CARACAS, Venezuela - Sean Penn applauded President Hugo Chavez as the Venezuelan leader lambasted the Bush administration and demanded an end to war in Iraq.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S. Jewish rights group, has accused Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez of making "anti-Semitic declarations" in a televised Christmas Eve speech.According to a transcript, Chavez said "the world has enough for all, but it turned out that some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ, descendants of those who threw Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way in Santa Marta, there in Colombia, a minority took the world's riches for themselves."
The Chavez Regime: Fostering Anti-Semitism and Supporting Radical Islam IntroductionChavez met privately with the 46-year-old actor for two hours Thursday, praising him as being "brave" for urging Americans to impeach President Bush.
"In the name of the peoples of the world, President Bush, withdraw the troops from Iraq. Enough already with so much genocide," Chavez said before an auditorium packed with his red-clad supporters.
This report details a number of troubling trends observable in the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez and his government-affiliated institutions have elevated their anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic rhetoric – under the guise of anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism – to dangerous new levels.
At the same time, a proliferation of anti-Jewish statements and actions by government officials, university faculty and government-sponsored media outlets has created a spillover effect into mainstream society in Venezuela, where anti-Israel rallies, anti-Semitic vandalism and vicious anti-Jewish caricatures have become all-too commonplace.
This is taking place as Chavez has taken an aggressively hostile foreign policy stance against America and the West and, by extension, the State of Israel.
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