Is Venezuela the next Germany?

I never, ever throw around the "Nazi" or "Hitler" name glibly. Politicians do it all the time. Activists do it all the time to discredit opponents. So when I say that Jews in Venezuela are in grave danger and that the ground is fertile for the same kind of attacks as occurred in the 1930's against the German Jewish community; destroying of businesses, Jews being fried from their jobs,..... I'm not saying it for effect. Here is a partial from the AP printed in New York Newsday, Feb. 7, 2009.


Police are now posted outside the synagogue, and prosecutors said Friday that the security guards "could be involved." Venezuela's attorney general ordered them to court on Feb. 13 - two days before Venezuelans vote in a referendum that could enable Chávez to extend his rule indefinitely.

A week before the invasion, a Chavista columnist named Emilio Silva posted a call to action on Aporrea, a pro-government Web site, describing Jews as "squalid" - a term Chávez often uses to describe his opponents as weak - and exhorting Venezuelans to confront them as anti-government conspirators.

"Publicly challenge every Jew that you find in the street, shopping center or park," he wrote, "shouting slogans in favor of Palestine and against that abortion: Israel."

Silva called for protests at the synagogue, a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses, seizures of Jewish-owned property, the closure of Jewish schools and a nationwide effort "to denounce publicly, with names and last names the members of powerful Jewish groups present in Venezuela."