Leftist rulers who support Qaddafi?!

Update: Another supporter of Qaddafi (3/2/11 at 10:35 pm): Louis Farrakhan has just come out in support of Qaddafi, according to a press release from the ADL.

Included among his conspiratorial messages was the allegation that "Zionists" are goading the United States into "a military offensive against Libya," whose leader, Muammar Qaddafi, he praised as "my brother" and "my friend."

"President Obama, if you allow the Zionists to push you, to mount a military offensive against Qaddafi and you go in and kill him and his sons as you did with Saddam Hussein and his sons, I'm warning you this is a Libyan problem, let the Libyans solve their problem among themselves."

Further update on Chavez (3/1/11 at 7:02 pm): An Al Jazeera blog by Imran Garda has Chavez's latest comments on Libya:

As my colleague Gabriel Elizondo recently pointed out, tiny Nicaragua has rushed to show solidarity with the man who has given it over $300 million and who still claims, “they love me, all my people are with me” despite losing almost every town and city in his country barring the capital, to the protesters. Protesters - he claims - who are being drugged by “Osama bin Laden” who has put “things in their Nescafe.” Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega said Gaddafi is "waging a great battle" for his country.

Prior to February 28 there was still room for doubt as to the extent of Hugo Chavez’s support for Gaddafi. He had refused to openly weigh in on the issue, and the only evidence for his support had been a tweet of his saying “…viva Libya and its independence! Kadafi is facing a civil war!!”

Even that was open to interpretation. However, his latest take on the crisis has been unequivocal, "A campaign of lies is being spun together regarding Libya...I'm not going to condemn him. I'd be a coward to condemn someone who has been my friend."....

But the man who models himself on Latin America’s liberator Simon Bolivar, and projects himself as an heir to his legacy (and sometimes to Fidel Castro’s) - is finding himself in a changing world.

He may see himself as a leader of the global “Left” - but what left is he claiming to lead?

The enemy-of-my-enemy “Left”, of hollow, mud-slinging slogans, in support of anything or anyone who claims to oppose imperialism in all its forms in this Yankee-dominated world, no matter how monstrous his policies?

Or a principled “Left” based on respecting the values entrenched in the universal declaration of human rights, democracy and most importantly, the “Left” which places its support squarely on the part of the people tormented, rather than their tormentor.

Chavez’s open support for Gaddafi (who he presented with a replica of one of Bolivar’s swords in 2009) despite his outrageous disregard for his own people, disturbing intent to “open the arms depots” and let his country “burn,” rather than listen to the demands of Libyans, at this crucial point in the history of the region - sounds vacuous and adolescent.

In fact, it’s starting to sound like he’s been drinking some of that hallucinogenic Nescafe that Gaddafi was talking about...

Update (2/26/11 at 4:00 pm): Although I would hardly call him a leftist, Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who received Qaddafi's farcical human rights award in 2010) thinks it's all about Libya's oil, and that the UN should not impose sanctions.

"You cannot secure world peace by resorting to sanctions in each and every incident. We call on the international community to approach Libya not with concerns about oil but with conscience, justice and universal human values," Erdogan said. In an apparent reference to Western interests in oil-rich Libya, he said the region's people "are fed up with being used as pawns in oil wars".

Update (2/24/11 at 11:04 pm): Chavez has now come out in support of Qaddafi. The report is from Al Jazeera's live blog on Libya:

5:01am: Venezuela's top diplomat on Thursday echoed Fidel Castro's accusation that Washington is fomenting unrest in Libya to justify an invasion to seize North African nation's oil reserves.

Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister said:

They are creating conditions to justify an invasion of Libya.

4:27am: Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has backed Muammar Gaddafi on Twitter.  Chavez twitted:

Gaddafi is facing a civil war.
Long live Libya. Long live the independence of Libya

Original Post, 2/22/11 So, who is supporting Qaddafi these days?

The protests sweeping across Libya have created challenges for the Latin American allies of Moammar Gadhafi. Leftist governments in the Americas have long embraced him as a fellow fighter against U.S. influence in the world. Gadhafi has responded over the years by awarding the Moammar Gadhafi International Human Rights Prize [sic!] to Castro and Ortega, as well as to Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, [and] Evo Morales of Bolivia.

1. Nicaragua president Daniel Ortega called Gaddafi to express support.

Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega says he has telephoned Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to express his solidarity. Ortega says he has called several times this week because Gadhafi "is again waging a great battle" to defend the unity of his nation.

To my embarrassment now, in the 1980s I was one of the defenders of Ortega and the Sandinistas when they ruled Nicaragua.

2. Fidel Castro, who says that "unrest in Libya may be a pretext for a NATO invasion."

European governments and U.S. leaders have denounced the crackdown, but Castro used a column published Tuesday by Cuban state news media to say it was too early to criticize Gadhafi. "You can agree or not with Gadhafi," Castro said. "The world has been invaded by all sorts of news ... We have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie."

But he did urge protests of something he says is planned: A U.S.-led invasion of the North African nation aimed at controlling its oil. "The government of the United States is not concerned at all about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate to give NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a question of hours or very short days," Castro wrote. "An honest person will always be against any injustice committed against any people in the world," Castro said. "And the worst of those at this instant would be to keep silent before the crime that NATO is preparing to commit against the Libyan people."

3. And what about Hugo Chavez?

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, has stayed mute. Bolivia came closest to criticizing the government in Tripoli, issuing a statement expressing concern over "the regrettable loss of many lives" and urging both sides to find a peaceful solution....

While Chavez has not commented publicly on the unrest in Libya, Venezuela's foreign minister issued a statement Monday saying he had phoned his Libyan counterpart to express hopes that Libya can find "a peaceful solution to its difficulties ... without the intervention of imperialism, whose interests in the region have been affected in recent times."....

Others [Venezuelan opponents of Chavez] said Chavez's silence suggests he might be trying to distance himself from his North African friend. The two leaders have had such warm ties that on Monday, rumors swept the world that Gadhafi was fleeing to Venezuela. Gadhafi took to television to deny them.

"Our garrulous president is keeping a thunderous silence," the director of the newspaper Tal Cual, Teodoro Petkoff, wrote in an editorial. "Now that the democratic rebellion has reached Libya, Chavez is looking the other way and even abandoning his disgraced 'brother.'"

Anti-semitism in Venezuela

When I was growing up I believed that anti-semitism was an affliction of the past - it was not something that was going to affect me. It was something that happened before I was born - the Holocaust was over and Jew-hatred in the United States had come to an end after the horrific revelations of the Jewish deaths at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. I did not even know any survivors when I was growing up - the one time I saw someone at a family bar mitzvah with a number on his arm I was frozen with shock, and never talked about it with my parents. I hardly experienced any anti-semitism on a personal basis.

As I grew older, I began to read articles about attacks on Jews outside of Israel - for example, the attack on the synagogue on the Rue Copernica in Paris in 1980, which killed 4 people outside while 600 were at Shabbat services inside. Or an attack on August 9, 1982, the Goldenberg restaurant on the Rue de Rosiers in the Marais (Pletzl) in Paris was attacked by Abu Nidal - six people were killed and 22 were wounded. But it was clear that these were acts of terrorists, not of the government of France. I could still think - well, there may be occasional anti-semitic terrorist attacks on Jews outside of Israel by people who are twisted enough to think that all Jews should be blamed for whatever Israel does. I believed that outside of the Arab and Muslim world, governments will protect Jews, they will not conspire against them - and there are now hardly any Jews left in the Arab-Muslim world, so we are still relatively safe in the world.

The news coming out of Venezuela has shattered this illusion that I had still nurtured from my childhood. The Venezuelan government is consciously fomenting Jew hatred and the fruits of this teaching have issued forth in the form of direct attacks against Jews, Jewish schools, and synagogues. This is the first time I can remember in my lifetime that there has been a deliberate governmental anti-semitic campaign in a non-Arab or Muslim country.

Daniel Duqenal, of Venezuela News and Views, translates part of an anti-semitic article published in Aporrea, which is supported by the Venezuelan government: Teaching antisemitism in Venezuela. The anti-semitic article gives instructions to Venezuelans on how to conduct an anti-semitic campaign: boycott Jewish-owned shops or restaurants, or any shops where kosher food is sold; scream at Jews in the street about the Palestinians, denounce any Jew living in Venezuela, especially if owns a business, and questions whether a Jewish school named Hebraica should exist.

The synagogue in Maripérez was attacked a couple of days ago - it was desecrated by thugs.

As Daniel writes:

I did not think that yesterday's post would be validated that fast: the synagogue of Caracas was attacked last night by a group of pro Chavez thugs. They knew perfectly well what they were doing, they knew how to find the Torah and left taking with them the surveillance videos. The antisemitism of Chavez is now having serious consequences....

The government was prompt in taking its distances from the Synagogue attack. Unfortunately for the government even if it can prove that there is no direct links between its Red Shirted storm troopers and the attack, Chavez and his acolytes have been saying too many things against Israel (when not the Jews themselves) not to take blame from this attack. It also does not help the credibility of the government that the "condemnation" was emitted during a political act where the Venezuelan diplomatic expelled from Israel was received as heroes. As if they ever held a stone in some Intifada....

At least elsewhere the condemnation was certainly less ambiguous, showing clearly that any antisemitism in Venezuela is to be found almost exclusively in the chavista ranks. The Catholic Church, the dissident Student movement, the political opposition did not waste time. For many the finger is pointed to the hate speech coming from the government itself, something that this blogger has been writing for years now, and which is today quite open from scholars to some of the best legal minds of the opposition.

Hugo Chavez did "condemn the actions on the synagogue of Caracas" on Sunday, while hinting that opposition leaders actually plotted to attack the synagogue.

The ADL said the incident was not random, rather it was "directly related to the atmosphere of anti-Jewish intimidation promoted by President Chavez and his government apparatus." The ADL called for Chavez to "abandon the official government rhetoric of demonization of Israel and the Jews and to publicly denounce this wanton act of anti-Semitic violence."

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro condemned the attack and promised it would be investigated, while reiterating his government's opposition to what he called Israel's criminal government. "We respect the Jewish people, but we ask respect for the people of Palestine and their right to life," Maduro said in a ceremony called to welcome home two Venezuelan diplomats expelled from Israel this week. [RL: what does Palestine have to do with an attack in Venezuela?!]

The Israeli Foreign Ministry ordered the envoys to leave after Venezuela expelled all Israeli diplomats on January 6th, to protest Israel's offensive in the Gaza strip. Chavez labeled Israeli leaders as genocidal, as nearly 1,300 Palestinians are said to have died in the 22-day offensive in Gaza. [RL: And if Israel had actually wanted to commit genocide, many thousands more of Palestinians in Gaza would be dead now]

Leaders of Venezuela's estimated 15,000-member Jewish community warned that vocal denunciations of Israel by Chavez and the country's government-funded news media may have encouraged Friday's attack. "These declarations permeate society," said Abraham Levy, president of the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations. "We feel uncomfortable, threatened and intimidated," said Elias Farache, of the association.

The Argentine office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, condemned the attack and warned of an anti-Semitic campaign in Venezuela.

Chavez in 2005 sparked outrage in the Jewish community by stating that those who killed Jesus Christ had become the owners of the world's riches. A Venezuelan Jewish organization later came to Chavez's defense, denying the statement was anti-Semitic.

And to think that good leftists in the United States and other western countries consider Hugo Chavez a wonderful revolutionary leader whose Bolivarian Revolution we should all emulate. He is nothing more than a fascist wrapped in the flag of socialism and revolution.

See also Adam Holland on the anti-semitic campaign of the Venezuelan government. And a report on Z-Word about the attack on the Caracas synagogue from Eamonn McDonagh, who usefully provides English translations from Venezuelan newspapers for the Spanish-impaired.