Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro launched a furious tirade against Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, labeling him “the Hitler of the 21st Century” over Israel’s military response to Iran. Maduro, who maintains a close alliance with the Iranian regime, made the comments during a session of his government’s “Seven Transformations” workshop, part of his regime’s blueprint for Venezuela through 2031, Breitbart reports.
Speaking at the event, Maduro accused Israel and Netanyahu of executing what he claimed was a Western-backed scheme similar to Nazi-era domination. “For those who like to talk about religions, this is not a religious conflict. The conflict that has existed since the founding of the State of Israel is a geopolitical conflict,” Maduro claimed — disregarding the decades of openly antisemitic bigotry out of Tehran — “because that State was created to conquer the entire Middle East and Central Asia, and to take away their wealth and colonize those peoples.”
He continued to draw parallels between Israel’s geopolitical actions and Nazi ideology. “It is the Zionist project, which they say goes from the Jordan River to the Euphrates and beyond. Europe did to Hitler what the West is doing to Netanyahu,” he continued. “From Venezuela we say it and nobody is going to prevent our voice from sounding here and there, and the peoples of the world to wake up in a conscience.”
Maduro then questioned Netanyahu’s Jewish lineage and bizarrely suggested that he himself carries true Jewish ancestry. “I am a Christian, but Jewish blood runs through my veins, Sephardic blood, from the authentic Jews of the twelve tribes, those of Moses. Those Jews of the twelve tribes, who are not the ones in charge today in the State of Israel, those who govern today under Netanyahu, are not authentic Jews. He is a hodgepodge who comes from Poland,” Maduro said.
Condemning Israel’s military operation against Iran, Maduro claimed the action was a blatant breach of international law. He argued that the United Nations has lost credibility, likening today’s situation to the period leading up to World War II. “The U.N. is dying, as nations died before the passing of Hitler, who ended the mechanism of nations that was created, before the UN, Hitler was fed and armed by the British empire,” he claimed.
He further accused the Western powers of enabling Hitler in the 20th century and drew a direct comparison to what he claims is their current backing of Netanyahu. “They encouraged him [Hitler] to destroy the Soviet Union, that beautiful project of socialism that unified all the peoples of Eurasia and that had achieved a historical miracle in educational, cultural, technological, industrial, agricultural development,” Maduro said. “Today, eighty years later, when we celebrate the victory over Nazi-fascism, over the fascist militarism of Japan that invaded all the peoples of Asia, history is repeating itself again.”
Maduro concluded his diatribe with a direct challenge to the global community: “Are they going to continue to encourage the Hitler of the 21st century [Netanyahu] now against the noble and peaceful people of the Islamic Republic of Iran?” he continued.
After issuing his accusations, Maduro described the current global instability as the beginning of a transformative global conflict. “With Ukraine’s war against Russia and with the massacre of the Palestinian people, they want to frighten the peoples who want development, peace, dignity, justice and equality.” He then turned to Jews in Israel with a direct appeal: “Where is this warlike attitude going to lead? Where is so much racism, intolerance, hatred and violence going to lead? Do you think that with missiles and bombs you are going to subdue the will of the peoples of the world? Stop the aggression and the war against the Palestinian people, the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran,” Maduro said.
Maduro’s government has become increasingly reliant on Iran in recent years to help cushion the collapse of Venezuela’s socialist economy. The regime has consistently aligned itself with Iran in its opposition to Israel and the United States. Following Israel’s recent strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites, Venezuela was among the first nations to denounce the operation, labeling it an “illegitimate, unjustified military aggression in violation of international law.”
In April 2024, after Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel, Maduro’s regime defended the attack and blamed Israel for provoking it. Venezuela has had no formal diplomatic relations with Israel since 2009, when Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor and political mentor, severed ties and expelled Israeli diplomats from the country.
Back in 2013, shortly after Chávez’s death, Maduro first stated that his grandparents were Sephardic Jews who converted to Catholicism. He has since occasionally repeated this assertion as a way to deflect allegations of antisemitism. Those allegations came into the spotlight after Claudio Epelman, head of the Jewish Latin-American Congress, expressed concern that growing Iranian influence in Venezuela was contributing to a rise in antisemitic sentiment across Latin America.
“I’m sorry to hear about the statements made by Claudio Epelman, director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, who I know and have received many times, saying that there’s anti-Semitism in Venezuela and implicating Chávez and me in it,” Maduro told the far-left outlet Aporrea in 2013. “He can accuse me, but he should leave Chávez out of it.”
A 2023 report by Australia’s Jewish Independent described the massive exodus of Jews from Venezuela over the past two decades of Chávez and Maduro’s rule. Many members of the Jewish community fled to Israel, the United States, Panama, Colombia, and elsewhere, even as currency control laws made emigration extremely difficult. While Maduro has loosened some of those controls since 2018, most restrictions remain in place.
The Jewish Independent also highlighted that Chávez had promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories, including the claim that Mossad agents and Jews were behind the 2004 car bombing that killed public prosecutor Danilo Anderson. After the bombing, Chávez infamously declared that “the descendants of those who killed Christ had taken possession of all the wealth in the world.” Anderson’s murder has never been solved, but in 2018, his sister, Marisela Caraballo Anderson, said that the “murderer is among those who carried the casket” and implied that members of the regime may have been involved.
{Matzav.com}