A Palestinian man looks on at the site of an Israeli strike in September 2025 that massively destroyed residential buildings. Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters/file photo.
Venezuelan far-right opposition politician María Corina Machado and “Israeli” ruler Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that they had spoken on phone. In the conversation that took place on Friday, October 17, Machado, who recently received the Nobel Peace Prize, praised Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza, which she described as “decisive” and which resulted in the killing of over 68,000 Palestinians, including more than 20,000 children.
During the telephone conversation, Machado also congratulated Netanyahu for “Israel’s achievements” after two years of Israeli military aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza, which destroyed thousands of homes, schools, and hospitals, and caused a famine that affected two million people.
Machado also highlighted the Israeli regime’s “tireless fight” against Iran and accused the Venezuelan government of receiving support from Iran, in addition to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other organizations that she described as “terrorists.”
For his part, Netanyahu reported that he congratulated Machado on the award and praised her “efforts to promote democracy and peace.”
María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan politician known for her support of US aggression and military intervention against Venezuela, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize on October 10, sparking a wave of outrage and controversy worldwide.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the awarding of the prize to Machado “shameful” and declared that “the politicization, bias, and discrediting of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Committee has reached unimaginable limits.”
War criminal
The repudiation that much of the international community feels for Benjamin Netanyahu has been manifested almost daily in recent months in the thousands of marches in defense of Palestine that have taken place around the world.
Both Netanyahu and “Israeli” Prime Minister Yoav Gallant, former defense minister, have arrest warrants against them issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on November 21, 2024, following an international investigation into the possible commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Zionist occupation military in Gaza.
They are accused of being responsible for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts during the Zionist entity’s genocidal military operation against Palestinians in Gaza.
Machado: Unrepentant supporter of Zionism
Previously, in an interview she gave in June 2020 to the Israeli channel Arutz 20, Machado pledged to reestablish diplomatic relations with Israel (broken off since 2009) and to establish the Venezuelan embassy in Israel in Jerusalem if she won the presidency, thus aligning herself with other governments that have adopted positions supportive of Zionism, such as the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, and the former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.
Most countries that maintain diplomatic relations with the Zionist entity have their embassies in Tel Aviv, avoiding Jerusalem, which Palestinians call Al-Aqsa and consider the capital of Palestine.
In 2018, Machado sent a letter to Netanyahu and then-Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, asking them and the international community for military support in bringing about “regime change” in Venezuela. The letter was published by Machado on her official Facebook account.
In 2020, Machado’s Vente Venezuela party announced that it had signed a cooperation agreement with the ruling Likud party of the Zionist entity, headed by Netanyahu. The agreement was signed by Machado and Eli Vered Hazan, representing Likud’s Foreign Relations Division. The two parties announced that the cooperation will include “political, ideological, and social issues, as well as those related to strategy, geopolitics, and security,” so that their relation will become an “operational partnership,” framed “within the Western values to which both parties subscribe: freedom and a market economy.”
What is Zionism
Zionism is an ideology and political movement initially created to achieve a state for the Jewish people in the so-called “Promised Land,” which includes Palestine and parts of Syria, Egypt, and Turkey, where Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and people belongong to other faiths have lived for centuries.
Its political roots date back to mid-19th-century Europe. The main political founder of Zionism was the Hungarian journalist and writer Theodor Herzl, whose tenets established that Jews constitute a national group (a country), and that this grants them the right to establish a nation-state in the “Promised Land” and to promote the mass migration of Jews from around the world.
Following the extermination of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime during World War II, and the subsequent defeat of that regime in 1945, public opinion was convinced to vindicate the Jewish people by handing over half of the territory of Palestine, which at that time was a British colony, thus achieving the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.
However, the opinions of the original inhabitants of this land (Arab Jews, Muslims, and Christians) were not taken into account, and “Israel” almost immediately began to expand, displacing Palestinian inhabitants, seizing and handing over their homes to Israeli settlers, destroying their homes, violating human rights, and establishing a system of “apartheid” or segregation, in which people who are not Israelis have fewer rights and are forced to live in walled areas, under strict controls.
The events of 1948 are known by Israel as its “war of independence,” but Palestinians call it the Nakba (‘The Catastrophe” or ‘The Disaster”).
Despite its religious roots, Zionism is not a religious movement but a political one. It is a branch and arm of US imperialism, aimed at expanding into Arab and Middle Eastern nations.
The remaining Palestinians have been forced to live in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and parts of Jerusalem, although Palestinians are frequently evicted and new settlers occupy those areas.
It has become normal for the settlers to destroy Palestinian homes, build new settlements, and place “Israeli” settlers, often Jewish converts from other countries, there.
Numerous Orthodox Jewish groups oppose Zionism and have demonstrated against the eviction and abuse of the Palestinian people.
Zionism relies heavily on support from the United States and other Western governments, thanks to the existence of lobbies and associations that finance politicians to support them. The US is responsible for supplying Israel with weapons for its continued expansion and providing it with support in international forums, which has allowed it to commit attacks against the civilian population that would not be tolerated if committed by other countries.
Venezuelan opposition leaders repudiate Machado
Venezuelan opposition leader Enrique Ochoa Antich harshly criticized Machado for praising Netanyahu’s “decisive actions” in Gaza. On social media, Ochoa Antich wrote: “Machado praises Netanyahu, after his massacre of 70,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children … How can a Venezuelan follow a ‘leadership’ like this???”
Many other politicians from both sides of the political spectrum repudiated Machado’s actions that only exposed her as a warmongering US asset.
(Alba Ciudad ) by Luigino Bracci Roa, with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SC
