Posted on 02/05/2008 6:21:31 AM PST by 3AngelaD
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his followers have sought to harass and intimidate the Catholic Church, the media, university students, political opponents and multinational companies, to name just a few...it can hardly come as a surprise that Chávez would also attack the Jewish community....The point is to bully and discredit institutions that have existed and thrived for years in Venezuela. Perhaps because of their vitality and independence, Chávez sees them as an intolerable threat.
...{Chavez}has, of course, turned public institutions into pawns of his regime. His party controls the legislature, the majority of local governments, unions and the electoral commission. Chávez has undermined the independence of the judiciary, sought enactment of laws to allow the government to dominate the broadcast media, and generally used his power to intimidate opponents and stifle dissent.
The rising wave of anti-Semitism in Venezuela is part and parcel of this effort...The Jewish community school and cultural and sports center has been inexplicably raided twice by Venezuelan police since Chávez came to power...When a community is singled out and bullied in this way, danger exists for xenophobes and anti-Semites to take license from the government's actions...
...Chávez chooses to overlook anti-Jewish rhetoric and endorses notorious anti-Semites in the media. As dangerous and hurtful as this is for the small Venezuelan Jewish community, it is a symptom of something much deeper and far riskier for all Venezuelans: the breakdown of democratic ideals and institutions....
Chávez has aligned Venezuela with countries and radical Islamic movements that are a verifiable threat to Israel and world Jewry, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Hezbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah; and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad....
...international human rights organizations have reported on activities by the Venezuelan security forces such as torture, extrajudicial executions and unexplained disappearances...Under these conditions, democracy cannot thrive....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Just more evidence of why he’s a hero in democrat circles.
Typical punk dictator. When things go bad, blame the Jews.
This was in the Washington Post? It’s enough to get the Post excommunicated from leftist circles.
I am as surprised as you are at this outbreak of sanity on the Post editorial pages. They actually had an editorial condemning Chavez last month. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/15/AR2008011503223.html
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