Israel Matzav

The newest terror sponsor: Venezuela

The United States has maintained a terror sponsors list since the mid-1990's. Terror sponsors lost their sovereign immunity from lawsuits in US courts and suffer from various other sanctions. Over the years, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea all appeared on the list. Iraq was removed after the US accomplished 'regime change' there. Libya was removed after Khadaffi cut a deal to give up his nuclear weapons. North Korea was removed for no apparent reason.

No country has been added to the terror sponsor list in years, but David Hazony says there's one country that may well need to be added: Venezuela.

For many years, its neighbor and close American ally, Colombia, has suspected Venezuela of actively supporting the FARC rebels, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. But according to at least one high-ranking Israeli military official, FARC is not the only such group enjoying the Venezuelan regime’s support: Hezbollah, it turns out, has established a major presence there as well, supported by the regime in “investing significant efforts to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli targets and Jewish institutions in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru,” according to today’s YNet.

Obviously, the State Department should not take the Israelis’ or the Colombians’ word for it and must conduct a thorough inquiry before making any moves. Yet the failure to dig deeper suggests a dramatic shift in U.S. policy on international terror when compared with not only the Bush administration but the will of Congress as well. Since 9/11, U.S. policy and law have aimed at showing zero tolerance for terrorism, the centerpiece of which strategy has been to make sovereign states accountable for the terrorism they support—not just through the occasional military replacement of their regimes, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also through a wide range of legal and diplomatic sanctions.

Sorry, but that zero tolerance policy for terrorism apparently ended on January 20, 2009. Hugo Chavez is now America's friend.

What could go wrong?

By the way, read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:36 PM