Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez slammed Israel Thursday during his visit to Damascus, calling it an "imperialist nation" that annihilates other people. Chavez remarks came during a news conference with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad.
"Israel has become a country that annihilates people and is hostile to peace," he said, according to the AP. He also accused Israel of being part of imperialist efforts to divide the Middle East.
"The entire world knows it. Why was the state of Israel created? ... To divide. To impede the unity of the Arab world. To assure the presence of the North American empire in all these lands," Chavez noted.
"I believe it is a fateful battle. It's either now or never in order to liberate the world from imperialism and change the world from a unipolar into a multi-polar world," Chavez told reporters in the Syrian capital.
On his part, the Syrian president said that he does not think Israel is prepared to make peace. "For us, all Israeli governments are similar...since 1991 untill today nothing serious has been achieved in the peace process, so the difference among them is in tactics and appeqarcne, but the essence is one....and the Israeli opinion polls assert that the Israelis in general are not ready yet for peace since they don't want to return the land completely" to thier owners, " Assad said was quoted as saying by the state-run SANA news agency.
