Though Cowards Flinch

Henrique Capriles Radonski’s popularity in Venezuela is a cause of concern for Hugo Chavez, now trying to hang on to his credentials while the Latin American country restricts electricity use for the second year running, suffers double digit inflation and increasing crime.

Radonski has put his name down as the candidate running for the Table of Democratic Unity (MUD), an alliance of conservative parties, and since doing so has seen his approval ratings shoot up in opinion polls, while Chavez’ approval drops.

The MUD candidate has vowed to adopt similar rhetoric to Chavez, particularly concerning programmes and welfare for the poor, but Chavez’ leading party, and the state owned media, will run a hot campaign against the Governor of Miranda, citing his alleged involvement and complicity in a siege of the Cuban embassy during the 2002 failed coup, an accusation the opposition candidate denies.

Another thing that Radonski himself has picked upon is references to his ancestry. While he identifies strongly as Catholic, his Mother was Jewish, and his great-grandparents were killed in a concentration camp. According to the candidate in an interview with the Jewish Telegraph Agency, when the campaign for the 2012 presidency begins properly it is likely his Jewish background will appear as a focal point to undermine him.

He says this with some certainty because during the 2008 mayoral elections he was described by state media as a member of the “Jewish Zionist Bourgeoisie” and “genetically fascist”.

As an aside note, there is contention surrounding whether the term Jewish Zionist Bourgeoisie is one of antisemitism (the latter term clearly steps way beyond that mark). Lenni Brenner, American Marxist and supporter of the group “Jews Against Zionism”, in his book “Zionism in the Age of Dictators” (1983) once said:

What separates the Jewish Zionist bourgeoisie from the non-Zionist members of the same class is really only the fact that the Zionists are clearly aware that they can attain their interest as a class only in the domain of a unified people and no longer as mere individuals

Separating this paragraph from anything else he might have said before, what we see referred to here is a comment on capitalism, and though race is obviously referred to, the subject still rests upon national class relations.

How this aside is relevant to Chavez is the way he has dealt with Judaism and Zionism before. Whenever Chavez has been accused of being antisemitic in the past he has always quipped back that he is simply anti-Zionist, and that, like with the words of Brenner, even when he refers to Jewish Zionism, this isn’t a crack at Jews per se, but Zionists, and to a greater extent, US and Israeli imperialism.

But at the very least Chavez has failed, quite significantly, to address Venezuelan antisemitism (under his watch Venezuelan antisemitism and attacks on Jews have risen significantly) and curb unpalatable rhetoric from state television. Only recently did state-run radio broadcast a reading of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, during which the journalist reading Cristina Gonzalez expressed:

her admiration for the Jewish community and “non-Zionist” Israelis before plucking what she called “little pearls” from the book to explain to listeners why Zionists have been able to amass a concentration of power and wealth.

This is not the first time either. In 2008 on the same station, it was broadcast that:

Hitler’s partners were Jews…like the Rockefellers, who were Jews [Editors' note: The Rockefellers are not Jews]. These were not the Jews murdered in the concentration camps. [Those killed] were working-class Jews, Communist Jews, poor Jews, because the rich Jews were the ones behind the plan to occupy Palestine.

While in 2010 the pro-Chavez website Aporrea noted that the true essence of Judaism cannot be found in the Torah, “but in the realities of capitalism”.

There are other examples of concern, such as Chavez’ former adviser and confidante Norberto Ceresole who was a known holocaust denier, and his uncritical relationship with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but they are too numerous to list.

The battle for the 2012 elections will prove to be fierce, but it’s anyone’s guess how Chavez will organise against a conservative candidate with Jewish ancestry, given the unsavory territory state television will explore, leaving a very fine line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism proper.