South African Jews for a Free Palestine condemns the recent United States aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela. We categorically reject any unilateral external military intervention, expansionist colonial policies, unlawful detention, or forced removal of political figures by a foreign power such as President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. We call on people of conscience in the US to oppose the actions of their president, Donald Trump, by any means necessary.
Our opposition to the US invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its leader is rooted in a fundamental commitment to international law, the self-determination of peoples, and a principled rejection of colonialism in all its forms. All of humanity must come together to defend the principle that nations must be free to resolve their internal challenges without the spectre of foreign invasion or externally orchestrated regime change. Such violations of the United Nations Charter set a perilous precedent that paves the way for global chaos and the law of the strong over the rule of international law. We stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela, who alone have the right to determine their political future as well as how to use their natural resources.
The actions of the United States in Venezuela are all too familiar, the latest in a history of military intervention by the country for the purpose of resource theft. When Iraq was invaded by the US, the official reason was because the country had “weapons of mass destruction”, but we now know that this reason was manufactured so the US could gain access to Iraq’s large oil reserves. Similarly, while in Venezuela, we are told, without evidence, that this is about drug cartels, the real reason was laid bare at an emergency United Nations security council meeting, where US Ambassador Michael Waltz said: “You cannot continue to have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries of the United States”.
The Jewish concept of tikkun olam – actions intended to heal the world, as well as our belief in pikuash nefesh – the sanctity of human life, compels us to speak out against injustice wherever it occurs. Today, we explicitly express our solidarity with the people of Venezuela resisting foreign extractivist intervention and economic strongmanship; and also with the communities of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo suffering from violent resource extraction and destabilising conflict; and with the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank enduring a decades-long occupation, siege, and a brutal campaign of displacement and violence.
These struggles are not isolated. They are profoundly interconnected through the common architecture of global power that prioritizes resource control, geopolitical dominance, and racial hierarchy over human life and sovereignty. The same logic that enables the economic siege of Venezuela for its oil reserves drives the devastating plunder of minerals in the DRC and Sudan. This very same logic of colonial dispossession and population control is starkly visible in Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine, supported by powerful nations that simultaneously sanction or destabilize other sovereign states across the globe. It is no surprise or coincidence that the United States’ actions in Venezuela have been greeted enthusiastically by Israel.
Our solidarity is rooted in the understanding that the systems enforcing apartheid in Palestine, funding conflict in Central Africa, and authorizing coups in Latin America are linked. To fight for a just peace in Palestine is to fight against the global structures of oppression that subjugate people in Venezuela, Sudan, the DRC, and beyond. Our liberation is bound together.
Justice and peace can only be achieved through the respect for national sovereignty and the rights of all peoples to self-determination.