J.Post: Anti-Chavez, Anti-Castro Zionist Poison
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J.Post: Anti-Chavez, Anti-Castro Zionist Poison
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[This is charming... Israel Singer, late of Brooklyn, NY but apparently
now an Israeli and a policy-maker at the World Jewish Congress, uses his
lead paragraph to say that Chavez is another Ceaucescu. It goes downhill
from there. -NY Transfer]
Jerusalem Post - Aug 31, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525979198&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The First Word:
Why we met with Hugo Chavez
by Israel Singer
Permit a Brooklyn-bred Jew the use of British understatement: "Ceaucescu was
no saint." He was a warped megalomaniac who had no respect for the idea of
human rights and ruthlessly trampled on the dignity of his citizens -
reducing them to impoverished helots. He threatened the use of anti-Semitism
and on occasion made good on that threat - all the while maintaining an
independent policy toward Israel and ransoming "his" Jews.
Despite the Romanian dictator's long litany of misdeeds, WJC President Edgar
Bronfman and I kept talking to him. We did that because there were Jews in
Romania whose very lives depended on the despotic whims of that despicable
dictator. Because of that open channel to Ceaucescu, Romanian Jews were able
to live as Jews and to stave off starvation thanks to the steady flow of
material aid from abroad. They were allowed to emigrate to Israel, and
hundreds of thousands took advantage of that opportunity. No less important,
Israel was able to maintain a foothold in the Communist bloc and reap many
diplomatic benefits as a result.
We thought of those days several weeks ago when, at the invitation of
Argentina's president Nestor Kirchner, we met with Venezuela's controversial
leader Hugo Chavez at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires. Many of us
had misgivings about the wisdom of meeting a man who was on record as
regurgitating time-worn anti-Semitic canards and who regularly pilloried
Israel. But meet with him we did, together with senior representatives of
Latin American Jewry.
Over the years, when Jewish communities were imperiled, time and again Edgar
Bronfman and I met with leaders we found distasteful and even repugnant. But
thousands of Jews live in Venezuela and there are thousands more in
neighboring countries. And they cannot ignore the rumblings of social
revolution in their backyard, especially when there is a distinct
anti-Jewish accent to that purported social change.
President Chavez aspires to bring about a social revolution destined to
change the face of Latin America, but the question is what will be the face
of that revolution. Those of us old enough to remember the 1950s recall
asking that same question when Castro and his followers rode through the
streets of Havana.
In forceful language, Chavez told us that he has no quarrels with the Jews
of Venezuela and that he considers his Jewish subjects "dearly beloved
citizens" and valuable assets to his nation. But this week, since that
hopeful encounter, one must come to believe that the skeptics may have been
right and that our willingness to give Chavez the benefit of the doubt was
naive. More and more, it seems that ours was a confrontation with a
shameless friend of evil.
THE RANTINGS of Chavez, and his reckless overtures to states supporting
terror have an impact far beyond the borders of Venezuela. Chavez is seen as
the voice of Latin America's Indian population, which has long been
relegated to the bottom of the socioeconomic totem pole. Washington is
associated with the ancien regime which Chavez is determined to bury once
and for all. Today we confront a new political persona in South America,
which forces us to reassess our previous understanding of politics there.
Chavez hates President George W. Bush, and vilifies Israel. He meets with
Ahmadinejad and courts Syria. He regularly parrots anti-Jewish calumnies
even while continuing to insist that he is no anti-Semite. But above all he
wants to be the leader of a social revolution that will change South
America. Chavez makes no secret of the fact that the ailing Cuban leader
Fidel Castro is his idol. But Chavez's attempts to imitate Castro are not
quite convincing. Castro protected and respected his Jewish community
despite the fact that he later severed relations with Israel (though he did
so years after the rest of the Communist Bloc, and one suspects that it was
a pragmatic move more than one motivated by any real ideology).
Whatever the Cuban dictator's other shortcomings, and there are many to be
sure, a search of his many speeches will reveal no hint of anti-Semitism. I
met with Castro many times, and never suspected for a moment that he was an
anti-Semite.
I do not know whether President Chavez reads The Jerusalem Post, but suspect
that this article will eventually reach him. Therefore this is an
opportunity to send him the following message:
Your Excellency,
You are on the brink of defining the Bolivarian revolution that you aspire
to lead across Latin America. Whether you like it or not, the way in which
you deal with your country's small Jewish minority will ultimately define
your place in history. Will you be recorded as a complex and controversial
personality, perhaps even a genuine statesman - or as a crude mimic of one
of the 21st century's worst tyrants and Holocaust deniers, one branded by
the entire civilized world as the most powerful and dangerous spokesman of
rogue regimes?
History has proven that no society can flourish in which the Jew feels
unease.
You may think that you can separate Jews from Israel. Others have tried. But
as you will soon learn, you cannot. The courageous Jews of Venezuela,
Venezuelan patriots whose support for Israel, both in word and deed, is
unwavering, have proven that. Take heed. If you think you can maintain a
friendship with rocket rattlers and the bankrollers of international
terrorism - and also receive support, or even acceptance in the family of
civilized nations, you are mistaken.
But at the end of the day, the choice is yours.
[The writer is the Chairman of the Policy Council of the World Jewish
Congress.]
*
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