Last winter's attack on Gaza by Israeli armed forces was an act of "genocide," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said in an interview published Wednesday in the French daily Le Figaro."It is not that the Israelis want to exterminate the Palestinians. They do it openly," Chavez said. "Remember the last Israeli aggression against Gaza. What was that, if not genocide?"
Asked if the military action was not a response to rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, Chavez said, "I find that hard to believe ... The Israelis were looking for an excuse to exterminate the Palestinians." Chavez also said that sanctions must be applied to Israel in response to "this aggression."
The Venezuelan president has repeatedly attacked the policies of the Israeli government regarding the Palestinians. In 2006, he compared them to Adolf Hitler's attempts to exterminate the Jews.
Earlier this month, during a visit to Syria, Chavez said that the Israeli state was created "to impede the unity of the Arab world. To assure the presence of the North American empire in all these lands." Israel vehemently condemned Chavez' genocide allegation.
"We regret that President Chavez has chosen to recite propaganda slogans of the most oppressive regime in the Middle East," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor said, referring to the de facto government of the radical Islamist Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip. "This does not befit the great tradition of truth, progress and freedom of the Venezuelan people, whose heritage Mr Chavez betrayed," he said.