On the morning of 17th March 1992, a tremendous explosion ripped through downtown Buenos Aires. A fashionable 3-storey building housing the Israeli Embassy had been terror-bombed, collapsing into itself. The powerful shockwave broke windows and plaster in buildings on the corner of Arroyo and Suipacha streets. In all, 29 people were killed and 242 injured. Twenty years on, we still don’t know who did it…
A little over two years later, this unsolved mystery would become inextricably linked with yet another, more devastating terror bombing in downtown Buenos Aires that on 18th July 1994 demolished the AMIA/DAIA Jewish Mutual Association building a dozen blocks away, this time killing 80 and injuring 300.
Since then, both investigations have been maliciously mishandled, purposely embroiled, grossly interfered with by the governments of Israel and the United States, and have become riddled with local and foreign corruption, cover-ups and deceit. The years went by, acting judges were replaced, some even impeached, however both attacks remain unsolved. Israel and the US continue in their quest of putting the blame on Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah… No matter what!
Israel insists that both explosions were caused by “car bombs”, but no car bombs were ever found. The AMIA building which also housed the local Zionist political lobby “DAIA” was at the time led by its banker president Rubén Beraja who funded a u$s 400.000 kickback to a local used-car crook (with the agreement of presiding judge Juan Galeano!), so that he would implicate Hamas and Hezbollah (Beraja was later jailed for collapsing his own bank).
To understand all of this, there are subtler aspects that can both help to shed light on these attacks as well as help understand the roots of Israeli behaviour. Especially in what refers to the often violent conflicts that exist inside Israel between moderate sectors who genuinely desire peace with the Palestinians and extreme right-wing fundamentalists who seem willing to go to any extreme to sabotage peace, to ensure that their Messianic dreams of an “Eretz Israel” – a Jewish Empire spanning from the Nile to the Euphrates – may one day come true. This conflict takes on a global character when they extend out to the Jewish Diaspora, including Argentina’s large Jewish community.
Thus, the bombings in Argentina take on a different dimension when inserted within a timeline of key milestones in these intra-Israeli conflicts:
30 Sept 1991 – Start of the US-sponsored Madrid Peace Conference between Israelis and Palestinians. Increasingly, the ultra right-wing fundamentalist settlers’ movement in Israel goes on the warpath.
17 March 1992 – At 2:50PM, just after a top level lunch of Israeli government and security officers hosted by the Ambassador leaves the Israeli Embassy building in Buenos Aires, the bomb went off.
13 July 1992 – Rabin elected prime minister. He quickly re-shuffled the Shin Beth, Israel’s secret service in charge of investigating fundamentalist Jewish settler movement groups inside Israel, and of providing security for Israel’s embassies abroad.
August 1992 – Rabin declares Israel will return the Golan Heights to Syria
13 Sept 1993 – Israel and PLO sign Oslo Accords, mutually recognizing each other: the famous Rabin / Arafat / Clinton handshake on the White House lawn.
25 Feb 1994 (Purim Feast) – US Jewish fanatic Baruch Goldstein easily passes Israeli Army checkpoints in Hebron carrying a machine gun with which he opened fire on Palestinians at prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs Mosque, killing 29, injuring 125. Goldstein was beaten to death and his tomb soon became a pilgrimage shrine for Israeli settlers.
Feb to May 1994 – Cairo Agreements between Israel and Palestine establish borders of Gaza and Jericho.
1 July 1994 – After 27 years in exile Rabin allows Yasser Arafat back into Palestine. Anger peaks in the ranks of Israeli settler hardliners.
18 July 1994 – Terror bombing of the AMIA Jewish Mutual Building in Buenos Aires, at that time very pro-Rabin/Labour.
26 Oct 1994 – Peace Treaty signed between Israel and Jordan
28 Sept 1995 – Taba-Oslo II Agreements signed over Palestine conflict
4 November 1995 – Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated at a rally in Tel Aviv. His assassin was neither an Islamic Fundamentalist nor a Neo-Nazi, but rather a young fundamentalist close to the Jewish Settler movement, also linked to Shin Beth (Ygal Amir). Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar presided the Shamgar Commission that investigated the assassination, concluding in March 1996 that Shin Beth was responsible for exposing Rabin to “serious risks,” and for failing to act on threats against his life made by Jewish extremists.
The really serious geopolitical consequences of Rabin’s assassination were that Israel’s moderate Labour Party was quickly replaced by the ultra the rightwing leadership of the Likud and Kadima parties: Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and today, again, Netanyahu and Avigdor Liberman.
Since then, they have abandoned “Peace for Territory” policies, replacing them with militant ethnic cleansing as described by former president Jimmy Carter in his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid”.
When both terror bombings in Argentina are inserted within this timeline of internal events in Israel, we get an inkling of why they have not been solved.
Because although Israel – as usual, dragging the US behind it – insists that Iran/Syria/Hamas/Hezbollah perpetrated both terror bombings and grossly interfere with Argentina’s judiciary and executive powers, a different more plausible scenario has yet to be investigated: that Israeli intelligence and secret services themselves may have been directly involved in both attacks, within the logic of increasing intra-Israeli violence taking place in the nineties.
Since the obviously false “Iranian and Syrian connections” never got anywhere, perhaps it’s time for Argentine and international authorities to recommend pursuing a possible “Israeli Connection” into both attacks.
In the case of the Embassy bombing, in 1996 Argentina’s Supreme Court ordered the National Academy of Engineers to make a thorough survey and investigation into what caused the explosion. They concluded it occurred deep inside the Embassy building, which means, no car bomb.
In August of that year a public row erupted between Supreme Court president Julio Nazareno and then Israeli Ambassador to Argentina Itzhak Aviram, with the latter insulting the Court over its findings. Hysterical shrieks of “Anti-Semitism!” were very much in the air…
If it were to turn out to be true that Israeli players were behind both terror bombings, then it’s important that the international community should insist on clarifying both events, so that we may know who was really to blame.
Israel’s insistence that Iran is to blame can and will be used by them, the US, UK and France, to further their frenzied search for an excuse to unilaterally attack Iran. Today’s Israeli Ambassador to Argentina, Daniel Gazit, insists: “we believe Iran is to blame”; he even talks about a coming “third terror attack against Jewish interests in Argentina”.
Now, who could be planning that?!? Clearly, the world needs to better understand some of the more subtle fundamentals regarding the roots of Israeli behaviour. That will, no doubt, help promote world peace.
Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator based in Argentina. www.asalbuchi.com.ar
