Venezuela Seethes

A couple of days ago armed men in Venezuela entered a major synagogue and vandalized the place, spray-painting the walls and breaking religious relics. A friend of mine sent me some of the aftermath pictures, and while it's not as bad as it could have been (i.e. it doesn't look like they destroyed the torahs), it's a scary sign of what seems to be brewing in many parts of the world, especially following Israel's Gaza campaign. I mean this kind of stuff always happens when tensions rise in Israel, but I don't ever remember it getting this bad. And it's not just Venezuela. All over South America and Europe, Antisemitism has seen a sharp rise. Part of it is most definitely related to better hate-crime identification and reporting, but part of it is just the continued global dislike of Jews. If we're honest with ourselves, we know that people pointing at Israel and expressing their outrage as being "directed towards Israel, but not towards Jews" as total bullshit. I would never say that being critical of Israel automatically makes you an Antisemite, but the kind of criticism of Israel that's brewing out there crosses the line into clear Antisemitism. Attend any of these "Pro-Palestinian" rallies and you'll see plenty of signs and many expressed opinions that repeat the same refrain - "Death to the Jews," "Liberate Palestine," "Jews Back to the Ovens." It happened during the Lebanon campaign of 2006 and its happening again now. And don't mistake the otherwise "innocuous" line to "Liberate Palestine" or to "End the Occupation" as just some political opinion expressed regarding Israel's continued presence in the West Bank and, now to a larger extent again, Gaza. While some are clearly concerned only about these areas and seek a lasting peace with a two-state (or whatever) solution, a lot of these people who speak of "liberation" and "occupation" seek the total liberation of Palestine, via a Hamas-esque rhetoric, that says that Israel has no right to exist and that its presence anywhere in the Middle East constitutes an occupation. It's not about peace or compromise or finding a way to live together. It's about any sort of continued Jewish/Western presence in that area of the world.

Now what do any of these douchbags in Venezuela have to do with any of this? Are they really concerned about their Palestinian brothers in Gaza? As hateful and Antisemetic as I think "Pro-Palestinian" rallies get, this is yet another step removed, the expression of pure Antisemitism devoid of any viable claim to be supporting Palestinians or angry at Israel "just as a state." When Israel does something that involves people dying, or when the "Jewish-controlled" financial systems of the world teeter, this is high-time for world's trash to come out and to blame the Jews. The Jewish community in Venezuela has nothing to do with the state of Israel other than probably seeing it as a homeland for the Jews and having respect for the state, believing in its continued right to exist. And yet they're no safer in Venezuela, halfway across the world from Israel, because of the fact that they are and always will be Jews. The Jew is the problem to all of these people, not Israel, not the suffering of the Palestinian people, not any sense of alleged justice or morality or ethics that infuses the anti-Israel propoganda that circulates around the world.