VENEZUELA 2004

 

An armed raid carried out by security forces in November on the Jewish school at the Hebraica Club in Caracas was perhaps the most serious incident ever to have taken place in the history of the Jewish community. Pro-Chavez supporters were responsible for numerous antisemitic manifestations, including repeated desecrations of the Sephardic Tiferet Israel Synagogue. Conspiracy theories, especially Israeli involvement in the abortive 2002 coup against Chavez, abounded in the official press or were expounded by figures linked to the government.

 

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 five organizations: Asociación Israelita de Venezuela (Sephardi), Unión Israelita de Caracas (Ashkenazi), the Zionist Organization, B’nai Brith, and the Jewish Women Union (Union de Mujeres Judias). 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.

 

ANTISEMITIC activity

Raid on Jewish School

A raid on the Jewish elementary and high school (1,500 pupils) at the Hebraica Cultural and Sports Club in Caracas was perhaps one of the most serious incidents ever to have taken place in the history of the Jewish community. The action, which was carried out on 29 November 2004 by the criminal investigation corps (Cuerpo de Investigaciones cientificas, penales y Criminalisticas – CICPC) following a court order, began at 6.30 am when school buses and parents were bringing the children to school. The order stated that elements of a criminal nature, such as electronic equipment, arms, explosive devices, communications equipment and documents that might lead to a resolution of the case of State Prosecutor Danilo Anderson who was assassinated on 18 November, were suspected of being concealed in the building. After a three-hour search, the police left, declaring that their action had been “unfruitful.” When it became known, unofficially, that the raid was the result of an anonymous call to the police claiming that there had been “a movement of arms to the Hebraica club,” CAIV issued a press release, which was widely publicized.

The Jewish community received many expressions of solidarity from various sectors of Venezuelan society, as well as international support. In a personal communication to the president of CAIV, Daniel Slimak, and to Chief Rabbi Pynchas Brener, Vice President of the Republic José Vicente Rangel dissociated the executive power from the order, claiming there was a separation of powers in Venezuela. There was no other public clarification despite requests by the Jewish community.

At a press conference held on 30 November dealing with various national issues, Interior Minister Jesse Chacón, confirmed that nothing had been found in the raid and that it had not been directed against the Venezuelan Jewish community, a claim repeated by Information and Communications Minister Andres Izarra on 7 December.

Despite editorials and articles by groups and individuals supporting the community, some commentators in the semi-official pro-Chavez press asserted that Jews were not “untouchable” and justified the raid, implying that since there may have been arms in the Hebraica Club the police were obliged to investigate. The suggestion of the Simon Wiesenthal Center that Venezuela should not be accepted into MERCOSUR (economic organization of the southern Latin American countries) aroused further antisemitic responses about the raid. On Venezolana de Televisión (Venezuelan state TV), 6 December, Mario Silva García, moderator of the program “La Hojilla” (The Razor), stated that the government had the right to do what it did because Jews were not an independent entity within the country.

Later, Silva also criticized Chief Rabbi Pynchas Brener, who was interviewed in one of the leading national newspapers El Nacional on 5 December. Silva claimed, inter alia, that the rabbi had no right to speak because he was not Venezuelan. Similarly, on the local Radio Tropical, a broadcaster named Burgos criticized both Rabbi Brener and CAIV president Daniel Slimak, asserting that the Jewish community should not think that they were above the law.

Three weeks after the raid, on 21 December, members of the Jewish community met with Minister of Interior and Justice Jesse Chacón. Daniel Slimak said that while they had received partial explanations from Information and Communications Minister Andrés Izarra and Chacón himself, they thought it was important to speak with the minister directly; however, he supplied no further clarification. Some media commentators claimed the affair was a way of threatening the Jewish community and was linked to the government’s ties to Arab countries and radical Islamic states. In fact, at the time of the raid, Chavez was visiting Iran for discussions on oil, an interest common to both these anti-American states.

 

Official/Semi-Official Antisemitism

On 25 August, a few days after his questionable victory in the referendum aimed at recalling him from office, President Hugo Chavez attacked the opposition leadership, stating: “Don’t let yourselves be poisoned by those wandering Jews. Don’t let them lead you to the place they want you to be led. There are some people saying that those 40 percent [who supported his recall] are all enemies of Chavez.” According to the Jewish community, the phrase ‘wandering Jews’, which is commonly used in the Catholic world, was directed metaphorically at the leaders of the opposition parties, which Chavez claims have nothing to offer the country’s citizens.

The following day, after his ratification as president in the National Electoral Council, he declared on state TV that the majority of the 4 million Venezuelans who had opposed him in the referendum now accepted him as president: “There are some − every day there are fewer − ‘small leaders’ [dirigencillos] who don’t lead anyone, they are more isolated every day, and wander around like the wandering Jew.” Vice President of the Republic Jose Vicente Rangel phoned CAIV president Daniel Slimak to explain the meaning of the term and to assure him that it had been used inappropriately.

The Sephardic Tiferet Israel Synagogue suffered repeated attacks in the wake of several pro-Chavez demonstrations (see also ASW 2003/4). Following a government organized rally on 16 May under the banner “Against terrorism and foreign involvement, for respect of sovereignty, the homeland and the Constitution,” a group of persons scrawled slogans on its walls and in the car park, in the name of the ‘Simon Bolivar Coordination’ (Coordinadora Simón Bolívar − CSB) and the ‘Revolutionary Left Youth’ (Juventud de Izquierda Revolucionaria − JIR). It should be noted that Chavez’s revolution − the ‘Bolivarian revolution’ − is named after the 19th century general Simón Bolívar (El Liberator). The slogans read, inter alia: “Don’t allow Colombia to be the Israel of Latin America [an allusion to US attempts to bring Colombia under its wing in order to fight left-wing guerilla groups]”; Sharon is a murderer of the Palestinian People”; “Viva the armed Palestinian people”; and “Free Palestine.”

            Similar graffiti, as well as the slogan “Jews go home,” appeared on the wall of synagogue after a pro-government rally on 6 June. It was signed by the pro-Chavez Communist Youth and the Communist Party of Venezuela. On 8 August a group of supporters from a pro-Chavez rally held at the close of his anti-referendum campaign daubed slogans such as: “Sharon is a murder. No to Israel,” with the letter ‘S’ shaped like a swastika. They also wrote, inter alia: “Viva Chavez and Arafat”; and “NO to Zionism.”

            Virulently anti-Israel posters appeared on the streets of Caracas in December during the Second Bolivarian Congress of the People (II Congreso Bolivariano de los Pueblos). Signed by pro-government organizations such as MVR (Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario/Movimiento Quinta Republica [Quinta=5 in Roman numbers], the Chavez Party), the Communist Party in Venezuela (Partido Comunista de Venezuela) and Coordinadora Simón Bolívar, they read, inter alia: “Neither Orlando Urdaneta [Venezuelan anti-Chavez actor] nor the super-terrorist Israelis will succeed with our people”; “No to the Israeli commandos in Caracas”; “No to the involvement of Israelis in our nation”; “No to the Mossad and no to the CIA”; and “Bush+Sharon = murderers.”

 

Conspiracy Theories and Other Propaganda

In an article entitled “Why and Against Whom Are the People of Palestine, Iraq, Venezuela and the World Struggling?” published in the pro-government newspaper Diario VEA (03 Aug.), columnist Basem Tajeldine accused Jews of seeking to dominate the world. Tajeldine identifies Zionism with the right-wing of Israeli politics, which forced the White House to go to war in Iraq in order to appropriate its wealth. He also alleges that Israel was behind the abortive coup in Venezuela of 11 April 2002, and that several Jews participated in it, among them US Ambassador Charles Shapiro, an ‘opponent’ of the Chavez government. For Tajeldine these are examples of “the racist, separatist and segregationist policies that Jews are applying in Venezuela,” in order to overthrow Chavez and maintain their privileges.

In the interview program “Siempre Lilia Vera” broadcast on Venezuelan State Radio on 1 August, the singer Evio Di Marzo, a convert to Islam, claimed that Judaism incited violence against anybody who was not a Jew because its was an elitist religion; that it permitted killing ‘goyim’ who were like pigs; and that Jewish laws originated in the last years of the 19th century and encouraged racism, hatred and intolerance.

Sebastiana Barraes alleged in his column “Sebastiana without Secrets” in the independent weekly Quinto Día (14 May) that paramilitary troops close to the armed forces had been organizing subversive acts in the country in an attempt to instigate a popular insurrection. Among them were “lawyers, retired policemen, Cuban agents in exile and members of the Jewish community.”

Allegations of subversive Israeli activity in Venezuela continued to abound. José Manuel Pinto, a leader of the pro-Chavez, terrorist, leftist Movimiento Revolucionario Tupamaro asked the government, in an interview published in the independent Tal Cual (11 Nov.), “to investigate counter intelligence groups” which he claimed were working for Israeli intelligence in Venezuela, in particular, a group named Golán, which supposedly was linked through financial institutions to the 2002 abortive coup against Chavez. According to Globovisión (22 Nov.), José Pinto argued that since Venezuelans were demanding an investigation into the CIA presence, it was also necessary to investigate what an israelita (= Jewish) group was doing helping a financial enterprise.

Following the assassination of State Prosecutor Danilo Anderson, Diario VEA (20 Nov.), saw similarities to the killing by special Israeli forces of leading Palestinian figures, namely, “powerful explosives placed in the car of the victim and operated via a cellular phone.” The next day Diario VEA repeated its claims of “Mossad techniques.”

On 30 July the low circulation, extreme left weekly Las Verdades de Miguel, founded by Chavez-linked journalist Miguel Salazar, published the “Scorpion Report,” which allegedly reveals the truth about the anti-Chavez coup of 11 April 2002. According to its findings, Jews and “Israelita intelligence” were involved, and former Mossad agent Yair Klein was in Caracas a month beforehand planning the coup.

On the program “La Noticia Final” broadcast on Venezuelan National Radio on 7 May, commentator Cristina González criticized CNN for helping the Jews and Israel, and accused Venezuelan Jews who had left for “Washington” of “telling horror stories about Venezuela and its government,” and not identifying “as Venezuelans although they were born and raised in Venezuela.”