Thank you for those thoughtful remarks. I'll just make a few comments.
It's important to remember that the Venezuelan media is not the Canadian media. When we say a 60% decrease, the media is government-controlled, which means that there's still a certain percentage of government-sponsored messages getting out.
I will as well submit for evidence, just as a sample, the cover of a newspaper published on the day that I visited last year. It's a newspaper that's published by PDVSA, the government-owned oil company. It's a statement about Israel. Yet, for a Holocaust survivor community to see the words nueva administración, or new administration, concerning the political situation in Gaza, using Holocaust imagery, sponsored by the government--this is not part of the free press--is something that makes the community quite fearful. I'll leave this to circulate as well.
In terms of the motivation of those who committed the atrocities and terrorized the community by vandalizing the synagogue on a Sabbath morning, the Jewish community throughout has been puzzled by what other motivation could there be for these constant acts of fearmongering and terrorizing acts on their community? What is there worth stealing in a synagogue on a Saturday morning? There are no deposits of wealth there. They didn't want the Torah scrolls. They didn't want the ritual objects. They wrote on the walls. They made a mess of the offices. They left the ritual objects in need of repair strewn all over the floor.
Why would the government raid? What are they searching for in 2004, 2007? What's the point of all this? We don't know. Searching for a possible alternative, certainly everyone wants to find another alternative as to why someone other than the Government of Venezuela would be interested in sending this message to the Jewish community. None has emerged. So yes, we would all like that.
Another thing that has been mentioned before, but another area of concern of course, is, of course, as mentioned, the difficult dynamics with America, with the United States, perhaps related to certain issues pertaining particularly to that region. But if your friend is not America, then who is your friend? It doesn't have to be Iran. That's what concerns...and as well should concern the international community, that we have an ally, as it were, in Venezuela, who is cozying up to one of the most dangerous regimes that our world has seen in the last half century. That should frighten us all.