Having not long ago decided to expel Human Rights Watch from Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez has now decided to send the Israeli Ambassador packing too. The Foreign Ministry statement announcing the decision is a monument to both pomposity and bias and I’m only going to translate the last paragraph.

President Hugo Chávez, who has held talks with senior representatives of the World Jewish Congress and has always been opposed antisemitism and all other types of racism and discrimination, calls, in a brotherly manner, upon Jews across the world to oppose the criminal policies of the state of Israel, which bring to mind the history of the darkest days of the 20^th century. Through the genocide of the Palestinian people the State of Israel will never be able to offer its people the perspective of a necessary and enduring peace.

Note that Chávez’s call is made in a brotherly manner, so there’s no kind of threat, not even an implied one, to Jews who don’t want to do as he suggests. He has also made a similar call specifically aimed at Venezuelan Jews.  It must be a great moment to be Jewish in Venezuela.