As opinions rained down after the October 7 massacre, and against the grain of the official policy of the regime, Cuban civil society spoke out in favor of the victims, with the Christian community at the forefront. The most widespread evangelical denomination on the island, Assemblies of God, asked for prayers for Israel and called on Christians to “preach the gospel in season and out of season, because it is the testimony and knowledge of the Truth, which sets man free, when convinced by His Spirit he appropriates Jesus.”
“And as free Christians in Christ, with knowledge and in compliance with His Word, in addition to the anti-Semitic movement that rises like a wave in this world, let us pray for the Peace of Jerusalem,” said the document, which was released on social networks by the General Executive Presbytery.
For his part, Alejandro Hernández Cepero, pastor of the banned Aliá Apostolic Ministry, held a civic protest on October 10 against the attacks by the Hamas terrorist group on Israel and led a bike tour with the Israeli flag hanging on his back. On the route, just over 15 kilometers, it crossed six municipalities of the capital: Cerro, Diez de Octubre, San Miguel del Padrón, Guanabacoa, Regla, and Habana del Este.
“It turns out that now left-wing governments and leaders, for a change, justify the atrocities of the terrorist group Hamas, euphemistically calling them soldiers and combatants, while accusing Israel of being the only culprit in this recently begun conflict, and the West for distorting the truth,” Pastor Carlos Macías López wrote on his social networks. “They only mention the rights of the Palestinians, whom they define as victims, and accuse those who really are, of being the victimizers. Gross!”
The Methodist recalled that in none of the Middle Eastern nations, except Israel, human rights are respected, “but liberals don’t seem to care much about this.” In the countries that have historically set out to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth, “coincidentally, almost all of them [are] allies of the Havana regime, women are seen as something little less than a camel. What can we say about homosexuals, political opponents, and those who do not profess faith in Islam. With total impunity they will be punished, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. Meanwhile, no socialist friend will say anything, arguing that it is not legal to interfere in the internal affairs of any country. Hypocritical and shameful, right?”
The evangelical leader recalled that these same champions of the world proletariat will try to give us lessons in revolutionary ethics, while at the same time they remained complicitly silent when Majid Reza Rahnavard, 23 years old, died by hanging from a crane in the middle of the street in Mashad about 900 kilometers east of Tehran for participating in a protest.
“Even the casualties in Gaza, because of Israel’s attacks, fall on the consciences (if they had any) of the Islamic fundamentalists. What do all these apologists for Hezbollah, Fatah, and Hamas want? For Israel to pretend that nothing happened and look in another direction?” commented Macías López. “The Gaza Strip will never be the same place again. The State of Israel has declared war on terrorism, in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own words, not on the Palestinians.”
The pastor expressed that Hamas is an organization whose pillars are religious fanaticism, which in their radicalism support a worldview that precedes the concept of the national state. Although he did not doubt that the Palestinians aspired to the construction of a modern national state, he pointed out that “this is not the paradigm of the Hamas group, who in their efforts to impose sharia, will never allow equality before the law between men and women, nor private property, nor multi-partyism, nor free elections, nor the free market, nor the division of powers, since these extremist groups identify more with dictatorial and totalitarian positions than with democratic positions.”
In the author’s opinion, it is for this last reason that leftism and religious radicalism get along so well. “In the end, the extremes and the extremists end up meeting.” And although he considered that Israel has not done everything well, her Judeo-Christian principles do not allow her to side with terrorism.
Toward the end of his article, he recommended that readers not be fooled, and he attacked the Cuban State propaganda machinery by asking them not to repeat “like parrots what Russia Today, Telesur, and [the Castro television program] Mesa Redonda say. Let’s think with our own heads. Let’s beware of those who on the outside look pro-Palestinian, but deep down they are anti-Semitic.”
That same day, he called on the church to pray for Israel, of course, “but also for the victims of the Gaza Strip, who have nothing to do with the Hamas terrorists.”
From the city of Las Tunas, Apostle Mayim Jorge, of the persecuted Apostolic Movement, called for public action. “We are calling on the Viento Recio Ministry in Las Tunas and other provinces to hold a special service to pray for Israel and bless that beloved nation. In Las Tunas we will be doing it next Wednesday,” said Jorge. “You today can be blessed or cursed forever. Choose the blessing forever and break the curse that hangs on our country, for having cursed for the fourth time the most blessed nation on Earth.”
In 1973, Fidel Castro sent two divisions of Cuban tankers to the Yom Kippur War, in which the dictators Bashsar Al-Assad Sr., of the Syrian socialist regime, and Abdel Nasser, of Egypt, sought to end the Jewish State. In September of that same year, Castro broke diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv.
Since then, the Cuban Marxist dictatorship has taken other paths, such as establishing a false moral equivalence between Islamist terrorism that seeks the elimination of the Jews, and the Israeli legitimate defense of its citizens.
