Anti-Semitism in Venezuela?
A disturbing clip from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
Chavez makes anti-Semitic slur
Venezuela's president said in his Christmas speech that "the descendants of those who crucified Christ" own the riches of the world."The world offers riches to all. However, minorities such as the descendants of those who crucified Christ" have become "the owners of the riches of the world," Chavez said Dec. 24 on a visit to a rehabilitation center in the Venezuelan countryside. (JTA, Dec. 30)
Ironically, an account of his speech in FrontPageMag, FreeRepublic and the conservative Hispanic Center for Economic Research (HACER) ("A Perilous Hanukkah with Hugo—Venezuela's socialist strongman demonizes the Jews," Dec. 28) indicates that he likely meant the spiritual descendants of the christ-killers, i.e. the capitalists, not the Jews:
Celebrating on December 24, Chavez said 'Christmas is a rebellious, revolutionary, socialist Christ [sic] …the descendants of those who crucified Christ have taken ownership of the riches of the world, and they have concentrated it in a small number of hands." Chavez said he was "decided" to change history, and he said that every day, he is joined by a "greater quantity of Chiefs of State and leaders in that struggle." Among those are Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with whom Chavez recently met. On December 14, Ahmadinejad described the Holocaust as "a myth," months after he suggested that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
It is also likely that the other chief of state Chavez had foremost in mind was Bolivia's newly-elected Evo Morales, not the buffoonish Ahmadinejad (who HACER, of course, prominently features in a photo with the Venezuelan leader). We also question the accuracy of both JTA's and FrontPageMag's translations, as they don't quite match and the latter seems awkward at best. However, the FrontPageMag account also mentions this, which seems a little ominous (even if it is over a year old now):
First, they scared the children
In November of 2004, at 6:30 am, around twenty police officers arrived at the Club Hebraica in Caracas, which includes a Jewish school. "More than 1,500 students were at school when the raid started," said Daniel Snimack, president of the Hebrew community in Caracas. According to reports, the raid was ordered after authorities believed that a device used in a recent car bombing had been designed by Israelis. The raid also coincided with a visit to Chavez in Iran. During the raid, the police found nothing, but the Jewish community was "consternated and alarmed." Despite their outcry, there was little international reaction to the event.
We do remember the car-bombing in question (of state prosecutor Danilo Anderson), and the rumors at the time of the Venezuelan opposition recruiting Israeli commandos. (See WW4R #105) But the raid on the Club Hebraica seems to have won little coverage...
See our last post on Venezuela.
Looks like anti-Semitism to me
indicates that he likely meant the spiritual descendants of the christ-killers, i.e. the capitalists, not the Jews
I don't see anything in either translation to suggest such a reading. If he meant "spiritual descendants", why didn't he say so? And why would he mention "minorities"? In the context of the other events mentioned, and his recent meeting with Ahmadinejad, I think we should assume that Chavez has decided to embrace the socialism of fools until we have strong indications otherwise.
Plus, it should be remembered that Chavez owes some of his ideas to an Argentine anti-Semite named Norberto Ceresole.
translation of relevant passage
"The world has enough for everyone, then, but it turns out that some minorities, the descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones who threw Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way in Santa Marta, over there in Colombia. A minority seized ownership of the wealth of the world, a minority seized ownership of the gold of the planet, of the silver, of the minerals, of the waters, of the good lands, the oil, of the wealth, basically, and the riches have been concentrated in few hands: less than 10% of the population of the world owns more than half the riches of the whole world...." (Trans: Weekly News Update on the Americas http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html)
Jews aided Bolivar
"At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Jews of Curaçao became involved with Simon Bolivar and his fight for the independence of Venezuela and Colombia from their Spanish colonizers. Two Jewish men from Curaçao distinguished themselves in Simon Bolivar’s army, while another supplied moral and material support to Bolivar, as well as refuge for him and his family." http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Curacao.html
Faurisson on Chavez
There is just enough ambiguity in the passage that we can't be sure if he means the Jews or the rich. I certainly don't get the reference to Santa Marta—which is where Bolivar died of tuberculosis while waiting to depart for exile in Europe. Possibly a reference to the rival generals and elites who unseated him? But Googling for Norberto Ceresole I came across this unsavory tidbit, from a Holocaust-denial website:
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/FaurisArch/RF991005.html
So: are all of Chavez' leftist admirers going to at least grapple with this disturbing stuff? Or are we crypto-neocons for even bringing it up?
Chavez and Ceresole
Note the Venezuelan FM said Chavez "rejects [Ceresole's] anti- Semitism."
NEW PRESIDENT TAKES NEEDY, DISILLUSIONED VENEZUELA BY STORM
SEBASTIAN ROTELLA, LOS ANGELES TIMES
6 September 1999
[...]
Most alarming to many are Chavez's contacts with Norberto Ceresole, a shadowy, anti-Semitic ideologue and author from Argentina tied to the "painted faces" commandos - Argentine extremists who attempted several armed uprisings a decade ago. They later formed a rightist fringe party whose members are under investigation on suspicion of helping Middle Eastern terrorists bomb a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 86 people.
Ceresole accompanied Chavez in the mid-1990s when the future president roamed Venezuela sowing the seeds of his upstart political coalition, according to Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel.
Authorities ejected Ceresole from Venezuela in 1995, but he returned after Chavez became president. Opposition leaders accused Ceresole of acting as a secret adviser to the president, and the Argentine again left Venezuela. Ceresole praises the Chavez government as his ideal of a nationalist, "post-democratic" Latin American regime.
Chavez has not expressed intolerant attitudes, and the president's defenders say Ceresole was not an adviser. The president admits a friendship with Ceresole, said Rangel, but he rejects his anti- Semitism. [...]
US State Dept. on Chavez & anti-Semitism
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51657.htm
The country is a historically open society without significant anti-Semitism; however, the Government and its supporters occasionally demonstrated possible anti-Semitism. In December 2004, during the Second Bolivarian Congress, placards signed by the government political party MVR (Movement for a Fifth Republic) and the Venezuelan Communist Party, among other groups, were placed in front of the area where the congress took place. Some placards carried statements accusing Israel of having terrorist commandos in the country.
In November 2004, after the assassination of well-known prosecutor Danilo Anderson, the Government used satirical comments made by journalist Orlando Urdaneta on a U.S. television program to allude to possible Israeli participation in Anderson's killing. The Israeli Embassy in Caracas denied any Israeli involvement in the assassination and warned that such representations by the Government were misleading. On November 29, 2004, members of the country's investigative police searched the Hebrew Center of Caracas at the beginning of the school day as part of the Anderson investigation. Jewish community leaders expressed outrage and indicated doubt regarding the authorities' explanation for the search. Newspaper reports suggested that rumors of Israeli involvement in the assassination might have been behind the investigation.
In August 2004, several incidents of anti-Semitism occurred during the time of the presidential referendum. The pro-government daily newspaper VEA published an article containing accusations that Jewish leaders in the country had participated in the 2002 coup against the Government. During a political rally, graffiti labeling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon an assassin and condemning the Zionist movement was painted on a Caracas synagogue. A few days after his electoral victory, President Chavez gave a speech in which he compared the opposition to "wandering Jews."
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/40258.htm
Statements by senior government officials supporting Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Islamic extremist movements raised tensions and intimidated the country's Jewish community. There were several reports of anti-Semitic graffiti at synagogues in Caracas and two reported threatening phone calls made to Jewish community centers. In August, President Chavez cautioned citizens against following the lead of Jewish citizens in the effort to overturn his referendum victory. Anti-Semitic leaflets also were available to the public in an Interior and Justice Ministry office waiting room.
Jews Dismiss Charges of Anti-Semitism in Venezuela
From the Venezuelan embassy website:
Jews Dismiss Charges of Anti-Semitism in Venezuela
El Universal
November 9, 2005
In Venezuela there is no anti-Semitism, and nor have there been any attacks on the Jewish community by the State, said David Bachenheimer, Secretary General of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela (CAIV).
Henri Sobel, leader of a Jewish congregation in Sao Paulo, declared that the Venezuelan Jewish community was living in a precarious situation due to anti-Semitic positions taken by the government of president Hugo Chavez during a meeting last week with U.S. president George W. Bush.
Bachenheimer explained that the CAIV was surprised by Rabbi Sobel’s statement as he had never asked the Venezuelan Jewish community whether or not it had been victimized or persecuted.
Bachenheimer went on to say that in Venezuela there have been no problems of anti-Semitic or racist attacks and the government has always acted quickly when isolated incidents of racial or religious intolerance occur. He added that the Jewish community has never been the target of policies or campaigns against it.
Chávez, Carl Schmidt, et al
"Chávez, in his speeches, often quotes Clausewitz, Nietzsche, Carl Schmidt..."
"So: are all of Chavez' leftist admirers going to at least grapple with this disturbing stuff? Or are we crypto-neocons for even bringing it up?"
Carl Schmidt was also a strong influence on Leo Strauss, the political philosopher who deserves a lot of credit for the authoritarian tendencies (and several other traits) in neoconservatism. Just point out the common philosophical heritage of Chávez and Bush, problem solved.
Who is a Semite?
It might be worth remembering that the counterfeit-"Jewish" state of Israel doesn't really consist of many racial Semites, but the vast majority are of Eastern Khazar / Ashkenazim descent, who have taken the titles of "Jews" and "Israel" (fraudulently) and have efficiently abused these names.
Revelation 2:9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and [I know] the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are NOT, but [are] (Idumeans) the synagogue of Satan.
Peace be upon you,
Kalle
Spare us the wacko bunk, thank you
Even if Arthur Koestler was right and the Ashkenazim trace their origins to the Khazars, use of words like "counterfeit" and "fraudulent" are way, way inappropriate. The Ashkenazim are still Jews, unless you buy into Nazi "racial" theories. Their liturgical language (and in Israel their common language) is a Semitic one, Hebrew. And Ashkenazim are no longer the "vast majority" in Israel. The majority of Israeli Jews are today, in fact, Sephardim (Mizrahi)—who are "Semitic" even by the most vulgar "racial" designation.
Peace be upon you too. But please wake the fuck up.
Khazar connection
Personally, I am a bit tired of this ridiculous "descendent of the Khazars" argument, which has been proven time and time again to be irrelevant and false. As if all Jews in Israel today have family trees that trace back to the Khazar Empire and nothing else! Before you try to use that myth, have your Arab breathren give the land back to the Sephardic Jews who were exiled following 1948. Then you'll have only Ashkenazim. Not that it will make much difference, since DNA tests have shown that there is a high frequency of Semitic roots in Ashkenazi Jewry
Important new information from Forward on this:
http://www.forward.com/articles/7189
"...Both the AJCommittee and the American Jewish Congress seconded the Venezuelan community's view that Chavez's comments were not aimed at Jews. All three groups said he was aiming his barbs at the white oligarchy that has dominated the region since the colonial era, pointing to his reference to Bolivar as the clearest evidence of his intent."...
Bartholomew
Thanks for that. I see you posted about this at your very interesting blog.
And that you noted "That’s a very serious allegation – it would mean that some American Jewish groups are willing to cry wolf for the benefit of Bush. Just how would that be anything other than a complete betrayal of the cause of fighting anti-Semitism?"
That the Weisenthal Center would be shilling for the Bush regime rather than being motivated by, and in fact completely ignoring the needs of the local Venezuelan Jewish community is unsurprising. It would be far from the first time one of the self-appointed anti-Semitism watchdogs cried wolf to serve the interests of one or another odious master. For instance, the ADL spied on the anti-Zionist and anti-Apartheid activist Jeffrey Blankfort on behalf the the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and indeed had to pay him a hefty sum in a court settlement.
The following is from Wikipedia: Abe Foxman, ADL's national director, explained to the Northern California Jewish Bulletin, May 8, 1993: “At the time we exposed the ANC, they were communist. They were violent, they were anti-Semitic, they were pro-PLO, and they were anti-Israel. You’re going to tell me I don’t have the legitimacy to find out who they were consorting with, who their buddies are, who supports whom?
Not so simple
For starters, finish the sentence you left hanging in your third paragraph. "That the Weisenthal Center would be shilling for the Bush regime rather than being motivated by" WHAT? Genuine concern with anti-Semitism, presumably.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it is predicated on two assumptions. First, that Chavez's comments weren't anti-Semitic (I say the jury is still out, especially as the Venezuelan embassy has not replied to our query). Second, that the Weisenthal Center did not honestly interpret the comments as anti-Semitic, whether they were intended that way or not. Even if they are being paranoid, that isn't the same as being cynical.
I do not believe that Venezuela's Jews are intimidated. There is a lively, vocal, organized and very wealthy and powerful opposition in Venezuela. To the extent that there has been political terror in Chavez's Venezuela, it has been almost entirely the work not of the regime, but of the right-wing opposition, acting through Colombian paramilitary proxies. The targets have been overwhelmingly campesinos who have challenged big landowners under the agrarian reform law. So it is completely improbable that the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela is just parroting the government line out of fear, and it is heartening that they have repudiated the charge of anti-Semitism. However, Chavez badly needs to publicly address this flap. He has not yet done so.
What I was referring to
Look again at what I wrote. I meant, not motivated by the needs of the local Venezuelan Jewish community. Their needs were ignored at the expense of the Weisenthal Center's promoting its own agenda, whatever its motivations are, and they strike me as cynical and dishonest. They omitted the quote about Bolivar in their press release.
So how can one say they are honest about interpreting Chavez' comments?
Chavez answered:
Rabbi Hier of the Weisenthal Center rejects Chavez' allegations as "preposterous." (AP, Jan. 13) He also said the center stood by its statement about Chavez's December remarks.
"Anyone seeing those words and knowing the history of anti-Semitism would immediately say that the president of Venezuela is talking about Jews," Hier told Reuters by telephone. "Are those words anti-Semitic? Yes they are." (Reuters, Jan. 15)
Note this is the third time that the Wiesenthal Center had publicly criticised Chavez without first consulting the local community:
That the Weisenthal Center omitted parts of Chavez' comments, ignored the objections of two major American Jewish organizations, and that of the Venezuelan Jewish community, and have three times ignored seeking their consul, and have dismissed Chavez' denial, in conjunction with simultaneous attacks by the Wall Street Journal, FrontPagemag, and the Weekly Standard, makes a pretty convincing case to me that they are acting out of cynicism and have a political agenda.
How are you counting three?
Is there any indication the Venezeulan Jews were similarly miffed at protests over the Hebraica School raid? And what is your third incident?
Not my count
From the Lobe article I posted above:
Note that this article was published after the Hebraica School raid took place: http://www.classic.countervortex.org/node/1426#comment-4217
Yes...
more than a year after the Hebraica school raid, which was in November of 2004. But it is still unclear what the other two incidents in question are. Even if we can assume the Hebraica raid was one, what was the third?
No idea
It was a quote from the Venezuelan Jewish community in the Lobe article. There's no reason to assume they're not telling the truth, and that there have been three incidents.
This is from the Weekly Standard:
Life's little ironies
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has a commentary that seeks to exonerate Chavez perhaps too completely, but does contain this irresistible tidbit:
The Roque Dalton connection
Our reader David Wilson of Weekly News Update on the Americas seems to have found the original source for the controversial Chavez quote—from the late Salvadoran poet and revolutionary Roque Dalton. Writes Wilson: "It's hard to believe Dalton meant that the people who 'nos dicen que Cristo es la única esperanza' are Jews. Sounds much more like the Christians, doesn't it?"
"Cuando la revolución social comienza a
desplegar sus banderas
l@s hereder@s de quienes crucificaron a Cristo
nos dicen que Cristo es la única esperanza
y precisamente porque nos espera allá en su
Reino, que no es de este mundo.
Esta es la religión que fue señalada por Marx
como "opio de los pueblos"
ya que en esa forma es una droga más para tupir
la cabeza de los hombres
[y de las mujeres]
e impedirles encontrar su camino en la lucha
social".
—Roque Dalton (Dos Religiones)
"When social revolution begins to unfurl its flags
the heirs of those who crucified Christ
tell us Christ is the only hope
precisely because he waits for us
there in his kingdom, that is not of this world.
This is the religion pointed to by Marx
As "the opium of the people"
since in that form it's more a drug for
confusing the heads of men
[also women]
and hindering them from finding their calling in
the social struggle."
—Roque Dalton (Two Religions)