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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Venezuelan synagogue vandalized |
| 2009-02-01 |
| Noche de Cristal? The vandalizing of a Caracas synagogue late Friday only underscores the feeling of growing anti-Semitic sentiment in the South American nation, Jewish community members said over the weekend. A group of people - reports run as high as 15 - broke into Caracas's Sephardic synagogue late on Friday, held the guard at gunpoint, wreaked havoc on the building and damaged the Torah scrolls. Before leaving at around 3 a.m., the vandals scrawled "Death to the Jews" and "We don't want Jews here" on the synagogue's walls. The damage was discovered by community members on Saturday morning. The guard was found on the floor, one community leader said. According to Paul Hariton, a former leader of the Ashkenazi community in Caracas, "this was a well-organized event. The attackers were heavily armed. They jumped a wall and overcame two guards. They even took the videotape out of the security camera before they left." The US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said the attack was "not a random event in Venezuela; it is directly related to the atmosphere of anti-Jewish intimidation promoted by President [Hugo] Chavez and his government apparatus." The suggestion of government sanction for the attack was heard many times from Venezuelan Jews over the weekend, though most of them would not speak on the record. "I do not expect the law to be enforced," Hariton said simply. The ADL called on Chavez "to abandon the official government rhetoric of demonization of Israel and Jews and to publicly denounce this wanton act of anti-Semitic violence." Chavez called on the Venezuelan Jewish community to "declare itself against this barbarity" - Israel's recent offense against Hamas in Gaza - in a January 6 interview with Venezuela's state-run VTV television network. "Don't Jews repudiate the Holocaust? And this is precisely what we're witnessing," Chavez told the network. According to Miami Herald columnist and Latin America expert Andres Oppenheimer, "Chavez-backed regional media carry anti-Semitic - and not just anti-Israel - stories almost daily." For example, he relates, "As I'm writing this [on Thursday], a quick look at the Web site of Telesur, the Venezuela-based regional television network owned by the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Paraguay, shows me a story entitled 'Gaza's Ruins,' which accuses Israel 'and the world's Jews' of failing to denounce alleged atrocities by Israeli troops and 'Jewish planes' in Gaza." "We've never had such an incident. It looks well-planned," Daniel Ben-Naim, spokesman for the Federation of Jewish Communities in Venezuela, said of the synagogue attack. "We were afraid something like this would happen. The official press was becoming more and more anti-Israeli and anti-Jews. There are hundreds of anti-Semitic articles, ads and fliers." According to Hariton, the government is using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a "scapegoat" to distract attention from Venezuela's most pressing problems. With crime at one of the highest levels in the world, "where does the Venezuelan government find the time to talk about terrorists getting killed in Gaza? It used to be a country friendly to Israel and the Jewish community," he said. "You can disagree with Israel. That's fine," said Hariton. "But you can't go to a place where we worship and destroy it. That's clearly anti-Semitism." Coming to a community near you. "Never again," they say? Well, it's happening again, right before our eyes. Forbearance and pacifism worked real well in 1933-45, didn't they? I suggest a different course this time: First they came for the pacifist Jews, but I was not a pacifist, so I did not speak up..... Then they came for the liberal Jewish professors, but I was not a liberal Jewish professor, so I did not speak up.... Then they came for the media-activist Jews, but I was not a media activist Jew, so I did not speak up... Then they came for the self-hating liberal Jews who had supported them, but I was not a self-hating Jew, so I did not speak up. Then they came for the gun-owning Republican Jews, ....and that's when I shot them. |
| Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy |
| #7 Chavez condemns Caracas synagogue attack |
| Posted by: tipper 2009-02-01 20:12 |
| #6 AC, You could start a new political party with that comment. |
| Posted by: Guillibaldo Jusoger5028 2009-02-01 17:58 |
| #5 One must remember that Hamas is quite active in Venezuela and there are many Iranians there too. Iran and Venezuela are allies. |
| Posted by: Snolulet Sproing1912 2009-02-01 13:38 |
| #4 I wonder what would happen to Venezuela if we imposed an embargo against them like we do against Cuba. I do wonder how long Hoogo would last. Nobody else in the world will buy that sludge he calls oil. No money, no power, just coca and bullets. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-02-01 13:26 |
| #3 Atomic Conspiracy: Channelling the dead spirit of the Voice of Reason |
| Posted by: Hyper 2009-02-01 09:45 |
| #2 Venezuelan synagogue vandalized With the exceptions of the U.S. and Israel, isn't that why they exist? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-02-01 09:41 |
| #1 look for a Chavez-created "failed presidential assassination attempt by Jooos" with a subsequent witch hunt. He needs a distraction |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-02-01 08:02 |