Three years ago, on October 7, 2023, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Iranian proxies, invaded and attacked Israel, killing over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals (including 46 Americans ) and seizing 251 hostages. Twenty two hostages remain in Gaza as of today.
The date of the attack held special significance. October 6, 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War, a war of aggression by Syria and Egypt, with expeditionary forces from eight Muslim states. Three thousand Cuban troops supported Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War inflicting casualties on Israeli forces. Cuban tank crews fought alongside Syrian troops. 180 Cubans were killed and 250 were injured.
How did Havana respond to this attack on Israel?
In a formal statement released on October 7, 2023, the same day of the terror attacks, the Cuban Foreign Ministry blamed Israel and its “accomplice,” the United States, for the violence. In doing so, it continued to spread a false narrative that originates in Soviet-era anti-Israel propaganda.In this case Havana was blaming the victims of a terrorist attack perpetrated by their longtime allies Hamas.
Their allies in the region took an equally anti-Israel line. Dictators Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and President and former M-19 terrorist Gustavo Petro in Colombia all failed to denounce the terrorist assaults on Israel.
Leticia MartÃnez, chief of communications for Miguel DÃaz-Canel, and Cuban journalist Pedro Jorge Velázquez, known as “El Necio” on X, celebrated a “Free Palestine” and justified the attacks on social media. On October 8, 2023, El Necio retweeted a post from The People’s Forumcalling to dismantle the Israeli state, featuring the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free!”
Since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel, El Necio has been repackaging antisemitic tropes from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and disseminating blood libels against the Jewish people over X thread. The dictatorship’s official journalist described this crime against humanity as “Palestinian resistance” launching an” unprecedented offensive in Israeli territory.”
On November 23, 2023, the Cuban dictatorship organized a mandatory100,000-person pro-Hamas march with banners and placards supporting the Hamas terrorists.
These actions were not limited to Cuba or the internet.
People’s Forum, Havana-linked group, stages pro-Hamas protest in Times Square day after Oct. 7 attacks
Manolo de los Santos of The People’s Forum with Miguel Diaz-Canel in September 2023, and on October 8, 2023 celebrating Hams terror attacks against Israel.
On October 8, 2023, one day after the terror attacks in Israel, militant leftists held a protest in Times Square to celebrate the terrorist attack as a form of resistance, yelling anti-Semitic slogans and waving banners and posters.
The Center for a Free Cuba took notice of this protest at the time, and how official Cuban media was promoting it. On October 11, 2023, The People’s Forum (TPF) released a statement justifying their October 8th demonstration in Times Square, and doubling down on their support for the terrorist attack.. Manolo De Los Santos, the group’s co-executive director, is a researcher at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, with links to the Cuban dictatorship, and he was “based out of Cuba for many years.”
In July 2022, Cuba’s president, Miguel DÃaz-Canel, received De los Santos and the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad with the aim of “elaborating a new consensus, based on theory and according to the different experiences of social movements and countries, on the path of socialism.”
