Hugo Chavez is a murderous kleptocrat who has bankrupted his country, condemned tens of millions to malnutrition despite the country’s (stolen) oil wealth, spied on the United States in cahoots with Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, given a helping hand to terrorists—and unleashed the worst wave of attacks on Jews in the world right now.
Michael Ledeen (whose Marine captain son recently came back from a fact-finding trip to Caracas trip with Rabbi Avi Weiss) calls my attention to a pattern of anti-Semitic atrocities. Rabbi Weiss alleges that Chavez is engaged in “state-sponsored terror” against Jews. Half of Venezuela’s Jews have emigrated after violence against their synagogues and their persons, and the remainder are considering it.
As Weiss reported,
Our first stop is Congregation Tiferet Yisrael, the largest Sephardi synagogue, which was defiled on January 31. It was a raid carefully orchestrated by nineteen assailants, a kind of commando attack. For me, it points to deep complicity on the part of the government. It’s not only that Chavez’s anti-Semitic rhetoric created a climate that inspired these attacks, it was much more. I believe this was virtually state-sponsored terror.
Chavez hands are bloody, and the blood sticks to whomever clasps them.
