Brazil: Zé Maria sentenced for supporting Palestinian resistance

A court in Brazil has ruled that the leader of a left wing political party will carry out a two-year prison sentence for the ‘crime’ of criticising the Zionist land theft project erroneously referred to as ‘Israel’. The leader in question, José Maria de Almeida, heads the United Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado or PSTU).

Better known as Zé Maria, the four-time presidential candidate expressed support for the armed Palestinian resistance and the actions of Hamas in a 2023 speech. In the same breath, he called for an end to the abomination that is so-called ‘Israel’.

In a reel still up on the PSTU Instagram page, Zé Maria says to a large crowd in Brazil:

We cannot accept, brothers and sisters, the branding of any act of resistance by the Palestinian people as “terrorist.” The comrades of the Arab and Palestinian communities here know that our political views and the society we defend are different from the conditions and the society that Hamas defends.

However, at this moment, we are in the same military trench as Hamas, because it is the trench of the Palestinian people. As the saying goes, one cannot criticise the violence in the streets without criticising the causes behind it. We attribute every act of force and every act of violence by the Palestinian people as a legitimate struggle that we must support here, in Palestine, and throughout the world.

Guilty verdict for opposing genocide

So far, seems reasonable. Palestinians have a right under international law to resist the illegal occupation of their land by Zionist land thieves. Secondly, these remarks were made in October 2023 at the height of ‘do you condemn Hamas‘ hysteria. Refusing to get dragged into that shite is part of the broader effort to resist Zionist propaganda — which underpins Israel’s land theft project. Instead Zé Maria is unapologetically focusing on the crimes of the genocidal, apartheid Zionist entity.

This is the vein in which the leftist leader continued, saying:

The real terrorists are Zionism and the colonialism of Israel. Terrorism is found in the actions of the North American imperialists who act against the people in various regions across the globe.

Our struggle and the mobilisation we must undertake right now is to end the massacre where people are dying. Beyond that, it is to put a final stop to the Zionist state of Israel once and for all, so that a flourishing Palestinian state, secular, and democratic, can exist from the river to the sea.

Again, in a sane world, all this this would be accepted wisdom. We’ve argued here at the Canary that the world simply cannot afford the continued existence of the Zionist settler-colony, such is its ever increasing violence. Furthermore, it was never legitimate to begin with — Zionism is a racist ideology, a colonial project based around robbing others of their land through massive violence and ethnic cleansing.

Calling for a “flourishing Palestinian state” in place of ‘Israel’ is entirely justifiable given the land Zionists are squatting on is literally Palestine. That in no way means removal or discrimination against Jewish people who remain—hence ‘secular’ and ‘democratic’ in Zé Maria’s framing.

Clueless courts mischaracterise leftist’s words

Nonetheless, Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office managed to hallucinate words never spoken by the PSTU man, when it accused him of:

…promoting hate speech and racism against the State of Israel, subtly advocating the expulsion of Jews from their ancestral land in the Middle East.

There is no proof the European colonisers that have invaded Palestine have any ancestral link to the land they’ve stolen. Even if there were an ancestral connection, would it then make sense for Italians with Roman roots to turn up and turf Britons out of their homes?

Judge Massimo Palazzolo was similarly clueless, as he engaged in antisemitism by conflating Jewish people with Zionist barbarism:

…the messages transmitted by the accused demonstrate a degrading, generalist, and prejudiced nature in relation to both the Jewish community and the Zionist movement.

In a pattern familiar across the world, the United Socialist Workers’ Party identified Zionist organisations undermining basic free speech rights in Brazil:

The case was brought by Zionist organisations, such as CONIB (Israeli Confederation of Brazil) and FISESP (Israeli Federation of the State of São Paulo). These same entities, in the face of the erosion of support for the State of Israel due to the ongoing genocide that has already claimed the lives of more than 67,000 people in Gaza—mostly women and children—launched a campaign of persecution and judicial harassment against journalists and public figures who spoke out against this massacre.

Judge Palazzolo stipulated the sentence will be served under an ‘open regime‘. This means the time can be served outside prison, though Zé Maria may have to remain at home during certain hours, and be required to regularly report to a judge.

However, the politician is appealing the absurd verdict, as it “has no basis, whether historical, political, or legal.”

Featured image via the Canary