The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre says Ambassador Alexis Navarro made anti-Semitic comments. Navarro was quoted by the daily Moscow News as saying that a failed 2002 coup that briefly ousted President Hugo Chavez involved Israeli Mossad intelligence snipers who were “Venezuelan citizens, but Jews.”
The group says it wrote a letter to Venezuela’s foreign minister saying the comments were “racist” and “incite violence against Jews.”
A foreign ministry spokesman reached by phone said there was no immediate government response.
