[DEBATE] : From Chavez?s Alleged Anti-Semitism to the Threat against Privileges

[Peter Mahlangu]

>From Chavez’s Alleged Anti-Semitism to the Threat
against Privileges

Saturday, Apr 08, 2006 

By: Roberto Hernandez Montoya - Question

An intellectual is someone who responds to strategic
questions, life, death, and love.  And yes, there are
intellectuals among those who signed the January 21
document, “against the anti-Semitic references in
official Venezuelan discourse” (El NACIONAL).  But now
intellectuals confront a more or less tactical and
perverse question: How to prove the anti-Semitism of
Hugo Chavez.

They do not even speak of the strategic character of
anti-Semitism.  How the Arabs are also Semites.  We
will then conclude that if the Arabs and Jews are
killing one another, then the Semites are the
anti-Semites.

A declaration by Chavez during Christmas of 2005 about
those who crucified Christ and then became powerful
from the riches was interpreted by the Wiesenthal
Center as “an anti-Semitic statement” since Chavez had
associated the assassins of Christ with the Jews and
then with the usurpation of the riches.[1] 

A subversive once rebelled against a tyrant that we
will call John.  He spray-painted:  “John is an
idiot.”  Once caught and jailed for this offense, the
rebel claimed that there are many Johns.  To which the
prosecutor, whose perspective was no different than
that of these intellectuals, replied: “Yes, but there
is only one idiot John.”  Chavez did not identify
anyone in his declaration.  Or rather, what the
Wiesenthal Center interpreted and was repeated by the
intellectuals is that these two concepts have always
been used as prejudices against the Jews.  There are
many assassins, but according to the Wiesenthal
Center, the Jews are the only murderers of Christ.  If
that is the only interpretation that the Center can
conceive of, who is anti-Semitic?

The Wiesenthal Center’s declaration was distributed by
the Associated Press, and from there it was picked up
by the French daily, Liberation, associated with
Edouard de Rothschild, and finally Le Monde, every day
further to the right.  It didn’t matter that other
Jews and the Israeli government refute this
interpretation.  What matters is that all conservative
international discourse concerning Chavez maintains
that he is an anti-Semitic tyrant.  Tomorrow he will
be a misogynist or an alcoholic, that is, based on
proof as fantastic as the brilliant association that
he is a dictator since he is a military officer.

Below are the original words of Hugo Chavez and
afterwards the alterations that they suffered in this
montage:

“The world has enough for everyone, but as a result of
some minorities, the descendents of those who
crucified Christ, the descendents of those who
expelled Bolivar from here, and crucified him in their
own way in Santa Marta, there in Colombia.  A minority
took possession of the riches of the world.”[2]

We see how this was conveniently mutilated.  Here is
my translation of Rothschild’s version, or that of
Liberation:

“More than ever we need Christ
  but as a result of a
minority, the descendents of those who crucified
Christ
 took possession of the riches of the world
 
and concentrated these riches in the hands of a few
people (Jean-Gebert Armengaud).”[3]

Here is Albert Bellaiche’s version, Guysen Israel
News:

“There is enough to satisfy the world, but some
minorities, the descendents of those who crucified
Christ, have taken possession of the riches of the
world.”[4]

Here is the version from the Center:

“The world has wealth for all, but some minorities,
the descendants of the same people that crucified
Christ, have taken over all the wealth of the world
[Simon Wiesenthal Center.”[5]

I cite part of the Center’s declaration


“In a letter to Chávez, Shimon Samuels (Director for
International Relations of the SWC) and Sergio Widder
(Latin American Representative), stated that “in your
words we find two central arguments of antisemitism:
the canard of the deicide and the association of Jews
with wealth. Both elements have been the perfect
excuse to justify persecution and murder of Jews along
two millenia.”

The letter adds that, “it is paradoxical that the
president of the country which will soon host the most
renowned meeting of progressive thinking, the World
Social Forum, uses this medieval and reactionary
language. Your words sound very similar to those by
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad when he denied
the Holocaust, thus causing the rejection of the
overwhelming majority of the international community.”

What a spectacular interpretation! It’s not a far cry
from there to say that Chavez is planning
concentration camps.  

One unfortunate soul believed he was a cornel of corn
and was submitted to psychiatric treatment.  Once
cured, he came across a rooster and becoming terrified
had to immediately return to the doctor.

“But you know that you are not a cornel of corn,” the
doctor tells him.

“Yes, but the rooster doesn’t know that,” responds the
patient.

For too long, it was believed that the interpretation
was part of the unlimited sovereignty of the subject. 
More recently Umberto Eco and Susan Sontag, among
others, have pointed out that yes there are limits. 
The Divine Comedy does not mean that my aunt cooks up
a good barbeque.  Every text brings with it an
arranged collection of potential meanings; not just
any meaning.  But there are critical groups of people
that alter the interpretations, as occurs to he or she
who refers to the noose in the house of the hanged
man.  It is called “power”, according to the
nomenclature of Eliseo Veron. [6]

A paranoid man threatened to kill the next person to
call him “Cow Horn” (“Cacho de Vaca”).

“Good day, friend,” a friendly neighbor said in
passing.

The paranoid man deduced with the same speed as the
Wiesenthal Center:  “The dog is man’s best friend, but
the enemy of the cat, which eats the mouse, which eats
the cheese, which is made from milk, which comes from
the cow. Which has horns!”  Some people don’t know why
we they are killed by their neighbors.  

In other words, I know that it is a lie that the Jews
killed Christ and that all of them are plutocrats, but
the public does not know it and is the innocent victim
of a perverse deception, more than Chavez who, as we
all know is military ergo tyrant ergo Nazi ergo
anti-Semitic ergo universally evil ergo we need to
assassinate him and/or invade Venezuela.  The
discourse that is promoted by the CIA.  There is
something that perhaps explains this coincidence: On
Jan 11, 2006, the Wiesenthal Center honored the media
magnate Rupert Murdoch at the Waldorf Astoria in New
York.  Fox News anchor, Lauren Green, was master of
ceremonies.  Murdoch was presented with the
“Humanitarian Laureate Award”.[7]  Rotschild, Murdoch

 It all makes sense.  

The Confederation of Israeli Associations of Venezuela
(CAIV) rejected that Chavez was anti-Semitic, as well
as the Israeli government.  The CAIV visited Chavez on
Jan 31st and Freddy Pressner declared that “we did not
come to resolve differences because there are no
differences.”  Attending on behalf of CAIV was its
President, Freddy Pressner, and its Secretary General,
David Bachenheimer, accompanied by the President in
charge of the Caracas Israeli Union, Abraham Hammer;
the presidents of the Venezuelan Israeli 
Association, Salomon Cohen; from the Zionist
Federation, Alberto Biernam; the official in charge of
the Hebrew Brotherhood, Jorge Zelikovich and the
person in charge of the Venezuelan Federation of
Jewish Women, Ena Rotkopf.  But our intellectuals are
more Jewish than the Jews.  How ridiculous!  But the
seed has already been sown through globalized
disinformation.  For Lionel Mesnard, this is not
innocent coming on the eve of the VI World Social
Forum in Caracas, Jan. 24- 29.  Nor was the Wiesenthal
Center’s appeal to Mercosur innocent, asking them to
exclude Venezuela.  Was it worth it? What values our
intellectuals must lack for them stoop so low to do
the dirtiest work of the media war.

The outrage against the Jewish extermination during
the Second World War has been twistedly orchestrated
by the Zionism associated with Imperialism.  It is a
typical case of a just cause perversely confiscated by
an elite oppressor.  We already know the political
uses of religion.[8]  Whoever attempts to confront a
Jew, as reprehensible as his/her conduct may be, is
ridiculously accused of anti-Semitism, like when Sofia
Imber [the former director of Venezuela’s modern art
museum] says that they took her name off the Caracas
Contemporary Art Museum because she’s Jewish.  This
fallacy doesn’t explain why her child, also obviously
Jewish, wasn’t put in charge of the Jacobo Borges
Museum.  In other words, the Nazi genocide grants
plenary indulgence and a members’ club card to every
Jew.  And of course, anti-Semite is synonymous with
reprehensible, condemnable, damned, terrorist, who
should die.

In the same discourse, Chavez referred to those who
symbolically crucified Bolivar.  The brilliant
epistemological method of the Wiesenthal Center brings
us to the conclusion that the Jews also killed
Bolivar.  As one cannot defend such nonsense, as US
Rabbi Arthur Washkow said, human stupidity has its
limits, sometimes, so the Wiesenthal Center
conveniently erased the reference to Bolivar in order
to save the house of cards.

There are no associations between Chavez and the
anti-Jewish expressions emitted by the President of
Iran Mahmud Ahmadineyad.  The Venezuelan government
explicitly denies Ahmadineyad’s thesis about Israel. 
This is the third argument:  Chavez has invited
Ahmadineyad.  When Chavez invites Alvaro Uribe, is he
endorsing all of the ideas of the Colombian President?
 When Jacques Chirac receives Chavez, is he endorsing
his views on imperialism and is Chavez supporting the
French intervention in Haiti? 

At the least, foreign journalists write for a distant
public that only witnesses the Venezuelan reality at
an arm’s length.  The anti-Semitism of Chavez is
another expression of the hatred that is caused by the
threat to the privileges that no one is disputing, but
are seen as being held hostage just by having to share
them.  What stupid problems some people create.  As
Romain Migus says, combined lies give the illusion of
truth. From this fantasy, the foreign readers will
imagine the pogroms, the Kristallnacht, the Jews
forced to wear the Star of David.  Do my two Jewish
children fear this in Venezuela?  

It is a great advantage when you do not have the
feeling of ridiculousness because one sticks his foot
in his mouth and it doesn’t matter.  How funny,
intellectual friends, cultured friends, wise friends,
so much arrogance that there’s some left for Carnival.
     

Roberto Hernandez Montoya is a writer & the President
of the Romulo Gallegos Center of Latin American
Studies Foundation (CELARG) 

Footnotes:

[1]
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=253162&ct=1752793

[2] mci.gov.ve/alocuciones1.asp?id=398

[3] Plus que jamais, le Christ nous manqué (
) mais il
se trouve qu’une minorite, les descendants de ceux qui
ont crucifie le Christ (
) s’est emparee des richesses
du monde [
] et a concentre ces richesses entre
quelques mains.

[4] Il y a suffisamment pour satisfaire le monde, mais
quelques minorities, les escendants de ceux-la memes
qui ont crucifie le Christ, se sont empires des
richesses mondiales.

[5]
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=253162&ct=1752793

[6] La semiosis social. Fragmentos de una teoría de la
discursividad, Buenos Aires: Gedisa, 1987

[7]http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=253162&ct=1789293

[8] analitica.com/bitblioteca/Roberto/religion.asp 

Originally Published in Spanish, Question, Feb. 2006 

Translated by Michael Fox. 

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1703