Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. Photo: wiki commons.

In a report released on Monday, the U.S. Department of State says that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez contributed to a “rising tide of anti-Semitism” last year.

The International Religious Freedom report, which is released annually, refers to Chavez’s remarks in 2011 that Israel was created as part of a “genocidal plan”, and that Israel itself was committing genocide against the Palestinian people, as examples of Chavez’s anti-Semitic stances.

An open letter to the United Nations last year, written by Chavez, referred to Zionism as “racism” and accused the state of Israel of perpetrating “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians.

As The Algemeiner reported earlier this year, the Anti Defamation League singled out Hugo Chavez for “provoking anti-Semitism” in Venezuela by attacking Enrique Capriles Radonski – Chavez’s main opponent in this year’s presidential election – for his Jewish origins.

A report release by the ADL referred to Chavez’s presidential campaign as “very disturbing”.