VENEZUELA 2005

 

Antisemitic messages featured in the speeches and literature of government circles, pro-government organizations and the left. The tone for the antisemitism that has permeated Venezuelan society in recent years is set by President Chavez himself, who generally blames the Jews and/or the Israeli government for perceived historical or contemporary injustices.

 

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 political and economic crisis, out of a total population of close to 26 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 B’rith and Organization of Jewish Women. 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 and recently inaugurated a website, www.caiv.org. 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 are eroded.

 

antisemtic and anti-Zionist Propaganda

The tone for the antisemitism that has permeated Venezuelan society in recent years is set by President Hugo Chavez himself, who generally blames the Jews and/or the Israeli government for perceived historical or contemporary injustices. For instance, in his discourse commemorating the Day of the Discovery of America in October 2005, he compared the situation of the Indians with that of the Palestinians: “[you Indians whom] governments, economic sectors and great land estates murdered… in this land. You were expelled from your homeland, like the heroic Palestinian people were” (El Nacional, 13 Oct.).

Venezuela’s strong links with Iran and the Arab world, as a member of the oil producing nations, influence the Chavez government’s attitude toward the Middle East conflict as well as toward the Jews. Venezuela signed several economic agreements with Iran in 2005 and there were mutual visits of Iranian and Venezuelan officials. On 28 October 2005, Iran’s deputy minister of foreign relations for Europe and Latin America, Sa`id Jalili, who was making an official visit to Venezuela and other Latin American countries, said on Venezuelan Television that Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s statements about the need to eliminate the State of Israel had been taken out of context. However, claiming, inter alia, that Israel was not a truly democratic country, he proposed holding a referendum of all Arabs, Jews and Christians, out of which a really democratic country would emerge and solve the problem in the area. This in effect would mean the end of the State of Israel.

Antisemitic messages featured in the speeches and literature of government circles, pro-government organizations and the left. A hallmark of antisemitism in Venezuela is the link that has developed over recent years between anti-Israel and antisemitic positions. The anti-Americanism of the government and its populist ideology provide a framework for statements that at times may be interpreted as antisemitic and at others are undoubtedly so. For example, in August, a leaflet announcing the 16th International Festival of Youth and Students, scheduled for 7−15 August and distributed by pro-government groups at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas, accused the CIA of planning to depose Chavez from the presidency: “… following Iraq and Iran’s threat of a petroleum embargo on all nations that support the Jewish government’s genocidal policies of Ariel Sharon in the military occupied Palestinian territories.” Thus, it was stated, the US defends its interests in the Middle East and its Jewish ally unconditionally.

In February and March the official media published several articles comparing the Israeli army’s treatment of the Palestinians with the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jewish people. These were apparently intended to ‘balance’ reports of the UN session commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. An article in Correo de Caracas (weekly of Municipality of Libertador; 7−13 Feb. 2005), entitled “What Is Going On?”(“Qué tal”), claimed, for instance, that these events were a preparation for a US-Israeli attack on Iran and inferred that contemporary Jews were behaving like the Nazis.

Nicolás Maduro, president of the National Assembly and deputy representing the coalition party MVR (Movimiento Quinta Republica − Chavez’ party) told the mainstream newspaper El Universal (05 Feb.), that: “If we cry and repudiate Auschwitz, thereby remembering the dark part of humanity,” we need to do the same for the Palestinian and Iraqi people.

In “The Current Holocaust (“El Holocausto actual”), printed in the pro-Chavez Últimas Noticias (31 Jan.), Augusto Hernández, an attorney working for a government organization, claimed that he could not understand how the Jews, as an intelligent community who could arouse international awareness with their emphasis on commemoration of the Holocaust, could persecute another people for reasons similar to those for which they were persecuted by the Nazis. “The Holocaust is now being repeated against the Arabs, by Israel.”

Similarly, in “Auschwitz” (the national El Mundo, 2 Feb.), the government-linked sociologist Jeudiel Martínez claimed that the families of exterminated Jews had been carrying out carefully planned ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

A program on Radio Nacional de Venezuela went further, casting doubts on the Holocaust. In “On the Table” (Sobre el tapete), aired on 2 February and re-broadcast by Canal Informativo, journalist Vladimir Acosta, referring to the Auschwitz commemoration events, said it was known that the number of 6 million was false and though one million was tragic, Jewish lies were more upsetting. He also spoke of Jewish monopoly of a tragedy that had affected other victims as well. Two weeks later he asserted on the same program that commemoration of Auschwitz was a form of blackmail; those who were victims for 2000 years were now the perpetrators in Palestine: “The Zionist and fascist state of Israel allows itself to assassinate Palestinians.”

On the program “La Hojilla,” the moderator Mario Silva explained that although more Poles, Czechs and Russians had been killed in World War II, the Jews were the ones who monopolized the subject on film because of their control of Hollywood. He, too, compared the suffering of the Palestinians to that inflicted by Hitler.

On the program “Vive TV” (20 Nov.), on a state TV channel, which discussed the discovery of America, lecturer Jorge Falcone said that “money had created a candle to the 6 million Jews that died, but no one lamented the 20 million people who died during the conquest of America because they did not have the money that the Jews have.