While the Sadducees were one of the major Jewish sects at the beginning of the Common Era, relatively little is known about them with any certainty. It seems that they rejected the oral, extrabiblical traditions and practices embraced by their rivals, the Pharisees, which later became the foundations of rabbinic Judaism. Michael Satlow argues, however, that the sect’s origin owes as much to politics as to doctrine:

The Jewish historian Josephus mentions [the Sadducees] in the context of John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonean high priest and ruler of Judah from 135 to 104 BCE. According to Josephus, a guest at a banquet for the Pharisees accused Hyrcanus of being a bastard child, unfit for the high priesthood. In the uproar that ensued, a Sadducee convinced Hyrcanus to abandon the Pharisees for the Sadducees.

Whether true or not, this story might point to the Sadducees’ origin as a political party allied with the Hasmoneans. . . .

The group that Josephus calls “Pharisees,” [therefore], was what was left of the old guard, [representatives of] the status quo. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were a coalition of Hasmonean supporters who sought to challenge Pharisaic power with recourse to Scripture. Raw politics, not abstract claims to authority, were more important in the Hasmonean decision (soon reversed) to align with the Sadducees.

In June Tehran and Caracas concluded a major twenty-year cooperation treaty. One of its many provisions—kept secret until recently—was the transfer of 4,000 square miles of Venezuelan land to Iranian control. Although the territory is ostensibly for agricultural use, Lawrence Franklin suspects the Islamic Republic might have other plans:

Hizballah already runs paramilitary training centers in restricted sections of Venezuela’s Margarita Island, a tourist area northeast of the country’s mainland. The terrorist group has considerable support from some of Venezuela’s prominent Lebanese clans such as the Nasr al-Din family, who reportedly facilitated Iran’s penetration of Margarita Island. . . . The Maduro regime has apparently been so welcoming to Iranian intelligence agents that some of Hizballah’s long-established Latin American network at the tri-border nexus of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay has been overtaken by Hizballah activities on Venezuela’s Margarita Island.

Iran’s alliance with Venezuela most importantly provides Tehran with opportunities to target U.S. interests in Latin America and potentially the southern United States. Iran, along with the Chinese Communist Party, is in the process of strengthening Venezuela’s military against the U.S., for instance by deliveries of military drones, which are also considered a threat by Colombia.

While air and seaborne arms deliveries are high-profile evidence of Iran’s ties with Venezuela, Tehran’s cooperation with Venezuelan intelligence agencies, although less visible, is also intense. The Islamic Republic’s support for Hizballah terrorist operations is pervasive throughout Latin America. Hizballah recruits from Venezuela’s ten-million-strong Lebanese diaspora. Iran and Hizballah cooperate in training of intelligence agents and in developing sources who reside in Venezuela and Colombia, as well as in the tri-border region of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.