Whereas it is the policy of the United States to protect
religious freedom and to oppose hatred based on religion, nationality, race, or
ethnicity, including countering anti-Semitism, at home and abroad;
Whereas the Jewish community in Venezuela has been a
thriving one and the Jewish population included families that have lived in the
country for over two centuries and many survivors of World War II;
Whereas according to the Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism
Report released by the Department of State's Office of the Special Envoy to
Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, in Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez
has publicly demonized Israel and utilized stereotypes about Jewish financial
influence and control, while Venezuela’s government-sponsored mass media have
become vehicles for anti-Semitic discourse
;
Whereas according to the 2008 State Department’s Human
Rights Report on Venezuela, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic vandalism,
caricatures, intimidations, and physical attacks on Jewish institutions from
March 2008 onward;
Whereas the 2008 International Religious Freedom Report
released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,
[g]overnment-sponsored media outlets [in Venezuela] utilized anti-Jewish
caricatures and political cartoons on several occasions
;
Whereas the U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom has placed Venezuela on its Watch List of religious freedom violators,
finding that official state rhetoric against the Venezuelan Jewish community
created an environment where Jewish religious leaders and institutions are at
risk of attack;
Whereas in December 2007, Jewish leaders in Venezuela and
across the world condemned an armed police raid, in search of weapons, on a
Jewish center in Caracas where no weapons were found;
Whereas, on January of 2009, a Caracas synagogue was
ransacked and vandalized and the assailants shattered religious objects,
spray-painting Jews, get out
on the temple's walls and stole a
computer database containing names and addresses of Jews living in
Venezuela;
Whereas the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement
condemning the January 2009 attack on the synagogue stating that it is
directly related to the atmosphere of anti-Jewish intimidation promoted by
President Chávez and his government apparatus
;
Whereas in February 2009, assailants threw an explosive at
a Jewish community center, spreading widespread fear in the Jewish community in
Venezuela;
Whereas President Chávez stated that Israel
continues to behave like the assassin arm of the government of the United
States … [and that] the government of Israel is a government of assassins,
government engaged in genocide
;
Whereas, on January 6, 2009, President Hugo Chávez
expelled Israel's ambassador to Venezuela along with six other Israeli
diplomats;
Whereas, on January 14, 2009, Venezuela officially severed
relations with the State of Israel ending 60 years of diplomatic ties and
deepening the vulnerability of Venezuelan Jews;
Whereas Navy Admiral James Stavridis, head of U.S.
Southern Command, testified before the Armed Services Committee on March 18,
2009, and indicated that [t]errorist networks are active throughout our
hemisphere [and are] involved in … logistical support for parent organizations
based in the Middle East, such as Hizballah and Hamas.
Admiral
Stavridis further indicated that our intelligence has demonstrated that
pre-operational and operational activities have indeed occurred [in the
region]
;
Whereas according to the 2007 Country Report on Terrorism,
released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, two
self-proclaimed Islamic extremists were arrested in October 2006 for placing a
pair of pipe bombs outside the American Embassy in Caracas.
;
Whereas, on June 18, 2008, the Treasury Department's
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it was freezing the
United States assets of two Venezuelans, Ghazi Nasr al Din (a Venezuelan
diplomat serving in Lebanon) and Fawzi Kan'an, for providing financial and
other support to Hezbollah;
Whereas the Department of State’s 2009 International
Travel information on Venezuela specifies that since 2006, statistics
have shown an alarming 78 percent increase in the number of reported
kidnappings in Venezuela
and that kidnappers deal with victim's
families directly or [sell] the victim to terrorist groups
;
Whereas the 2008 Country Report on Terrorism states that
“Iran and Venezuela continued weekly flights connecting Tehran and Damascus
with Caracas. Passengers on these flights were reportedly subject to only
cursory immigration and customs controls at Simon Bolivar International Airport
in Caracas.”;
Whereas the 2008 Country Report continues that “Venezuelan
citizenship, identity, and travel documents remained easy to obtain, making
Venezuela a potentially attractive way station for terrorists. International
authorities remained suspicious of the integrity of Venezuelan documents and
their issuance process.”;
Whereas a pattern for terrorism against Jewish communities
in Latin America already exists, exemplified by the fact that on July 18, 1994,
85 innocent people were killed and 300 were wounded when the Argentine Jewish
Mutual Association (AMIA) was bombed in Buenos Aires, Argentina;
Whereas it was reported that contact was made by the
Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires to a mosque in Canuelas, Argentina, in the days
before the AMIA bombing;
Whereas President Ahmadinejad and President Chávez have
forged a close relationship;
Whereas according to the Annual Threat Assessment of the
Director of National Intelligence, released on February 5, 2008, Venezuela has
greatly increased its cooperation with Iran; and
Whereas according to United States intelligence officials,
Iran possesses the potential to use its close relationship with Venezuela to
facilitate the smuggling of people, drugs, and weapons into the Western
Hemisphere through terrorist proxy groups: Now, therefore, be it
That Congress—
(1)condemns the anti-Semitic acts in
Venezuela;
(2)expresses its
support for all Venezuelan citizens targeted by the Chávez government,
including those in the Jewish community, in their daily struggle for freedom,
civil liberties, and the protection of the rule of law;
(3)express its grave
concern regarding the increased collaboration between the Iranian regime, its
proxy militia Hezbollah, and the Venezuela Government, and the ramifications
such collaboration will have on the Jewish community in Venezuela;
(4)calls on the
Government of Venezuela to abide by its international obligations and to
protect the rights of the Jewish Venezuelan community, irrespective of their
political views;
(5)urges that the
Government of Venezuela takes verifiable steps to ensure the safety of the
Jewish community in the country; and
(6)encourages the
President and the Secretary of State to reach out to democracy and human rights
activists in Venezuela, and to assist them in their efforts in combating
anti-Semitism in Venezuela.