Opinion

Brazil’s Election Changes Everything

Latin Arabia Evangelicals, Opinion , , 0 Comment
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brazil-changes-everything-1000x600
Brazil is not a typical Latin American country, and so it had a very controversial presidential election in 2022.

Brazil is roughly one-third Evangelical Christian (Baptist, Pentecostal, etc.) — and most of those Evangelicals support Israel. In their recent election, these Evangelical voters tended to support the right-wing conservative Jair Bolsonaro who has been very friendly to Israel.

Bolsonaro had also gone so far as to be baptized an Evangelical, himself.

Source: Brazil’s evangelicals say far-right presidential candidate is answer to their prayers
Reuters
by Anthony Boadle
September 27, 2018

On a visit to Israel two years ago, far-right Brazilian lawmaker Jair Bolsonaro leaned back into the River Jordan in a white robe to be baptized in the arms of a fellow congressman and evangelical pastor.

Jair Bolsonaro was controversial and attracted not only Christian support, but also support from right-wing loonies. Though he supported Israel, some of his supporters were Neo-Nazi types, which was a horrifying contradiction.

No wonder Bolsonaro was considered the Donald Trump of Latin America.

Further complicating the matter is that Brazil has roughly 15 million citizens of Arab descent vs. only about 110,000 Jews. The Arabs outnumber the Jewish vote about 150 to 1.

However, thankfully, most of those Arab-Brazilians are Christian, and the Lebanese Maronites among them would probably not be pro-Palestinian. The Maronites of Lebanon were historically hostile to the Palestinians.

Bolsonaro’s opponent for the presidency was Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (called by his middle name: Lula). Lula was leftist and friendly to Palestine during his previous administrations.

The election came down to a controversial runoff, and Jewish voters in Brazil were conflicted.

Source: Many Brazilian Jews feel the election is a choice ‘between the cross and the sword’
by Marcus M. Gilban
Times of Israel
30 October 2022

… [M]any Jews have taken note of how Bolsonaro has been historically close with Israel for a Brazilian leader.

He boosted his relations with the Brazilian Jewish community in April 2017, when the then-congressman was invited to speak at Rio’s Hebraica club, a hub of sport and cultural activities founded in 1957 by European Jewish immigrants.


Posted on YouTube: April 3, 2017

Source: Description under video (above)
translated by Google

THANKS TO THE HEBRAICA OF RIO DE JANEIRO When asked what he would do if he had the power of the presidential pen, Jair Bolsonaro recalls that he is not a candidate for anything and gives this answer. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the Board of Directors of Hebraica Carioca for granting space for democracy and allowing a lecture by someone who unconditionally supports Israel and respects the Jews. Winston Churchill once said “the fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists”. Shalom! 🇧🇷

Contrariwise, during his previous time in office, Lula had been semi-hostile to Israeli concerns.

Source: Many Brazilian Jews feel the election is a choice ‘between the cross and the sword’
by Marcus M. Gilban
Times of Israel
30 October 2022

In 2009, da Silva warmly welcomed former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a notorious Holocaust denier whose regime persecuted minorities and critics, for a visit that drew international criticism.

During his first official visit to Israel in 2010, da Silva refused to visit Theodor Herzl’s grave, which was part of the itinerary for visiting foreign officials in honor of the 150th birthday of the father of Zionism.

Days after, he laid a wreath at Yasser Arafat’s grave in Ramallah.

In the final month of his administration, his government officially recognized Palestine as a state.

As can be imagined, Pro-Palestinians activists were rooting for Lula.

Source: Brazil elections: Why the stakes are huge for Palestinians
Middle East Eye
By Eduardo Campos Lima
27 October 2022

A second term for right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro could further erode support for the Palestinians in South America, experts say
…
Nowhere is this more visible than when it comes to Israel and Palestine. And with Brazil being home to roughly half of Latin America’s population, its leanings on the issue may influence the rest of the continent.

The Israeli/Palestinian crisis was certainly a factor in the Brazilian election of 2022.

Well, Lula won the election by a questionable razor thin margin, and there was a lot of turmoil over the result in Brazil.


Posted on YouTube: November 16, 2022

For some time, Bolsonaro supporters hit the streets in protest, and the Right said the election was stolen — and it looked like the Right had a case. But Bolsonaro agreed to a turnover, not wanting a coup nor violence.

Lula is expected to be sworn in on January 1, 2023

How this will eventually affect the Mideast remains to be seen.

Personally, I think Bolsonaro was the better man.

November 30, 2024 – Edited – Corrected citations in blockquotes.

Chile’s Senate Remembered Gazans?

Latin Arabia Israel, Opinion, Palestinians, Politics , 0 Comment
Chile’s Senate Remembered Gazans?

Posted on YouTube: May 19, 2021

Can you image that in the U.S. Senate?

NO WAY!

The Palestinians in Chile have clout.

Senator Alejando Navarro, a leftist senator, started by mentioning how bad conditions in Gaza were. Then he noted that there was talk of a conquest of Gaza. Then the Senator put forth a request to remember the victims of both sides.

The president of the Senate approved the motion to remember the dead civilians and children of the Israel-Gaza war, but he kept the tone diplomatically neutral by re-stating that the moment of silence would be for the victims of all sides.

However, the Palestine Federation of Chile labelled their video on YouTube as if the Chilean Senate was honoring the Gazan victims – without mentioning that the moment of silence also remembered Israeli victims.

Make no mistake, the Palestine Federation of Chile is powerful in Chile. Even non-Arab-Chileans will yield to its influence.

One prominent Jewish Chilean has spoken in the past about the Palestinian-Chilean community’s power …

Source: Police in Chile guard Jews after anti-Semitic attacks – JPOST
August 18, 2010

The Palestinian community is to Chile what the Jewish community is to the U.S.

– Gabriel Zaliasnek, then president of Chile’s Jewish Federation

Remember that Chile is not a third-world dictatorship, but a borderline first-world country with a functioning democracy. It is a trend setter in Latin America.

Such pro-Palestinian sympathies in a Western democracy is troubling.

Both the Israelis and Jewish groups have started to notice this.

The World Jewish Congress posted this on YouTube last year:

Posted on YouTube: July 1, 2020

Jewish groups are not happy with Chile.

The Arab Community in Bolivia

Latin Arabia Islam, Muslim, Opinion, Other, Politics 0 Comment
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santa-cruz-bolivia

Check out this interesting website concerning the Arab community in Bolivia:

https://comunidadarabebolivia.com/,
which translates to Arab Community Bolivia or, as English grammar would have it: Bolivian Arab Community.

The website is affiliated with the Club la Unión Árabe de Santa Cruz (The Arab Union Club), in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia.

Since 2013, the Arabs of Bolivia have been trying to form an ethnic organization around their Arab ancestry, with an emphasis on a Youth Organization.

BUT FIRST, LET’S SEE HOW BOLIVIAN ARABS DESCRIBE THEIR HISTORY

Source: https://comunidadarabebolivia.com/cultura/
(translated by Google, with some minor corrections by me)

ARAB IMMIGRATION TO BOLIVIA

The vast majority of the Arab immigrant population arrived at the beginning of the 20th century, from what are now the nations of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, followed by some Iraqi, Egyptian, Moroccan and Jordanian families; It could be said that about 80% were of Orthodox or Catholic Christian faith, while only 20% were Muslim. This, while contradicting the demographic distribution of the Arab world, has a reason: Arab ethnic-religious minorities were systematically persecuted and oppressed by the Ottoman Empire, which controlled almost the entire Middle East at that time, until World War I.

It is interesting to note that this Bolivian Arab site admits that the reason that Christian Arabs immigrated to South America was that they were being persecuted by Ottoman Turkish (Muslim) Authorities.

They seem to be in denial, blaming it all on the Turks. Yes, the Ottoman Turks discriminated against Christians; but Islamic governments discriminated against Christians before and after the Ottoman Turkish Empire ruled. The persecution was a Muslim, not just a Turkish, practice.

As noted, the demographic patterns of immigration were similar to that of other Latin American countries … heavily leaning towards Christian, even though the Arab world is majority Muslim.

According to Wikipedia, the first imam did not arrive in Bolivia until 1974, with the first mosque being built in 1994 … in Santa Cruz.

Why 1974?

Remember that OPEC launched its first Oil Embargo to protest Israel’s victory in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Source: OPEC enacts oil embargo

The Arab-dominated Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announces a decision to cut oil exports to the United States and other nations that provided military aid to Israel in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973.

…

Eventually, the price of oil quadrupled, causing a major energy crisis in the United States and Europe that included price gouging, gas shortages, and rationing.

The world was thrown into a crisis, and the Arab oil states got filthy rich. They could not do this today, given America’s oil production from fracking.

By 1974, Arab Muslims felt empowered, and I suspect they sent an imam to Bolivia with the idea of introducing Islam to a country that was almost Muslim-free except for a few isolated individuals.

Source: Fox News: Bolivia Becoming a Hotbed of Islamic Extremism, Report Concludes (2009)

One Muslim leader named in the OSC report is Mahmud Amer Abusharar, founder of the Centro Islamico Boliviano (CIB) in Santa Cruz. Abusharar emigrated from the Palestinian territories in 1974 and claims to have built Bolivia’s first mosque in 1994 so that he would not lose touch with his religion.

My note: Wikipedia reports that imam Abusharar died in 2011.

Now, Santa Cruz has an Islamic Center and a mosque. And La Paz – one of Bolivia’s two capitals, the other being Sucre – has a mosque since 2004. Quite an achievement for a Muslim community that all but did not exist before 1974. The worries about foreign intrigues are well founded.

According to the Bolivian website, there are 70,000 Bolivians of Arab descent.

Source: https://comunidadarabebolivia.com/cultura/
(translated by Google, with some minor corrections by me)

[W]e can estimate with a reasonable error that there are approximately 70,000 Arab descendants living in Bolivia.

Yet, for all of this, Bolivia still has very few Muslims today (around 2,000), which is not that much out of a Bolivian population of approximately 12 million. Roughly 1 in 6,000.

Nor is it much out of the 70,000 Arab-Bolivians (only about 3% of Arab-Bolivians). It is safe to assume that the Muslim presence was far, far less in the 1970’s, as there seemed to be no Muslim institutions in Bolivia at all prior to that time.

Most of the Muslims who did immigrate to Bolivia, prior to the 1970’s, either converted or their children did. The Arab community in Bolivia was – and still is – almost totally Christian.

Source: https://comunidadarabebolivia.com/cultura/
(translated by Google, with some minor corrections by me)

Regarding religion, although the majority [of the Arab immigrants] were Orthodox or Catholic Christians, plus a few Muslims, practically all would end up converting to Roman Apostolic Catholicism sooner or later, in the absence of other centers of Christian sects in Bolivia, at that time.

Below is a picture of the Islamic Center built in Santa Cruz (Click). It was founded in 1986, and I suspect it has some connection to Club la Unión Árabe de Santa Cruz which seems to have built the website.


Santa Cruz – Islamic Center
The image was taken in 2014.

It seems that the Islamic Center was probably subsidized by Islamic interests. Had it not been subsidized, I suspect Islam would have never risen above the presence of a few isolated individuals and visiting businessmen. According to Wikipedia, most of those associated with the Bolivian Islamic Center are immigrants. From that, we can assume that apart from the Islamic Center, any new Arab immigrants to Bolivia would have repeated the past example of conversion to Christianity.

Putting it all together, it follows that the Islamic Center was set up to subsidize an infusion of Islam into Bolivia, possibly extremist Islam.

We can infer that while Arabs are a glorious presence in Bolivia, Islam is an unnatural intrusion, subsidized by outside interests.

But let’s break from that, and finish up with standard Arab Bolivians, who are almost always Christian.

Chile’s ArabTV talked with some Arab Bolivians.


About Arab-Bolivians, but broadcast on Chile’s ArabTV.
posted on YouTube: September 8, 2020

This is in Spanish, but it there is an option to have it translated to English.

Chile’s Palestine Federation Works for Terrorism?!

Latin Arabia antisemitism, Comunidad Palestina de Chile, Opinion , 0 Comment
chilean palestinian flags

NOTE: The Federación Palestina de Chile now calls itself the Comunidad Palestina de Chile

Chile’s Palestinian population punches well above its weight. Though only roughly 3% of the population, they seem to have a lock on Chile’s government policies concerning the Mideast.

Numbers can vary, but Palestinian-Chileans are about 500,000 in number, the largest Palestinian population outside the Mideast. This would include people who have intermarried with other ethnic groups. Amazingly, almost all of them are Christian.

This Palestinian-Chilean community has a long history of being opposed to Israel.

In 1947, the Chilean government was agreeable to voting for the partition of Palestine – thus creating a Jewish state. However, the Palestinian community, even at that early date, was able to get the Chilean government to change course and abstain on the UN vote. A noted Chilean UN delegate, Humberto Alvarez (Spanish), resigned in protest over the government’s concession in the matter.

Source: Jewish Virtual Library – Chile Virtual History Tour

In spite of his past record of goodwill toward Jewish aspirations, as president Videla gave in to the internal pressure of the Arab community (100,000 citizens of Arab descent lived in Chile at that time and were known for their financial and political influence) and instructed his delegation to the UN General Assembly to abstain from voting on the resolution to partition Palestine in 1947. Senator Humberto Alvarez, second-ranking member of this delegation, resigned in protest against that decision.

Right now, at this time (September 2020), the Chilean senate passed a resolution recommending that the conservative President Sebastián Piñera consider enacting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli products from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) – probably against the President’s wishes.

BDS is considered quasi-illegal in much of the United States. Chile’s politicians are acting 180% opposite to what would happen in the USA.


Posted on YouTube: July 9, 2020

So it should not surprise us that Chilean Jews – and the world Jewish community as well – are furious with Chile’s government.

Source: Aurora (Israel)
[Translated by app]
September 2, 2020

The Palestinian Federation of Chile at the service of terrorism

The Palestinian Federation of Chile is at the service of terrorism. That simple

To the innumerable number of publications made in the accounts of the Palestinian Federation of Chile where they justify Hamas terrorism and refuse to point out it as the true culprit of the situation in Gaza, there is now the publication of an opinion article that “whitewashes ”Openly to the Hezbollah terrorist movement.

The article affirms that Hezbollah is “a resistance movement”, ignoring the terrorist activities of the organization financed by Iran (as admitted by its own leader Hassan Nasrallah): from the launching of thousands of rockets against Israel, to terrorist attacks in Europe and Latin America, through participation in the bloody massacre of the Assad regime against the Syrian population.

…

The fight against antisemitism in Chile is urgent, important and cannot be postponed.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Federation of Chile as an organization, and the members of the Palestinian community in Chile in general, would do well to distance themselves from the toxic extremism that radicalizes the conflict and only moves away peace and coexistence. If we really want to build a future of peace, it must begin with the truth.

What has to be remembered is that Chile is now a borderline first-world nation. It has a government that is reasonably democratic. Moreover, Chile has been historically very hospitable to the Jewish community.

Chile was taking in Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Europe as late as 1940, long after other nations had stopped taking them in.

However, being democratic, it should not surprise anyone that the Palestinians in Chile exercise their franchise. They outnumber Chile’s Jews 30 to 1, and so are able to run roughshod over the Jewish community when it comes to Chile’s Mideastern policies.

One prominent Jewish Chilean has spoken about the Palestinian-Chilean community’s power …

Source: Police in Chile guard Jews after anti-Semitic attacks – JPOST
August 18, 2010

The Palestinian community is to Chile what the Jewish community is to the U.S.

– Gabriel Zalisnek, then president of Chile’s Jewish Federation

As the Palestinians in Chile are overwhelmingly Christian, one could be surprised at their strong anti-Israel position, since we have been led to believe that the Palestinian cause is grounded in Islam, and one might expect that Christians would shy away from it. Even more so, many of these “Chilestinians” are descended from ancestors who fled from Turkish Muslim rule, so one would think they would be doubly shy of any Palestinian cause.

However, that is not the case.

And that bring us to the Federación Palestina de Chile [The Palestine Federation of Chile]. They have amazing clout in Chile’s politics – almost similar to AIPAC in the United States, and they can make or break Chilean politicians.

To the horror of the Jewish community, the Palestine Federation of Chile glamorizes Palestinian resistance to Israel, and thereby glamorizes Hamas and Hezbollah. And this resistance to Israel has spilled over into thinly veiled threats against Chile’s Jewish community for their support of Israel.


Posted on YouTube: June 23, 2015
On the Federación Palestina de Chile YouTube Channel

From the point of view of the Federación Palestina, the Israelis do not want “peace and coexistence,” as the author in the cited Aurora article (above) claims. They see the Israelis as really wanting victory over Palestine and suppression of Palestinian national aims.

There is a degree of truth to that. When opposing sides, in any conflict, claim the same area, one side or the other will have to win. I wish the Israelis were more honest about their goals.

The situation in the Mideast is presently a zero sum game. If Israel wins, then necessarily the Palestinians will lose. There is no way around this.

Given all of this, I find it amazing that the world Jewish community is shocked that Palestinian-Christians act out of accord with Israeli wishes. Did they expect the Palestinian-Chileans to be sturdy Zionists?!

However, the Palestinian cause is intimately connected to Islamic radicalism and that cannot be denied. So it does not have my sympathies. I have to sympathize with Israel.

Ultimately, I tend to agree with the viewpoint of the translated article by the Jewish author, Gabriel Chocron.

While, I understand that the Palestinians in Chile are proud of their ancestry, they have forgotten the persecution that they suffered under Islam, and they seem willing to affiliate with some rather unsavory groups.

NOTE: Though the Aurora webpage is in Spanish, the site seems to be Israeli.

September 4, 2020 – Edited and added text. Added a video.
May 5, 2021 – Added more information about the 1947 UN Partition vote.
February 23,2024 – Note the name change to Comunidad Palestina de Chile

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