In the wake of public outcry over the recent actions by Israel in Gaza, Venezuela has become a hotbed of anti-Semitism. The culmination of this anti-Semitic sentiment was a Jan. 30th attack on the Tiferet Israel synagogue in the capital city of Caracas.
"A dozen armed men overpowered guards, spray-painted office walls with anti-Semitic insults, desecrated historic Torah scrolls and made off with computers containing personal information on congregants," said the Washington Post this morning.
Continuing, the Post noted that "[i]n Venezuela, Jewish leaders say they have felt harassed under the Chávez government and anxious about Venezuela's tightening alliance with Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for Israel's destruction."
Let me ask in advance that the usual suspects spare us the tiresome "Juan Cole said that's not true, therefore it isn't true" rebuttal to Ahmadinejad's bellicose rhetoric.
It appears that this has been a pattern from the loathsome Chávez's government. The Latin American Herald Tribune reports:
In 2005, Chavez began what many onlookers believe to be a campaign against Jews by saying "The world is for all of us, then, but it so happens that a minority, the descendants of the same ones that crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones that kicked Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way over there in Santa Marta, in Colombia. A minority has taken possession all of the wealth of the world, a minority has taken ownership of all of the gold of the planet, of the silver, of the minerals, the waters, the good lands, oil, of the wealth then and have concentrated the wealth in a few hands."
Since then he has twice raided Jewish schools and community centers -- always close to or on the eve of a visit by the Iranian President -- in a continuing campaign that analysts trace back to one of his mentors, the unrepentant anti-Semite and Holocaust-denier Norberto Ceresole.
How did it come to this? One possible answer is that since Chávez is a tyrannical thug, looking to cement himself as ruler for life, he needs a scapegoat in advance of an upcoming referendum to strip Venezuela's term limits from the country's laws. Indeed, in a series of speeches, Chávez "called Israel's government 'the assassin arm of the United States' that is carrying out 'a genocidal policy.' Chávez urged Venezuela's Jewish community to 'speak out' against the Gaza strikes. 'Don't you the Jews reject the Holocaust?' he said. 'Isn't that what we're seeing?'" While the government-aligned media outlet Aporrea featured a commentary that "called on Venezuelans to boycott companies owned by Jews and 'publicly challenge every Jew that you find in the street.'" (WaPo)
Predictable are the responses from Chávez, as well as those who frankly hate either the State of Israel or Jews in general.
Susana Kalil, a member of the Organization for the Relief of the Palestinian People, pointed the finger at Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. She claimed that Mossad had done it in order to damage the image of Chavez' revolutionary process. She went on to claim that the attack on the Jewish house of worship is typical of Mossad and the Zionist movement worldwide, "putting bombs in their own synagogues and then accusing the rest of anti-Semitism."
(Latin American Herald Tribune)
For his part, Chávez made a tepid condemnation of the attacks after pressure mounted him to do so. Predictably,, he immediately turned his fire toward those in Venezuela that oppose his plans to remove term limits, saying, "Here what we have is a tremendous blackmail of some media that are owned by the bourgeoisie. What happens is that there is a laboratory that creates these incidents of violence and then points the finger at the government."
In the unlikely event that Chávez is sincere in his condemnation of the attacks, it doesn't seem to have done much good:
Hate crimes have escalated despite Chavez's declaration that his government "rejects any type of aggression against any temple, be it Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or any other." And the attorney general's statement Friday gave no details about any progress investigating a list of more than a dozen threats against Jews that the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations gave her office a week before the synagogue attack.
The group said one threat involved a rabbi who was leaving a Jewish school in Caracas when two men, one wielding a broken bottle, shouted: "Jew, we are coming for you!" A nearby taxi driver offered refuge and sped him away.
Other Jews have stopped wearing yarmulkes while walking to temple on Friday evenings. Simon Galante said he and his brother now fear for their safety after being accosted by men on motorcycles yelling "Murderers!"
(Associated Press)
And Chavez's loyalists certainly have no compunction in expressing their hatred:
On Thursday in Caracas, Jews gathered outside the synagogue for a solemn ceremony of speeches and prayer.
Suddenly, as Rabbi Isaac Cohen was to speak, a bus carrying the president's supporters, in their trademark red T-shirts, passed. The message, amplified by loudspeakers, was simple: "The United States and Israel, it is they who are spreading terror in Arab countries and in the world."
(WaPo)
What I think we have here is a prime example of how easily those who purport to be protesting Israel's actions can, if they are so inclined, accelerate such rhetoric to ferment anti-Semitism. To be clear, one is perfectly capable of criticizing Israel without being anti-Semitic. But there seems to be some delusion that a growing number of people operate under that because one is engaging in criticism of Israel, any accusations of anti-Semitism are necessarily spurious. I think the sad state of affairs in Venezuela bears that out.