Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday condemned a recent attack on a Venezuela synagogue, suggesting that his political foes were responsible for the incident.
Armed men broke into a synagogue in Caracas late on Friday night, destroying religious objects and spray-painting walls. Leaders of Venezuela’s estimated 15,000-member Jewish community said vocal denunciations of Israel by Chavez and the country’s state and pro-government news media may have encouraged the attack — which they called the worst ever on their community in Venezuela.
Last month Chavez expelled the Israeli ambassador and cut diplomatic ties in protest over the military campaign in Gaza that killed nearly 1,300 people.
He suggested that Venezuela’s “oligarchy” — wealthy power brokers who oppose his socialist government — could have been behind the attack.
“We condemn the actions on the synagogue of Caracas,” Chavez said in a televised speech. “It must be asked ... who benefits from these violent incidents. It is not the government, nor the people, nor the revolution.”
In an often cryptic response, he suggested opposition leaders plotted the attack to reduce his chances in a Feb. 15 referendum on a constitutional amendment that would let him stay in office after his term ends in 2013.
The Argentine office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, condemned the attack and warned of an anti-Semitic campaign in Venezuela that has heated up since last month’s attack on Gaza.
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