Thanks to friend Avi Sofer, I read an article this morning on the I-24 News website (I-24 is an Israeli media outlet) that quoted the Acting President of Venezuela, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, as saying yesterday that the American invasion of Venezuela and capture of President Maduro was carried out by the American military, to be sure, but was orchestrated by “the Zionists” and was the result of a “Zionist plot”.

Unfortunately, comments like this are frequently made by Venezuelan leadership, and have been since Hugo Chavez took control of the country in 1998. Now, I know virtually nothing about Venezuelan politics or history, but I do know that Chavez took control by winning an election, not by staging a revolution. Chavez led Venezuela until he died in 2013 (from cancer at 58) and Maduro, then vice-president, took over.

There has been a Jewish presence in present day Venezuela since the 17th century, but the community grew in numbers in the 19th and especially the 20th centuries, reaching about 50,000 when Chavez took power. There were some wealthy elements in the community, and it was identified by the Chavez regime as part of the country’s economic elite. The entire economic upper class became the “enemy of the people”, as businesses were taken over and nationalized, leading to the emigration of much of the country’s wealthier citizens, with most Venezuelan Jews moving over time to Israel or the United States. Today, only about 5,000 Jews remain in Venezuela.

In 2009, Chavez’ Venezuela broke off relations with Israel. Chavez at that time allied himself with Israel’s Arab neighbors, accusing Israel of perpetrating a second Holocaust in the Middle East.

From the beginning, the Chavez regime was proudly anti-American, and Chavez appears to have wanted to create a pan-Latin American anti-United States alliance. Chavez portrayed Israel as an enemy of such an alliance, accusing it of being not only a strong ally of the United Stares, but of performing America’s dirty work through the use of Mossad officers sent to Venezuela. Whether there ever was a Mossad presence in Venezuela and, if there was, what they were doing, I don’t know, but Chavez seemed to think that one of their goals was to assassinate him.

Any chance of a change of Venezuela’s anti-Israel policies under Maduro was lost when Israel refused to recognize Maduro as the legitimate president of the country.

Complicating all of this was a strong relationship that Chavez forged, and Maduro continued, with Iran. They worked together with a number of military and commercial agreements, bolstered by friendships between the leaders of both countries, and by common criticism of Israel. This alliance, along with some raids on Jewish institutions in Caracas have been cited as reasons so many Jews left the country, along with the nationalizations.

An aside: Then Iranian president Ahmadinijad got himself into trouble when, at Hugo Chavez’ funeral, he hugged Chavez’ widow, causing Iran’s religious leaders to go somewhat beserk, seeing a political leader touch a woman to whom he was not married.

Okay, now to Delcy Rodriguez, and what to expect. Assuming she continues in her Acting President role, and is not going to be a victim of another American attack, the United States may find the going a bit rough. President Trump’s initial comment that she was being cooperative seems not very accurate. A lawyer, the daughter of a Marxist revolutionary who “died” after being arrested by the pre-Chavez government, active in Venezuelan politics for over 20 years, she seems very competent,  very, very tough, and extremely anti-American. With her in control, the Trump idea of the U.S. taking control over Venezuela’s oil reserves seems far-fetched. We will see what transpires.