TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (AP) — Israel on Sunday condemned Brazil’s president for comparing the war in Gaza to the Holocaust, accusing him of being antisemitic and trivializing the Nazi genocide of European Jews during World War II.
The outcry further strained relations between the countries, which have deteriorated since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva returned to office last year. Lula has portrayed himself as a leader of the “ Global South,” a loosely defined group of developing countries.
Of course, Israel goes into attack mode with any comparison of its operations in Gaza to what the Nazis did to the Jews in Europe in World War II.
Colombia and Bolivia are backing Brazil as its diplomatic row with Israel escalated after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, comparing its actions with the Holocaust.
Well, Brazil was wrong, to be sure. But was it wise for Israel to make this a bigger issue than it should be?
Iran’s influence is continuing to grow, not only in the support of Hezbollah operatives, but especially through the netcasting and broadcasting of HispanTV, which sends out Iranian propaganda to the continent. And Iran assists the dictatorial regime in Venezuela.
WASHINGTON —
Iran is striving to expand its influence in fellow U.S. adversary Venezuela, which is hosting an Iranian cultural fair this week and seeking Iranian assistance to revive the ailing Venezuelan energy industry.
Iran is troublemaking in the Western Hemisphere, particularly in this area of propaganda.
Whatever one thinks of pro-Jewish or pro-Israel lobbies in the United States, they are an antidote to some really ugly antisemitic disinformation out there. Indeed, Latin America is often drenched with anti-Israel agitprop that would not have been tolerated in the USA, until recently, which is a sad commentary on recent developments.
The anti-Israel indoctrination that America is sadly seeing now, Latin America has been drenched with for a long time.
Yet, oddly, Iran’s influence is more political than religious.
Why not religious?
Because Islam is being countered in Latin America – not by Jewish influence, as the Jewish population is usually small – but rather by a large and growing Evangelical Christian movement.
In Brazil, the population is 31% Evangelical.
In El Salvador, the population is 40% Evangelical — more than Catholics.
In Guatemala, the population is 40% Evangelical.
In Honduras, the population is 40% Evangelical.
In Chile, the population is 18% Evangelical.
In Argentina, the population is 15% Evangelical.
These Evangelicals tend to be very pro-Zionist.
So Iran’s influence is limited to the political arena, which is scary enough, though even in politics, the Evangelical church is competing successfully.
In the case of Chile and Brazil, the growing Evangelical power base has not stopped the governments from criticizing Israel, but it will prevent some of the Latin governments from going too far.
In one nation, Guatemala, the Evangelicals have made the country very friendly to Israel.
Posted on YouTube: February 18, 2022
El Salvador is particularly interesting, as it has an influential Palestinian (chiefly Christian) minority population. The Palestinian Christians tend to be more Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, though.
The most important thing overlooked is that 31% of Brazil is now Evangelical, and they tend to strongly support Israel. Brazil’s Lulu can only go so far in his criticism of Israel.
Another issue is Latin culture, itself.
Latin/Spanish and Portuguese cultures center on the national liberation struggles against the Islamic/Moorish invaders of Spain and Portugal in the Middle Ages … the so-called Reconquista. Latin culture, at its core, is not friendly to Islam.
What is driving this pro-Palestinianism is the large influence of:
A) Palestinian ethnic groups in Latin America, especially Chile, Honduras, and El Salvador.
B) Iran’s propagandizing through HispanTV.
C) Leftist regimes.
And finally, one should take this news report with a grain of salt, as it is posted by AJPlus, a subset of Al Jazeera, which is a Qatari based anti-Israel media outlet.
Remember, not only Brazil, but also Guatemala has a very large pro-Israel Evangelical constituency. Guatemala is 40 percent Evangelical.
Brazilian supporters of Israel
Posted on YouTube: Early October, 2023
Guatemalan support of Israel
Bucking world opinion, Guatemala was one of the few nations which voted against pressuring Israel for a ceasefire in its war against Hamas.
Among the 14 countries that voted against the cease-fire were Israel, the US, Fiji, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Tonga.
So, remember, check out the news with discernment.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
1) Click Settings Wheel and choose Subtitles/CC.
2) Click to turn on: Spanish (auto-generated) .
3) Click – for a second time – to turn on: Subtitles/CC(1) Spanish (auto-generated) .
4) Click auto-translate.
5) Choose English – THIS CAN BE TRICKY – I suggest using up and down arrows to chose English, and then press Enter.
This can be very touchy, and you may have to play with it, but it works. Once you get the hang of it, you can turn the option on in a few seconds.
