by YANIS IQBAL
On 6 August, 2020, Juan Guaidó, the US-backed puppet attempting to destabilize the legitimate administration of President Nicolas Maduro, announced the opening of a “virtual embassy” in Jerusalem. This action is one of the first measures initiated by the anti-Chavista opposition to restore diplomatic ties with Israel, severed by former President Hugo Chavez a decade ago. Guaidó is a pro-Israel ideologue who had told the mass-circulation Israel Hayom daily in 2019, “I am very happy to report that the process of stabilising relations with Israel is at its height,”.
Palestine and the Bolivarian Revolution
The current process of rapprochement is in direct opposition to the anti-Israel and anti-imperialist foreign policy established by Chavez when he came to power and initiated the Bolivarian Revolution. The Bolivarian Revolution occupies a distinct space in the Palestinian struggle and in the words of Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki, “Since the arrival of the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999, Venezuela has become a voice for historically marginalized peoples, reclaimed social struggles and raised the banners of justice, including for those in Palestine,”.
In 2006, Chavez condemned Israel’s war against Lebanon, leading him to recall his ambassador to Israel and expel the Israeli ambassador. On August 8, 2006, Chavez stated: “Probably we will sever diplomatic relations [with Israel]. I have no interest in maintaining diplomatic relations, nor offices, nor commerce, nor anything with a state such as Israel, that commits such madness against Palestinians and Lebanese…We feel indignation to see how the State of Israel continues crushing, bombarding, assassinating, dismembering so many innocent people using ‘gringo’ aircraft and using its high military power with the support of the U.S.”
On April 27, 2009, Venezuela recognized Palestinian statehood and began formal diplomatic relations. In a letter written to the United Nations in support of the recognition of the Palestinian state, Chavez stated: “I address these words to the United Nations General Assembly…to ratify, on this day and in this setting, Venezuela’s full support of the recognition of the Palestinian State: of Palestine’s right to become a free, sovereign and independent state. This represents an act of historic justice towards a people who carry with them, from time immemorial, all the pain and suffering of the world.” The liberatory rhetoric used by Chavez has been labeled by many as “anti-Semitism” in order to stop the emergence of a pro-Palestinian support base within Latin America. Outlining the contours of “anti-Semitism”, Chavez had said: “It is one thing to denounce anti-Semitism, and an entirely different thing to passively accept that Zionistic barbarism enforces an apartheid regime against the Palestinian people.” Building on this crucial distinction, he continued to orient his administration in the direction of anti-Zionism. Speaking on the “Venezuelan Television” – a state run television station based in Caracas – Chavez had forcefully asserted, “I take this opportunity to condemn from the bottom of my soul, from the bottom of my guts: Dam you State of Israel! Damn you! Terrorists and Assassins! Long live the Palestinian people! Heroic people! Good people!” Similarly, Venezuelan representative Marco Palavicini had declared at the UN in 2007 that Israel’s excesses have “led to a new holocaust against the Palestinian people,”.
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