Venezuela 2003-4

 

The Venezuelan Jewish community has been concerned about a possible upsurge of antisemitism since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998 due to his association with extremist elements both within and outside Venezuela. While no antisemitically motivated physical assaults were recorded, there were numerous expressions of antisemitism in the media. Groups of demonstrators from three anti-Iraq war rallies that took place in Caracas in the first months of 2003 made a detour in order to vandalize the Tiferet Israel Synagogue.

 

THE JEWISH community

The Jewish population continues to decline as a result of severe instability in the country. There are probably no more than 15,000 Jews remaining, down from 20,000 before the current crisis, out of a total population of close to 22 million. Most of the Jews live in the capital Caracas, while the second largest community is in Maracaíbo. The Confederación de Asociaciones Israelitas de Venezuela (CAIV) embraces four organizations: Asociación Israelita de Venezuela (Sephardi), Unión Israelita de Caracas (Ashkenazi), the Zionist Organization and B’nai B’rith. All but one of the 15 synagogues are Orthodox and over 75 percent of school-age children attend Jewish schools. The community publishes the newspaper Nuevo Mundo Israelita. In recent years poverty levels have soared to 80 percent and the middle and upper middle classes that account for the great majority of the Jewish community have been especially hard hit as their assets erode.

 

political background

The Venezuelan Jewish community has been concerned about a possible outbreak of antisemitism since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998 due to his association with extremist elements, both within and outside Venezuela who support his ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ (the name given to the ideology of Chavez government) and who have demonstrated hostility toward Judaism and Israel. In Venezuela Chavez is associated with ultra left-wing figures who have influenced his perceptions, such as William Izarra, Diego Salazar, Juan Salazar and Kleber Ramirez. These individuals, who have all made trips to Libya and Iraq, as well as Congressmen from the government party, profess radical anti-Israel and antisemitic positions. Congressmen Luis Tascon and Dario Vivas, for example, both compared Israel’s killing of Palestinians to the Nazi slaughter of Jews. Since 1992 Chavez has had contacts with far right entities in Argentina, such as sociologist Norberto Ceresole and the Carapintadas movement, led by Aldo Rico and Mohamed Seineldin, who plotted a military coup after the recovery of democracy in the late 1980s–early 1990s.

In the first months of 2003 Chavez supporters organized protests against the war in Iraq, at which banners with anti-Jewish slogans were observed (see below). In addition, the pro-Chavez website Revolutionary Popular Assembly (Asamblea Popular Revolucionaria) strongly attacked the chief rabbi of Caracas on 29 July, as well as the entire Jewish community, on the grounds that they supported the anti-Chavez camp. In the pro-government newspaper Vea, Guillermo Garcia Ponce, an ideologue of the Chavez Bolivarian Revolution, wrote several pro-Palestinian articles which included classical antisemitic statements (for details of these incidents, see below).

 

ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES

Although no antisemitically motivated assaults were recorded, there were a few acts of vandalism. Groups of demonstrators from three anti-Iraq war rallies that took place in Caracas in the first months of 2003 (noted above) made a detour in order to pass the Tiferet Israel Synagogue. Several with masked faces drew graffiti on the walls and door against Israel, against the Jews (for example, the words “Cursed Jews,” surrounded by swastikas and the swastika equated with the Star of David), against Sharon, against the US and against George Bush, and in favor of the Palestinian cause. The last rally, which took place on 25 March, was the most violent: the group threw bottles and stones at the wall of the synagogue and tried to break in the door. The rally itself was attended by several officials and public figures, including Minister of Communications and Information Nora Uribe, Congressman Tarek William Saab and Governor of the Municipality of Libertador Fredy Bernal.

 

Anti-Israel/Antisemitic Expressions and Minimalization of the Holocaust

There were numerous expressions of antisemitism in the media. Jews, Zionism and the State of Israel and its politics were linked to unrelated events in several articles in mainstream publications. For example, journalist Jeronimo Carrera, a member of the Venezuelan Communist Party, blamed the “criminal yankee-Zionist coalition” for the capture of the international terrorist ‘Carlos’ (La Razón, 10 Aug.). Congresswoman Cilia Flores from the Chavez coalition alleged in El Nacional (14 March) that the CIA and the Israeli Mossad were behind a planned coup d’état against Chavez, and claimed that Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton had given Chavez and his government a confidential report noting the existence of an international plan to overthrow them. Denying the existence of such a report, Charderton branded the information an evil lie.  

The new pro-government newspaper Vea takes a very strong anti-Israel position, sometimes mixed with antisemitism. In an article published on 11 September 2003 and entitled “License to Kill,” the writer claimed that Bush “the non-elected president of the USA” was helping “the bloodthirsty Zionist Israeli regime,” and that Sharon’s response in regard to the security fence was that “of a good disciple of Hitler.”

There were several comparisons between Sharon and Hitler and between Israeli policy and Nazism: for example, on the Globovisión TV program “¡Alo, ciudadano!” (11 March 2003), with Leopoldo Castillo, and in Últimas Noticias (23 March 2003). El Diario de Caracas (11 Aug. 2003) published an article entitled “Volkswagen and Sharon,” by J.F. Chapman, and Tal Cual (24 April), published one by Luiz Anibal Gomez, “The Arab Auschwitz,” which equated the war in Iraq with the Holocaust.

Classical antisemitic themes (such as ‘the international Jewish conspiracy’, Jewish exploitation and abuse of countries in which they live and Jewish riches obtained by underhand means), though not rooted in Venezuelan society can be found among some sectors. For example, El Nacional (14 March) reported on a small fanatical religious sect, Revelation of Final Times, which believes that Chavez was predestined to lead the country, and which opposes “Zionism, evil and international injustice.” They hold rallies in Caracas Central Park and in the interior of the country, engage in leafleting and disseminate The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Columnist Francisco Mieres, writing in the pro-Chavez Ultimas Noticias (19 Feb.) about the war in Iraq claimed that “the White House mafia only find accomplices for their crimes in the fanatic Jews, in the neo-fascists and in the neo-Francoist [Spanish and Italian] governments.”

In “The Holy War Is Here,” Rafael Poleo, in his column “Pendulo” in the center-left magazine Zeta (11 April), spoke of the imprudence of Pope John Paul II who, in trying to please Saddam Husayn did not consider the difficult situation of the Catholics in the US who were being discredited by “the Jewish- Protestant establishment.” He also claimed that Jews and Protestants were working together to spread Protestantism in Latin America in order to weaken Catholicism. Four days later Poleo attacked those who emigrated from Venezuela after Chavez was elected. He wrote that those that left for Florida “had money,” and that Florida had been conquered by "Jews, Cubans, Colombians, and immigrants from Nicaragua and El Salvador.”

 

Suspected Arab and Islamic terrorist groups in Venezuela

Both El Universal and El Nacional (10 March 2003) reported that radical Islamic groups in the Middle East received between 300 and 500 millon dollars annually from various criminal sources in Latin America. This was confirmed by General James T. Hill, chief of the US army South Command in Miami, who said that a large part of the money came from drug trafficking and the illegal arms trade. According to the periodical El Nuevo Pais (14 Jan.), Venezuela's Margarita Island was being used for money laundering from this commerce by Islamic groups and that there had been no headway in an investigation into the claim that some of the money was being transferred to bin Ladin.

Referring to the presence of alleged terrorists on Margarita Island, journalist Patricia Poleo, writing in El Nuevo Pais (11 March), asserted that the city of Nueva Esparta, on the island was “full of angels like those that blew up the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, and who are under the protection of the government.” The government subsequently moved those Islamic extremists to the city of Barquisimeto, in the state of Lara, whose governor is a member of the national government.