Honduras, Chavez and Ahmadinejad http://blogs.jta.org/ENTRY_PERMALINK_HERE/honduras-chavez-and-ahmadinejad/ In a column titled “Revolutionary Anti-Semitism,” Mary Anastasia O’Grady argues that what’s at stake in the fight over the presidency in Honduras is whether Hugo Chavez can import Ahmadinejad’s ideology to Latin America. Meanwhile, the Forward has reported that Jewish groups are divided over the power struggle in Tegucigalpa. en-us aeden@jta.org Copyright 2009 2009-10-05T;19:20:00-05:00 Comment by Jose Bonilla chepex21@netscape.net Frankly, before Monday last week I had never heard an antisemitic remark in Honduras, people always have complained about the “Turks” Called like that because the Palestinians that came in Honduras years ago came with Turk passports and they are the vast majority of rich people in this country, from the Jews little was said before basically we have one publicly known Rich Jew that owns a newspaper, a bank and other many business and even if I call him a Jew “Rosenthal”, poor people call him a Turk so if you could walk my streets you will learn that people mix an relate the word Turk with the status “Rich”, even people with complex last names like “Marinakys” plainly Greek are called Turks but never Jews, there has been a synagogue here since I remember but nobody know where it is, it´s never been on the newspapers or the TV I´know it exists because I have Jew cousins that go there… Basically what I’m trying to say is that people here don’t blame Jews, Turks, Spaniards or North Americans for our disgrace, it has always been the corrupt government to blame. It is a shame for us Hondurans that someone is taking advantage of momentum to stir their own views into the hot soup cooking here. P.S: I’m of Italian descent an I’m called a Turk most of the time because I’m white and big nosed Frankly, before Monday last week I had never heard an antisemitic remark in Honduras, people always have complained about the “Turks” Called like that because the Palestinians that came in Honduras years ago came with Turk passports and they are the vast majority of rich people in this country, from the Jews little was said before basically we have one publicly known Rich Jew that owns a newspaper, a bank and other many business and even if I call him a Jew “Rosenthal”, poor people call him a Turk smile so if you could walk my streets you will learn that people mix an relate the word Turk with the status “Rich”, even people with complex last names like “Marinakys” plainly Greek are called Turks but never Jews, there has been a synagogue here since I remember but nobody know where it is, it´s never been on the newspapers or the TV I´know it exists because I have Jew cousins that go there…
Basically what I’m trying to say is that people here don’t blame Jews, Turks, Spaniards or North Americans for our disgrace, it has always been the corrupt government to blame.
It is a shame for us Hondurans that someone is taking advantage of momentum to stir their own views into the hot soup cooking here.

P.S: I’m of Italian descent an I’m called a Turk most of the time because I’m white and big nosed smile

]]> 2012-05-24T;14:04:00-05:00 Comment by I Crause iancrause@hotmail.com The paranoia shown by jewish organisations to the current crop of leftwing Latin American governments is disturbing, to say the least. These are governments who fight for the rights of their own poor - in most cases, including that of Honduras, it is a largely racially defined poverty, and consequently these governments have as their mortal enemies the same ideological nexus of ultra-Capitalists and fascists that made the 1930s such a lively period. I have seen the scurrilous attacks attacks by the likes of the Jerusalem Post against people like Bolivia’s Morales and have to say that, most certainly in the case of Bolivia (though I would be surprised if it didn’t hold across the continent) the only criterion for the left is whether you are supportive of their efforts to make their societies fairer places where children from poor, indian families, were able to go to school and those with cancer didn’t have to sell their houses to pay for treatment and so die in the gutter.Literally. I have lived in Bolivia and jhave family there.I know both socialist activists and fascists - in the east of the country, fascism is called ‘patriotism’. I have experienced open hostility, often flavoured with a semi submerged streak of sour anti-semitism from those on the right on many occasions.One relative, a drinking buddy of some in the Autonomy movement, greeted news of his first half jewish neioce with the words ‘what’s happened to my race?’’Que pasó á mi raza?’ These were the same groups that rounded up indigenous Bolivians in the streets of Sucre, stripped them and forced them to sing racists songs about themselves whilst being taunted and beaten a couple of years back. If this was in Germany most readers here would be screaming from the rooftops, so why should it be any different because white Spanish are doing it to native Americans? The recent episode where Bolivian special forces gunned down a Croatian organised neo-fascist cell, arrived in Santa Cruz to assassinate Morales (PIV connected by all accounts) is the most visible manifestation of what is really going on here. I have never had an anti semitic comment from a socialist and I have met and chatted with lots, from penniless indigenous shopkeepers and taxi drivers to members of the government.Don’t confuse Israel with Judaism.The two have diverged thanks to the likes of Netanyahu and his odious ilk.Race to the latin reformers is an irrelevance, only present due to it’s politicisation by poverty. I strongly suggest those who read op eds like the one above and are wont to believe these things have a trawl around the internet and actually read the speeches and opinions of the likes of Chavez, Morales and Correa, as well as checking out sites like upsidedownworld.org - one of the best to tell you what really happens on the ground in Latin America.There was a superb piece recently about the Bolivian/Islamist hysteria pushed by some in the US. Then decide, because a lot of what is written by the right is, frankly, a lot of lies. They need to lie to keep power. The ones I read about Morales could fill a book and some of them have been recycled for Zelaya so I do not believe them. The extreme right in the US and their mercenary armies and death squads are trying to build the public will to allow them back into the slums and villages of Latin America again to restart their long neglected war on the poor. Don’t give them that mandate. The paranoia shown by jewish organisations to the current crop of leftwing Latin American governments is disturbing, to say the least. These are governments who fight for the rights of their own poor - in most cases, including that of Honduras, it is a largely racially defined poverty, and consequently these governments have as their mortal enemies the same ideological nexus of ultra-Capitalists and fascists that made the 1930s such a lively period.
I have seen the scurrilous attacks attacks by the likes of the Jerusalem Post against people like Bolivia’s Morales and have to say that, most certainly in the case of Bolivia (though I would be surprised if it didn’t hold across the continent) the only criterion for the left is whether you are supportive of their efforts to make their societies fairer places where children from poor, indian families, were able to go to school and those with cancer didn’t have to sell their houses to pay for treatment and so die in the gutter.Literally.
I have lived in Bolivia and jhave family there.I know both socialist activists and fascists - in the east of the country, fascism is called ‘patriotism’.
I have experienced open hostility, often flavoured with a semi submerged streak of sour anti-semitism from those on the right on many occasions.One relative, a drinking buddy of some in the Autonomy movement, greeted news of his first half jewish neioce with the words ‘what’s happened to my race?’’Que pasó á mi raza?’
These were the same groups that rounded up indigenous Bolivians in the streets of Sucre, stripped them and forced them to sing racists songs about themselves whilst being taunted and beaten a couple of years back.
If this was in Germany most readers here would be screaming from the rooftops, so why should it be any different because white Spanish are doing it to native Americans?
The recent episode where Bolivian special forces gunned down a Croatian organised neo-fascist cell, arrived in Santa Cruz to assassinate Morales (PIV connected by all accounts) is the most visible manifestation of what is really going on here.
I have never had an anti semitic comment from a socialist and I have met and chatted with lots, from penniless indigenous shopkeepers and taxi drivers to members of the government.Don’t confuse Israel with Judaism.The two have diverged thanks to the likes of Netanyahu and his odious ilk.Race to the latin reformers is an irrelevance, only present due to it’s politicisation by poverty.
I strongly suggest those who read op eds like the one above and are wont to believe these things have a trawl around the internet and actually read the speeches and opinions of the likes of Chavez, Morales and Correa, as well as checking out sites like upsidedownworld.org - one of the best to tell you what really happens on the ground in Latin America.There was a superb piece recently about the Bolivian/Islamist hysteria pushed by some in the US.
Then decide, because a lot of what is written by the right is, frankly, a lot of lies. They need to lie to keep power.
The ones I read about Morales could fill a book and some of them have been recycled for Zelaya so I do not believe them.
The extreme right in the US and their mercenary armies and death squads are trying to build the public will to allow them back into the slums and villages of Latin America again to restart their long neglected war on the poor.
Don’t give them that mandate.

]]> 2012-05-24T;14:04:00-05:00 Comment by Stan Nadel stan@eterna.net A non-Jewish friend who lived in Honduras for two years tells me that Antisemitism was in fact very widespread there--all across the political spectrum.  But even more problematic is that the source for the alleged quote that underlies this whole story is the regime that overthrew Zelaya and which is desperate to smear him in order to undermine support for his return to office.  Why are JTA and others so willing to take his enemies claims on this? A non-Jewish friend who lived in Honduras for two years tells me that Antisemitism was in fact very widespread there--all across the political spectrum.  But even more problematic is that the source for the alleged quote that underlies this whole story is the regime that overthrew Zelaya and which is desperate to smear him in order to undermine support for his return to office.  Why are JTA and others so willing to take his enemies claims on this?

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