Chavismo’s Antisemitism?

In early July 2017, as opposition protests raged in Caracas and around the country, Venezuelan State sponsored media began to run stories about “mysterious symbols” graffitied on the city’s walls. As the stories went, “a series of scripts in Hebrew nomenclature, forming part of cabalistic symbols, have been localized along the path of the violent street protests, (…) and they could be indicative of a phase of foreign incursions in the conflict...” Telesur’s reporter Madelein García (@madeleintlSUR) was, to all accounts, the original source of this strange story. She produced a video for the news channel explaining that the “cabalistic symbols” meant “unconditional love” but could also be interpreted as “I am here” and thus be part of a “communication strategy” by which the opposition would secretly signal the location of targets to “foreign agents” of a soon to come “Imperialist military invasion” of the country. The plot, according to Gracía, was fortunately aborted by police investigations.

But why would these foreign agents use 43 “cabalistic symbols” written in Hebrew script to code their invasion route? To answer this question Madelein García interviewd in her video, according to Telesur’s caption, a “specialist in Israel and its intelligence services” named Samir Abu Saleh. He claimed that the same symbols appeared written in walls in “Damascus, El Cairo, Tunisia, and Libya, and this without a doubt, is evidence of the existence of US, Zionist, Masonic and other organization that are trying to harm those governments working to serve their people. (…) behind these efforts we always find humanitarian organizations that are really part of a plan of US intelligence services and the Israeli Mossad working against the freedom and the wellbeing of the people.” An alleged opposition protestor, on the ground, confessing his interaction with foreign agents speaking through interpreters, was also interviewed by García in her video as evidence of the conspiracy.

The story by Madelein García was also picked up by Russian news outlet RT, which added quotes by the analyst “specialist in Middle East issues,” Basem Tajeldine. The symbols were no surprise to him, given the “historical position taken by the Bolivarian Revolution in favor of the Palestinian cause.” He sayd that the “support from Israel to the violent groups of the Venezuelan opposition is not direct, but via infiltrated paramilitary groups from Colombia.”

In a press release, the Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned the reports by Venezuelan State media as antisemitic. "The Hebrew letters provided as evidence of a Zionist/Israeli conspiracy, are meaningless gobbledy gook... They are most likely fake news of a desperate regime,” said the Center’s Director for International Relations Dr. Shimon Samuels.

All said, the curious story by Telesur’s reporter was not followed by any other journalistic account of this “Hebrew graffiti” conspiracy in Venezuelan State media in the following months. Indeed, no further account of the “undergoing police investigation” was ever given by Telesur. This is common practice in conspiracy allegations by the Venezuelan government: stories like these are run, further evidence to be provided in the future is promised, the story is completely dropped, and then at a later time it resurfaces as evidence of yet another conspiracy. But given the clear anti-Semitic undertones of this particular story, the question if antisemitism plays a central role in Venezuelan government’s conspiracy theories comes to the forefront.

At first sight, the answer to this question is no. The Jewish community in Venezuela is small and dwindling, as many have fled the economic and political crisis in the country (according to some reports of the 25,000 members of the community living in 1999, only 9,000 remain.) Both opposition leader Capriles Radonski and President Nicolás Maduro claim Jewish ancestry. But there is no denying that the community has felt directly threatened in the past 19 years of Bolivarian rule. The most serious event took place November 2004, when the police raided the Centro Hebráica in Caracas, which houses an elementary and secondary school and a cultural center. According to the then Interior Minister, Jesse Chacón, the police raided the center “searching for weapons.” Although no such weapons were found, the center was again raided by the police in December. There have been other incidents, apparently unrelated to the government, such as the breaking into and vandalizing with antisemitic graffiti of Caracas’ main synagogue in January 31, 2009. Nicolás Maduro, then Chávez’s Foreign Minister, promised a quick investigation of the incident. A group of police officers were arrested in ration to the attack, and the President of the Asociación Israelita de Venezuela, Elías Farache, declared that he considered the case closed and thanked the authorities for the quick results of the investigations.

In general, Chavismo relies on a highly conspiratorial worldview. In its understanding of reality, enemies of the Bolivarian Revolution are permanently bent on its destruction. These enemies are most often characterize under the catch-all term “imperialism”, but also include the local opposition leadership, the bourgeoisie, the oligarchs, the CIA, the world Right, etc. Jews are not often mentioned as part of the world plot of the powerful, but they have been sometimes included in it by some government officials, chavista leaders and chavista media. But, under the well-known rhetorical move of distinguishing between Zionism and Jews in general, Israel and the Mossad are often mentioned as part of the counter-revolutionary plots.

And then, blatant anti-Semitism, such as expressed in the case described above of Telesur’s reported, has sometime made its way into the chavista discourse. For example, Christina Gonzalez, Director of Radio Nacional De Venezuela, on her radio show “Noticia Final” in April 4, 2011 openly recommended the reading of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. She declared: “I have been looking over some materials, looking over things that have been happening in the last few days, searching for a book that might help me with some kind of explanation. I came up the Protocol of the Elders of Zion, and I found many interesting things”. She went on to read some paragraphs of the book and commented: “always the Jews are the bosses of the financial situation, because they have millions and millions (…), they always are manipulating money in circulation (…) no important job can be done without the sons of Israel.” Following protests by the Confederación de Asociaciones Israelitas, Gonzalez was removed from her post. She was however later that same month commended by Information Minister Izarra for her achievements as Director of RNV and later awarded a government official prize for journalism.

Cases such as those of Madelein García and Cristina González are admittedly rare in Venezuela. But they do raise concerns from time to time. To date, Madelein García has not been made to rectify her report, much less resign from her post. Venezuelan political leaders, from the government and opposition, abstain from blatant antisemitic remarks. There is, however, one notable exception about which I wrote a post early this year: Luis Fuenmayor Toro. Here is what I wrote then:

“The inexistence of the Holocaust is more than documented. You only need to read Rassinier’s “The Lie of Ulysses”, Hoggan’s “The Myth of the Six Million”, and the book by Ilan Pappe to know this. A holocaust is what we have today, live, in Palestine.” Wrote on Twitter Luis Fuenmayor Toro (@LFuenmayorToro) on January 22.

Fuenmayor (read his autobiographical note here), a medical surgeon, was Rector of the Universidad Central de Venezuela from 1988 to 1992. A Chávez supporter he was Director of the Venezuelan universities coordinating agency OPSU, and Minister for Higher Education from 2002 to 2004. He later fell out with chavismo and is now a critic of the Maduro government.

Fuenmayor has insisted on his position while answering his critics via Twitter. Told that “there are many documents [about the Holocaust],” he answered: “Precisely, what we don’t have is documents that prove what they say. What we have are movies, videos, hoaxes [montajes], which were later discovered and denounced by diverse people. Lech Walesa is no communist and he was very clear [when he spoke] in the most emblematic concentration camp.”

In the same Twitter line, Fuenmayor blames the “financial and propaganda power of the Zionist entity called Israel” for the many answers (cayapa) he has been receiving, as well as for the phone threats he claims to have received after he posted his comment.