be able to project herself the same way in the 
region. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶8.  (C) The Israeli DCM told us that Brazil is "a long way 
from being a player in the Middle East."  While that may be 
true, the package of presidential visits -- Peres, Abbas, 
Ahmadinejad -- helped Lula underscore his point both 
domestically and with certain Middle Eastern leaders that 
Brazil should be considered a rising player in the region. 
Return visits by Lula to Israel, Palestine, and Iran, all 
planned for roughly March-April 2010, will further advance 
his case.  Lula's expectations are rising rapidly, as seen in 
his November 26 reply letter to President Obama, which 
includes demands to involve new players (Brazil) in Middle 
East peace negotiations.  The GOB's Middle East strategy, 
designed to position Brazil as a "leader of the South" and 
one-day permanent UNSC member, has led Lula and his advisors 
to pick at minor policy differences rather than play an 
overtly supportive role of efforts by the major players. 
This was seen clearly in the Abbas visit, when Lula sharply 
criticized the USG, then laid out policy recommendations for 
Israel/Palestine essentially identical to our own.  Moving 
forward, our lack of serious visible policy differences on 
Israel/Palestine suggests ample room for cooperation with 
 
BRASILIA 00001391  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
Brazil, such as providing coordinated financial support to 
the PA for purposes of improving negotiation prospects. 
Unfortunately, the current Brazilian government may see the 
need to balance such coordination with needling statements 
aimed at maintaining its role as an independent player.  End 
comment. 
KUBISKE