Israel s Forgotten Enemy: It s Fidel Castro.

``Attacks of Palestinian resistance activists in Israeli territory" is how a state-controlled newspaper recently euphemized suicide massacres. Its headlines on Israel in 2002 have included:

"Israeli soldiers sack, torture and execute police and civilians in West Bank" (April 8)

This reeks of Saudi Arabia's Ar-Riyadh or Egypt's Al-Ahram, but the source is much closer to America: Cuba's Granma International.

In April, Granma also referred to "the genocidal actions of the Israeli army" and included a photograph of an anti-Israel rally with the poster, "SHARON=HITLER." Granma's caption below the photograph read, "The poster says it all. It is a certainty that crosses the world."

Fidel Castro's totalitarian regime has Nazified Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War; Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations described Israel's preemptive strike against imminent Arab belligerence as a "surprise attack in the Nazi manner." In 1988, Cuba published The Other Face: The Truth about the Secret Relationships between Nazism and Zionism by Mahmud Abbas (a.k.a., Abu Mazzen, secretary general of the PLO's executive committee). Abbas disputes the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis and claims that Zionists murdered more than the Nazis. The cover of The Other Face connects a swastika with the Star of David.

When he's not accusing Israel of Nazism, Castro has been a reliable ally of anti-Zionist violence and propaganda. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Castro deployed thousands of troops including tank commanders and pilots to aid Syrian aggression against Israel. Yasser Arafat visited Cuba in 1974 and received its highest honor, the National Order of the Bay of Pigs.

In 1975, the United Nations passed an infamous resolution that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." Cuba was on the side of the anti-Zionists, and Granma praised the resolution for demonstrating "the identical imperialist origins and racist structure of the Israeli Zionist regime that is occupying Palestine and the one that is exploiting the black masses in South Africa." The U.N. repealed the resolution in 1991, which Cuba opposed.

The Cuban embassy in Beirut was Arafat's headquarters during Israel's campaign to rout the brutal PLO mini-state in southern Lebanon. Neil C. Livingstone and David Halevy write in Inside the PLO, "Many of the PLO fighters captured by the Israelis during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon had been provided with advanced training in Cuba, including various special operations and demolitions courses."

Castro's aid to Israel's enemies continues to this day. Irving Louis Horowitz notes in the spring issue of The National Interest that "Training and arming Palestinians from the PLO forces [by Cuba] is ongoing." Granma admitted as much on March 30: "Cuba reiterates its full support for the heroic struggle of the Arab peoples, in particular that of the Palestinians, against Israeli occupation and aggression, and declares its solidarity with their resistance and defiance [emphasis added]."

And have Jewish organizations denounced Castro's demonization of the Jewish homeland and sponsorship of its enemies?

A visit to the Anti-Defamation League's website finds reports and press releases on anti-Zionism in Arab media but nothing on Cuban anti-Zionism. Cuban Jews' silence is understandable; to criticize Granma or Castro risks being charged with "crimes" like "enemy propaganda" and "disrespect."

In addition to being the most anti-Zionist regime in the Western hemisphere, Cuba is one of only seven regimes classified by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. While chronically histrionic, Fidel Castro is no mere buffoon. This autocrat perpetrates savagery internally and promotes it abroad. Friends of America and Israel should be mindful of this menace.

Here's an interesting post about Fidel Castro's protégé, Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela Asks Ex-President Carter to Aid Talks *** CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela on Thursday asked former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to help soothe lingering political tensions after April's coup against President Hugo Chavez and welcomed international observers to monitor the nation's democratic process. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said he had written to Carter asking him to help foster dialogue in the bitterly divided South American nation. "We're not considering intervention, we're looking for a process to facilitate talks," Rangel said.

Nearly eight weeks after rebel military and civilian leaders briefly toppled Chavez, Venezuela is still mired in political uncertainty and jitters over another possible uprising. Talks aimed at brokering dialogue between Chavez supporters and his critics have descended into political sniping as both sides blame each other for the deaths of civilians shot by gunmen during the April 11-14 ouster.

Carter, working from his nonprofit Carter Center in Atlanta after leaving office in 1981, has established himself as an elder statesman helping to settle conflicts around the world. Last month he became the most senior U.S. statesman to visit Cuba since its 1959 revolution. He met Cuban dissidents in Havana as part of his push for internal reforms in the island's one-party Communist state.

The Carter Center confirmed it had received the request. "We did receive the invitation from the Venezuelan vice president and we are taking it under consideration," a Carter Center spokesman said. ***

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