Nicolas Maduro is lighting a small antisemitic bonfire for political gains - opinion

Antisemitism isn’t funny, but it can certainly be ridiculous.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has found the culprits for his election loss: the Zionists. 

Most Israelis wouldn’t be able to point out Venezuela on a map, and apart from the amusing descriptions from the Israeli song “Venezuela, Venezuela,” the majority of the public in Israel hasn’t really delved into this South American country. Yet, somehow, we’ve managed to make headlines there as well. 

After the incumbent president, a man with Jewish roots, lost the election, he tried to steal it back, which led to a wave of riots. Amid the local chaos, the mustachioed fool opened his mouth and said: “Zionism is leading a coup against me.”

Maduro’s definition of “Zionism” isn’t that of Ussishkin, Shenkin, or any of the other Zionists for whom streets in Israel are named. When Maduro talks about “Zionists,” he means Jewish caricatures: fat, cigar-smoking, money-counting Jews sitting in dark rooms, plotting how to depose him. 

Maduro doesn’t really believe that any Zionist is interested in him; he has merely lit up a small antisemitic bonfire to warm himself by, as a political tactic. After all, this is probably the last gimmick he has up his sleeve: find a villain for the story and place it in the spot he himself currently occupies. And who is the convenient and accessible villain in Maduro’s eyes? The “Zionists.” Not the “Jews,” because that’s not acceptable and smells of antisemitism, but “Zionists” – that’s glatt kosher.

Another scandal, but this time about a North African country

One day later, those very same Zionists were caught up in another global scandal: Algeria, a country with which Israel has no diplomatic or any other relations, sent a boxer called Imane Khalif to the Olympics possibly male, possibly female, causing a stir in the sport. After almost killing an Italian woman boxer, a heated debate arose about Khalif’s gender, without a single Zionist being seen taking part in the discussion. This didn’t stop Yassine Arab, director of the Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee, from declaring, “Khalif is a victim of a Zionist conspiracy; they don’t want a Muslim girl to succeed.”

Khalif’s “Zionists” are the same Zionists as Maduro’s, and they are the same hidden demons of every antisemite throughout the ages who has blamed the Jews for plagues, poverty, hunger, weather, wars, or the murder of Jesus. All antisemitism is based, after all, on finding a convenient scapegoat, a perpetual culprit for everything (even if the scapegoat doesn’t know what it’s about and even if the event in question is taking thousands of kilometers away.

Maduro is just a symptom, the mosquito that appears in the swamp – the world where such statements can be understood. The Olympic Committee doesn’t check, the UN doesn’t hear, and if you substitute the code word “Zionists” for “Jews,” their words will be accepted and become normative.

But theirs is no real definition of Zionism because I am a Zionist and WIZO women are Zionists and we promote women – including Muslims. Our Zionism is a basket of human values from which Maduro and the Algerian could only learn and be inspired. 

Accusing me of worldwide conspiracies and plots isn’t funny. It’s ridiculous at best.

The writer is president of WIZO.