by Mona Charen at National Review
We should not be surprised that a close ally of Ahmadinejad and Castro engaged in steady anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda. A little more than a year ago, Chavez declared in a Christmas Eve speech that “the world has wealth for all, but some minorities, the descendants of the same people that crucified Christ, have taken over all the wealth of the world.”
Mona’s article noted many Jews who settled in Venezuela to escape the Nazi’s are leaving the country.
Publications by the government’s ministry of culture have featured titles like “The Jewish Question,” with cover art showing a Star of David superimposed over a swastika. Jews were accused of complicity in the murder of a prosecutor. An article in a leading newspaper, El Diaro de Caracas asked whether it would become necessary “to expel [the Jews] from the country.”
On a recent visit to Washington, D.C., Gustavo Aristegui — the shadow foreign minister in Spain’s opposition party — told a group at the Hudson Institute that Hamas and Hezbollah are now operating freely in Venezuela.
The challenge among America’s Jews is how overtly to protest and how much to attempt with behind the scenes diplomacy. A little media coverage may help. Maybe they could interview Sean Penn and Danny Glover and ask their opinions.
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