2-Aug-13: In Caracas, sometimes this is how politics and government work

Miguel Ángel Pérez Pirela [Image Source]

On the Harry's Place website, they refer to the appointment of a new Information Minister in the Venezuelan government. 

He is Miguel Ángel Pérez Pirela. When last in the public eye, he was a pro-Chavez TV host who had some sharp observations about crossword puzzles in the national newspaper Ultimas Noticias. One puzzle, he disclosed, was an instance of coded messages calculated to cause problems. What kind? A hidden message that called for the murder of President Hugo Chavez’s brother, Adan.

Here's what he found. The answer to one of the clues was Rabat, which everyone knows is the name of a Jewish holiday and probably the presumed date for the planned assassination. A Jewish holiday, and therefore evidence of a Jewish plot. 

Except that there is nothing remotely resembling the word Rabat in the Jewish calendar - though it does happen to be one of the ancient names for what is today the capital city of Jordan. (So perhaps the anti-Chavez conspiracists are Islamists. We're not certain and certainly not saying but you never know.) 

Venezuela's Jewish community dates back to the mid seventeenth century. With the rise of Hugo Chávez in 1999 and the massive changes he brought, about half of the country's Jews emigrated. The Jewish population has plummeted from about 22,000 in 1999 to something between 9,500 and 14,000 today, and its future looks bleak (see "Precedent Chavez: What the future looks like for the Jews of Venezuela").

As Harry's Place points out, Pérez Pirela is the person now officially appointed to make the Venezuelan government’s case to the nation and the world. 

Politics, government and officially-sanctioned anti-semitism in action.