Bolsonaro tries to repair the damage done regarding the Holocaust, but ends up making things even more entangled.
The Israeli ambassador to Brazil, Yossi Shelley, posted on his Facebook page a letter signed by the president "to the people of Israel," in which Bolsonaro states that "forgiveness is something personal, never in a historical context as in the case of the Holocaust"; earlier, in a meeting with evangelicals, he had said that "we can forgive, but never forget" the genocide that occurred in World War II.
247 - Israeli diplomat Yossi Shelley, Israel's ambassador to Brazil since January 2017 and responsible for the recent rapprochement between Jair Bolsonaro and Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on his Facebook A letter signed by the Brazilian president addressed "to the people of Israel," in which Bolsonaro attempts to correct his statement that the Holocaust could be forgiven, but never forgotten.
In the letter, Bolsonaro says: "I left written in the visitors' book at the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem: 'HE WHO FORGETS HIS PAST IS CONDEMNED TO HAVE NO FUTURE.' Therefore, any other interpretation only serves the interests of those who want to distance me from my Jewish friends."
"Forgiveness, however, is something personal, never within a historical context like the Holocaust, where millions of innocent people were killed in a cruel genocide," the president continued. Is Bolsonaro maintaining his forgiveness for the Holocaust, albeit in a "personal" way, or is he trying to retract his previous statement?
The literal phrase uttered by Bolsonaro during an event with evangelical leaders in Rio de Janeiro last week was: "I went, once again, to the Holocaust Museum. We can forgive, but we cannot forget. And that phrase is mine. Whoever forgets their past is condemned to have no future. If we don't want to repeat history, which wasn't good, let's avoid it with actions and deeds so that it truly doesn't repeat itself in that way."