I will say I was stunned that the estimable liberal-left Boston Review ran this attack, accusing Hugo Chavez and Bolivarian Venezuela of being bastions of bigotry. It was some time ago; I had assumed that the magazine received a flood of letters, and would offer a print forum for responses. Well, the unmoderated comments–online only–savaged the original piece, and Claudio Lomnitz, an anthropologist at Columbia, and Rafael Sánchez, who teaches in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, responded to the criticisms, invoking Humpty Dumpty, Islam, ha magen david, and a few other irrelevancies in their graceful defense. They finished off their reply with this statement:
Apparently our critics find no anti-Semitic connotations when Chavez mentions Jews, Christ killers, the abject Venezuelan oligarchy, and the riches of the world in the same breath, or when he blames the Jewish State of Israel for perpetrating atrocities against “half the world.” Nor are they bothered when the Chavista TV anchor par excellence, Mario Silva, claims that the Venezuelan student movement is financed by Jewish businessmen. To us, all of this smacks more of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion than of a progressive critique of Israeli policies.
In a Humpty Dumpty world, when Christ killers and Jews are mentioned in the same breath, the referent is merely the oligarchy; in any other world, expressions have histories, and denotation cannot shake off ideological connotation. Not even Commander Hugo Chávez can make words mean only what he opportunistically wants them to mean.
First, quickly note their horrible rhetorical maneuver, as Chavez is associated with perhaps the most anti-Semitic tract published in recent history. Also somewhat curious is that it’s not clear that they’ll be running print letters in response. I hope they do. Nonetheless, the original article was really poorly argued; the response, still more so. Here is their response interspersed with my response to their arguments–their phrases indented, mine not:
Hugo Chavez’s allusions and reactions to and statements about Israel are excessive and disproportionate to the issues that are at stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This statement presumes that there is a reaction that’s not excessive, one that is proportionate. I’m sure Lomnitz and Sanchez have their own ideas about the “issues that are at stake” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what kind of “allusions” and “reactions” would be non-excessive and proportionate, but I have no idea what they are and they don’t make any effort to spell out such standards. Curiously, by their deliberately nebulous standard I am anti-Semitic, because I spend a “disproportionate” time attacking Israeli policy. But, by this standard Lomnitz and Sanchez are anti-Palestinian bigots, because they spend more time muttering about Venezuelan anti-Semitism than Israeli politicide. This standard is unacceptable, as I think all agree: we may not read off bigotry from criticism of state policies. Furthermore, there is something really galling about metropolitan intellectuals deciding on the “proportionate” response to human suffering; since when was it the place of privileged university teachers to adjudge the degree of misery endured by people locked in a besieged refugee camp? They continue, writing,
This excess is anti-Semitism, and it has a purpose: aligning Chavez’s internal and external enemies. We call Chavez’s invocations of Israel excessive because there is no parallel criticism of other governments who might violate similar principles.
Here we have substantial evidence of a police mentality, presuming that all issues should be criticized in direct proportion to the amount of human terror they involve, on some presumably objective basis, and that Israeli actions may only be criticized after other actions have been criticized in correct proportion. Again, by this standard, Lomnitz, Sanchez, and I are bigots.
There have been no massive government-sponsored rallies in Venezuela protesting Indonesian policy in East Timor, Russian policy in Chechnya, or Chinese policies vis-à-vis Tibet; there is no consistent allusion to infiltrations or arms sales by French, British, Chinese, or Cuban secret service agents. Meanwhile, the Mossad is charged with lurking behind every conservative operation throughout the Americas.
Again the same line of argument applies, although I’d add here that I think Israel’s actions have taken on an added symbolism–they’re emblematic of the US imperial project, which Bolivarian Venezuela is discursively opposed to. The attack on Gaza was also an obscenity that roused many: in Ali Abunimah’s description, there were “No Words” to describe the bombing and strafing of a nearly defenseless open-air prison. No matter:
We also call Chávez’s invocations of Israel excessive because his movement has identified Islam as Venezuela’s national patrimony, while the star of David has been equated to the swastika.
In a world of rampant Western Islamophobic bigotry, a world where Muslims are called terrorists, Islam identified with terrorism, where Muslim’s countries are under imperial occupation, where they are massacred daily by Israel and the US, Bolivarian Venezuela has decided to line up with a religion that is used to identify people as official enemies and terrorists. This makes Chavez’s actions “excessive”? Lomnitz and Sanchez are collapsing distinctions between Israel, Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and opposition to Israeli policies, and mixing it up with non-sense about Islam as Venezuela’s “natural patrimony,” which suggests or “connotes” anti-Semitism only if Islam itself connotes anti-Semitism. Someone panning for evidence of bigotry finally finds a nice nugget, but the bigotry is Sanchez’s and Lomnitz’s. The equation of the Star of David to the Swastika is again by definition not associated with anti-Semitism. The Star of David is an Israeli symbol, associated with Israeli state policy, and not Jews. They are tacitly invoking the EU’s definition of anti-Semitism–total non-sense.
Finally, we call Chávez’s language excessive and anti-Semitic because he has chosen President Ahmadinejad as his closest international ally after Fidel Castro, without distancing himself from the Iranian president’s denial of the Holocaust and explicit calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.
This is what’s called realpolitik. Putting aside the veracity of these claims, which are disputable, they are calling on the leader of a country subject to imperial subversion through the NED and external destabilization through Colombia to criticize an allied regime. This is not a standard one sees imposed on other countries or regimes.
Apparently our critics find no anti-Semitic connotations when Chavez mentions Jews, Christ killers, the abject Venezuelan oligarchy, and the riches of the world in the same breath, or when he blames the Jewish State of Israel for perpetrating atrocities against “half the world.”
“The Jewish State of Israel”; not my state, not the state of most Jews, but merely identified as such, because of the conflation reinforced here by Lomnitz and Sanchez although they deny it, again and again. It was not merely local Venezuelan Jewish groups that denied connotations of anti-Semitism but the American Jewish Committee. As someone has asked elsewhere, ““do references to ‘Christ killers’ and ‘gold and silver’ have the same connotations in their culture as they do in ours?” As the Forward article answered, “One official noted that Latin America’s so-called Liberation Theology has long depicted Jesus as a socialist and consequently speaks of gentile business elites as “Christ-killers.””
Discussion over.
Nor are they bothered when the Chavista TV anchor par excellence, Mario Silva, claims that the Venezuelan student movement is financed by Jewish businessmen. To us, all of this smacks more of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion than of a progressive critique of Israeli policies.
Indefensible, and surely a bigot, but not the government. One would expect a bit better from progressive university professors, before demonizing the elected leader of one of the more progressive regimes on the planet.
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How many times do you say “If this is true then I am a bigot” in the article.
YOU ARE A BIGOT!
Boring, Mike. I say it once.
Well, there is this: http://modernmitzvot.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/yes...
I don’t know about you,but isn’t demanding all Jews to denounce Israel’s actions rather excessive? Isn’t it a bit of victim blaming in regards to synagoge attacks,etc.
It may be excessive, but Chavez is an excessive guy. I think we can make an honest distinction between over-blown rhetoric and anti-Semitism.
It may be excessive, but Chavez is sometimes rhetorically excessive. I think we can make an honest distinction between over-blown rhetoric and anti-Semitism, without making excuses for Chavez.
And how did “hope” for a community turn into a “demand” from “every jew” there?
And can seriously doubt much of the claims on defiling of synagogues being any worse than it is anywhere outside Venezuela from The Washington Post who is heavily invested into demonizing the Bolivarian revolution and make serial columns about “Chaves vs. Jews” they might as well open a section dedicated just to that on their site.
It’s all part of an orchestrated campaign of demonization; the NYT ran an article today about neo-Nazis in Dresden. MRZine ran a piece a couple months ago about the leftists/greens who march against the neo-Nazis. Who, according to Lomnitz and Sanchez’s rhetoric, are anti-Semites because…they criticize Israel. What non-sense.
The WaPost is of course in its own league; Jackson Diehl’s spewings, associated with his name when they’re too inane, and run as an “editorial” when they’re only 90% claptrap.
Chavez does have a tendency to go over the top at times, but he is no anti-semite. There is also a hidden history here, as I posted over at American Leftist in response to an Israeli claim that Venezuela and Bolivian were supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program:
http://amleft.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_amleft_arch...
.… there is a strong belief among Venezuela leftists and some in the military that Israel was involved in the 2002 unsuccessful coup attempt against Chavez. I was also told during my trip to Venezuela in 2005 that Chavez, sometime after taking office in 1998, removed a number of Israeli operatives providing unspecified services to the Venezuela military and intelligence services. He did it because he believed that they were using these positions to gather information that could be used against him. Recently, Chavez ordered the removal of the Israeli ambassador in Caracas in protest against the assault upon the civilian populace of Gaza.… .
Right, that’s true too. I hadn’t heard of those rumors, that’s interesting. Israel is almost a by-word for empire there, perhaps because Venezuelans have a clearer sense than Claudio Lomnitz et al of who exactly is funding Israeli militarism.
I don’t know, the military thing sounds a bit paranoid to me and I should also mention the entry I posted is from a Jewish woman who opposes Israel’s actions.
.… . One should not dimiss the possibility that the hostility towards Israel within Venezuela is coloured by a residue of anti-semitism directed towards Jews generally. Even so, Chavez apparently had good reason to be concerned. After all, Israel supported Somoza in Nicaragua, and subsequently provided military assistance to the contras. Not surprisingly, Israel also provided provided military assistance to El Salvador and Guatemala in their armed struggles with the left during this same period. In the case of Guatemala, Israel assisted the government’s brutal campaign of near extermination against its indigenous populace when the US was legally prohibited from doing so. And, as you might have guessed, Israel had good relations with Pinochet in Chile as well, selling weapons to him, despite his flirtation with a notorious neo-Nazi sect.… . (con’t)
Yes, that’s true too; I’m dealing specifically with Chavez/government rhetoric, which shouldn’t be conflated with the rhetoric or actions of government supporters. On anti-Semitism within Venezuela, cf. this piece by Roy Chaderton Matos: http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/chaderton0202...
well, that’s promising at least.
.… Closer to home, at least from a Venezuelan perspective, Israel has supplied weapons to Colombian paramilitaries since the 1980s, and continues to do so. Similarly, Israel participated in the dirty war in Argentina. Chavez, and the left throughout South America, understand what many in the US do not, that Israel has been an implacable enemy of leftist movements in South America, violent or non-violent, for decades. Furthermore, it has provided material assistance in their violent suppression by rightist governments and social movements. Such a history lends credibility to the belief of some Venezuelans that Israel, through the Mossad, was involved in the 2002 coup. No doubt the Bolivians are aware of this history as well, and wary about Israeli involvement in their country.]
Definitely; the Latin American radical left knows this ugly history very well.
For supporting links for the content of my post, go to the link to my original post in my first comment. Also worth noting, as As’ad Abukhalil has done in relation to the Middle East, that people like these professors, and other supporters of Israel, NEVER object to the blatant anti-semitism of Israel’s allies. For example, Israel never objected to Pinochet’s association with a neo-Nazi sect. But asserting that someone is anti-semitic because they oppose the brutalities that Israel inflicts on the Palestinians? Happens all the time. Chavez, and the social movements of Central and South America that have been victimized by Israel’s support of fascist governments and militaries, rightly understand that Israel, though far away, is an implacable enemy.
Yes. Beyond the article itself, which is flirting with an objective standard of some kind of when criticism is “proportionate” and not “excessive,” basically a method at thought control, the lacunae of the piece are themselves very important: the double standard you point out is absolutely on-point [although, is it really a shock that Israel would consort with anti-Semites since I would argue that the dominant Zionist discourse is by now objectively anti-Semitic?].
The other, related issue is that the only conceivable effect of a piece such as this is that is casts aspersions on those who criticize Israeli actions; criticizing critics of Israel is a hard away from defending Israel or its actions. Not exactly commendable stuff.
I would also check what Mario Silva actually said. If I remember the show, he was referring to a certain Jewish businessman (with name and surname) rather than “Jewish businessmen” as a group. Of course the ethnicity of said person should be irrelevant, but I am not even sure he was emphasizing that.____
That’s interesting; I hadn’t even taken the trouble to track it down, and had assumed it to be true, but if what you’re saying is true (I believe you, but I need to independently verify before putting anything in print), it’s important–it’s obviously one of the central pieces of evidence they wish to use to indict the government/civil society for anti-Semitism. The ethnicity of the person should be irrelevant, of course, but as we know it’s not–in war, hatred marks the enemy. This doesn’t exculpate people the anti-Semitic chavistas, such as they are, but it doesn’t contextualize their hatred: they’re confused by the discourse Lomnitz and Sanchez perpetuate.
My own impression from comments in Vzlan official sites or sites that are independent but close to the govt. is that some of the criticism of Israel does cross the line into hostility towards Jews generally, but that’s by no means a majority view, in fact you see intelligent debates among govt. supporters on the matter. I should say, that state TV has also carried programming explicitly repudiating antisemitism, etc. Also, the march against Gaza was not “govt. sponsored”, in fact, it was organized by pro-Palestinian groups that are ideologically close to the govt. and attended by many intellectuals and people from the Arab community in Vzla (which is very large), and of course some govt. officials (Maduro, for ex.) But that makes it no more “govt. sponsored” than the march in Madrid, Spain, for example, which had exactly the same characteristics. The Vzlan govt. has, by the way, co-sponsored Jewish film festivals (yes, in the literal sense of the term “sponsored”.
Yea, I hadn’t meant to imply that it had; of course that Aporrea essay was taken down instantly, and hopefully most chavistas understand that Israel is not Jews; if they don’t, I blame their ignorance, but also [as I harp on constantly over here] the conflating discourse. Interesting about state TV; I’ll add that to the formal response I’m sending to Boston Review. I appreciate the detailed texture you’re giving me, this is new stuff, and further demolishes the basically non-existent case of Lomnitz and Sanchez.
As far as I’m concerned (I don’t mean to lecture–I assume you agree) the idea of “excessive” criticism is ridiculous anyway. The I-P conflict receives “disproportionate” attention anyway as Geoffrey Wheatcroft pointed out last week in the LRB, and it certainly receives “disproportionate” attention from me. Think of Chavez what you will, but he is certainly a fantastically popular figure in the underdeveloped world, and the IP conflict has caught the world’s attention, never more than after Gaza.
The basic point, of course, as Richard Estes points out is that “excessive” criticism comes from two factors: (i) the presence of a huge community of Arab descent people (Levantine mostly: Lebanon, Syria, Palestine), (ii) the long standing and “excessive” if you will involvement of Israel in Latin America in support of rightwing military regimes.
Although again I think the symbolic character of the IP conflict as a battle between a repressed Arab people and a colonialist state buttressed by US power adds to it too.
Maybe you can convince Greg Grandin to send in a response too. He knows Israel’s involvement in Lat Am very well, having been on the Guatemalan Truth Commission.
I believe that I do not see any direct full-sentence quote from Chavez in this discussion. How one take seriously an article that purports to discuss Chavez’s anti-Semitism or lack thereof, without such full-sentence quotes ?
This is a reply to a reply; I link to their “documentation.” But if there’s no anti-Semitism, what would quotations prove? You can’t prove absence.
Here is the full Chávez quote that I think “Gringo” had in mind:“The world has an offer for everybody but it turned out that a few minorities–the descendants of those who crucified Christ, the descendants of those who expelled Bolivar from here and also those who in a certain way crucified him in Santa Marta, there in Colombia–they took possession of the riches of the world, a minority took possession of the planet’s gold, the silver, the minerals, the water, the good lands, the oil, and they have concentrated all the riches in the hands of a few; less than 10 percent of the world population owns more than half of the riches of the world.”
As was pointed out at the time, there is no mention of “Jews” in the quote, and that it was in fact implausible given that Jews were not responsible for expelling Bolivar from Venezuela, nor are they the 10% of the population that owns more than half of the riches of the world
Another interesting thing about these professors complaining about Chavez’s Anti semitism is that , People like this never even care to mention that US has all sorts of racists, anti semites, outright thugs, criminals, rapists and torturers as it’s allies.
Yes, even the US of Obama. You will never see these professors making demands on Obama that US denounce the bitterly anti semitic House of Saud. All these dishonest attacks are directed against one genuinely progressive government on Planet.
Ajit–
Well said, thanks for bringing that up. Seriously, they accept realpolitik in the case of every leader but the ones they want to demonize, and then pretend that it’s not demonization but an issue of principle: placing distance between Chavez and Ahmadi [a separate issue is the question of the appropriateness of willy-nilly demonizing Ahmadi, given that some sectors of American power want to bomb the crap out of Iran. At the very least, it’s something to be aware of].
I agree, though, that’s it’s about accepting the dominant framework: that we should focus on the foibles of the “one truly progressive government” in the world, as opposed to the foibles of the ones we prop up and arm, and that don’t even let their people vote or organize. Total hypocrisy.
A friend sent me the articles in discussion from Boston Review. In them, particularly disturbing to me was how Chavez’ words were fragmented and removed from context, in order to arm and propound what seemed a fallaciously conflated agenda. I appreciated finding such adept criticism beneath it, which included the full statement by Chavez before it’d been whittled down into a vehicle for defamation. A thorough refutation of the arguments made in BR, proved to me that its authors were at the very least, grasping for straws in erroneous territory. So articulate were the responses, that the article’s authors were compelled to write the follow-up, in which they addressed the many criticisms in what seemed a peripheral, relative manner, instead of, for instance, justifying their editing of Chavez’ statement in such a way as to support their thesis and obscure its meaning.
Yes; they really brushed off the criticisms it seemed rather than substantively engaging. But in brushing them off they made assumptions that had been implicit explicit. Some of those assumptions were really indefensible, especially the stuff about Jews/Israel. But the problem is, Boston Review’s thousands and thousands of paper subscribers won’t see those refutations.
Today, I revisited the site in order to review the article and responses to it, but found the posted response section no longer there. They were accessible on the computer I was using when I first received the articles. I would loathe to discover their removal.
It looks like they’re back up. I have sent in a 3000 word reply to Boston Review. Still no word back.
Will they be printing your reply. I would like to read it.
I’d be happy to e-mail it to you; I still haven’t heard from them.