On May 1, Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote about the deteriorating condition of the Jews in Venezuela.
In 1998, the year Hugo Chavez was elected president, there were 22,000 Jews in Venezuela. Today the Jewish population is estimated at between 10,000 and 15,000.
Those numbers tell a story, and it’s not a happy one. The Jews of Venezuela are fleeing to Miami, Madrid and elsewhere because of the anti-Semitism they face at home. In an interview this week in Washington, D.C., the country’s chief rabbi sounds a warning bell: “There’s anxiety in the Jewish community because of what has happened,” says Rabbi Pynchas Bremer, “and of course because of what may happen.”
Sounds like a place Roger Cohen would like to visit.
Kirkpatrick also points out that Catholics are also being targeted by Chavez. But this is really disturbing.
In January, a professor published an article online calling on citizens to boycott Jewish-owned businesses and confiscate the property of Jews who support Israel. He urged Venezuelans to “summon publicly every Jew found in the streets, squares, shopping malls, etc. and force them to take positions, screaming at them slogans in favor of Palestine and against the abortion-state of Israel.” Change the language from Spanish to German, and this could be an anti-Semitic tract from the 1930s.
No wonder an American Rabbi who recently visited Australia concluded:
Rabbi Herzfeld is blunter: “I think we’re in the early stages of something catastrophic.”
Scapegoating Jew makes for a handy diversion while the economy’s tanking. But President Chavez isn’t sitting on his hands:
Troops were mobilised over the weekend to assist Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, in seizing the assets of some 60 oil service companies, after a law was approved last week that paves the way for the state to take increasing control over its all-important oil industry.
More stuff for him to run into the ground. “The move is the latest sign of the deepening cashflow crisis that has bedeviled the state oil company for at least two years as it has become overburdened with responsibilities far removed from its core business – in particular funding and running the massive social programmes that have become the bedrock of Mr Chávez’s support.” And capital is being scared away, because of “regime uncertainty.”
Is there a cost to refusing to stand up to the likes of Chavez?
Lorne W. Craner, a former assistant secretary of state for human rights under Bush, said he thinks Obama and Clinton had strong records on human rights before they came into office. But he said he has been surprised at the administration’s initial steps.
“I am finding these guys very reactive and not creative. You can’t just offer hope to Castro, Chávez and Mubarak,” Craner said, referring to the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Egypt. “You have to offer hope to others” toiling in those countries for greater liberties.
Obviously the Obama administration differs:
Administration officials counter that they have a consistent vision of how to emphasize human rights in international discourse, which includes taking on tough issues but in a respectful and less rhetorical manner. “Any fair reading of this set of issues over the course of a broad sweep of time underscores that it’s a fundamental issue for the president,” said Denis McDonough, director of strategic communications at the National Security Council.
However as Abe Greenwald observed:
In President Obama’s very first interview (on Al Arabiya television) he was deferential toward the theocratic regime in Iran and effusive about the bravery of the oppressive Saudi king. He offered not a word of encouragement or solidarity for the Muslim world’s reform movements. Then came Hillary Clinton’s dismissal of human rights concerns in China, silence on human rights in North Korea, hints of easing sanctions on Burma and Sudan, and a loosened trade relationship with the Castro dictatorship. People focused on the Venezuelan handshake, but Obama’s biggest shame in Latin America was his failure to criticize Hugo Chavez’s bullying domestic policies.
If you don’t oppose, you encourage.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Venezuela is not a good place to be a Jew these days.
It’s going to be a lousy place to be Venezuealan in genral PDQ, as ‘Ugo flexes his muscles and drags the country into Castroite penury and tyranny. First ‘Ugo came for the Jews…well, we know how the rest of it goes.
Maybe you could get good old Hugo
a shirt to teach him some
history.