Nicolás Maduro Blames the Jews

The far-left President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has destroyed what was left of Venezuela’s economy after the disastrous reign of his predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chávez. Though Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, the country’s economy has cratered under the Chavez-Maduro dynasty. More than eight million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, the largest exodus in Latin America’s recent history, and one of the largest displacement crises in the world. The Venezuelan currency has collapsed. The staggering hyperinflation has gone beyond even Weimar Germany’s level. As of March 2020, the currency was worth 750 million times less than it was worth in August 2012. The national debt in Venezuela had by the end of 2023 reached a staggering 4.2 trillion U.S. dollars.

The causes of this economic catastrophe are political corruption, chronic shortages of food and medicine, closure of businesses, unemployment, deterioration of productivity, authoritarianism, human rights violations, and gross economic mismanagement by a dictator who appoints not technocrats, but political loyalists, to manage the economy. All of these woes have led eight million of the most productive Venezuelans — doctors, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs — to flee the country, creating a downward economic spiral that feeds on itself. The mess is clear. And while the Venezuelans who fled the country despise Maduro, so do the Venezuelans who remain, lacking the wherewithal to flee. In the just-completed election, every pre- and post-election poll showed that almost 70% of the voters had chosen Maduro’s presidential opponent, Edmundo Gonzalez. But that didn’t stop the Maduro regime from declaring Nicolas Maduro the victor with 51% of the vote.

The more than two-thirds of the voters who were opposed to Maduro have taken to the streets to protest. Maduro’s soldiers have already killed several dozen; one well-known professor and poet opposed to Maduro has simply disappeared from the airport where she had planned to fly to Argentina to visit a friend; it is assumed she has been killed.

But Maduro knows whom to blame for this opposition to what he claims to have been his well-deserved victory. He says it is “the Zionists,” by which he means “the Jews.” Is this possible? There are fewer than 6,000 Jews in Venezuela, out of a total population of 30 million. We are expected to believe that these Jews, constituting 0.02% of the population, have a sinister hold on the minds of innocent Venezuelans who are being led astray from what should be their natural support for Maduro. But Maduro, of course, is not referring only to Venezuelan Jews, but to an international conspiracy of Jews — “international Zionism” — outside of Venezuela, who are apparently behind all the post-election unrest. These Jews, you see, are opposed to Maduro because of his strong support of the Palestinians. More on Maduro’s antisemitic vaporings can be found here: “Venezuela’s Maduro blames ‘international Zionism’ for unrest after disputed vote,” by Philissa Cramer, JTA, August 8, 2024:

JTA — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has blamed “international Zionism” for the protests sweeping his country since he was accused of stealing its presidential election.

Maduro’s government has cracked down on thousands of protesters who took to the streets over the results of Venezuela’s July 28 election, arresting 2,000 people and killing 20. Venezuela’s electoral authority said that Maduro was reelected with 51 percent of the vote but has refused to release precinct-level tallies.

Detailed tallies from his opposition say that Maduro’s opponent Edmundo Gonzalez likely won with 67% of the vote, aligning with independent exit polls and analyses by The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

The disputed election quickly fanned unrest in Venezuela, ruled by Maduro’s socialist government for the last 11 years. That period saw nearly 8 million Venezuelans flee the country amid a devastating economic collapse, exacerbated by US oil sanctions….

This week, he pinned the turmoil on his opposition, which he said was “supported” and “financed” by “international Zionism.”

“All the communication power of Zionism, which controls all the social networks, the satellites and all the power is behind this coup d’état,” Maduro said in a televised address….

Ah, yes, it’s the “Zionists” who control the media, the social networks, the satellite channels, and so on, and who are determined to defeat that fighter for truth-and-justice, Nicolás Maduro — determined to bring him down because he takes the side of the Palestinian people whose land the Zionists have stolen. We are now in protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion territory.

Eight million Venezuelans have fled the country because of the corruption and mismanagement by both Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez. Every democracy in the Western world has denounced the latest election results as a farce, in declared a narrow win when every poll both pre- and post-election shows that 70% of the voters are against him. Leaders of other Latin American countries have demanded that Maduro allow the votes in this latest election to be audited. The American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has announced that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Maduro’s opponent, Gonzalez, had won; the U.S. has refused to recognize the results. Maduro’s only supporters are the dictatorships of China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba.

Now reviled by two-thirds of Venezuelans for his corruption and mismanagement of the economy, and his police-state suppression of dissidents, Maduro needed to find someone else to blame for his country’s miseries and the current discontent of its people. And so he stuck to the tried and true, and blamed “the international Zionists,” who are always available to be vilified. And so Maduro has enrolled in his defense the Oldest Hatred. It’s “the Zionists” who are out to get him for bravely standing up for the Palestinians. No surprises there. Disgust, but no surprises.