ARGENTINA 2003-4

 

The level of antisemitism in Argentina in 2003 remained relatively stable, with 177 incidents of all kinds recorded compared to 149 in 2002 and 185 in 2001. There were numerous cases of swastikas and other graffiti daubed on and near Jewish property, as well as on the streets and subways of Buenos Aires. From 24 September 2001 to the beginning of 2004, 1,500 testimonies were heard during the oral and public proceedings investigating the 1994 terrorist attacks on the AMIA community center.

 

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

The Jewish population of Argentina of about 180,000, out of a total population of 37 million has been declining since the 1960s. Some 80 percent live in the city of Buenos Aires and the Greater Buenos Aires area. Cities with a large Jewish presence include Rosario, Córdoba, San Miguel de Tucumán, Mendoza, Bahía Blanca, La Plata and Santa Fe.

The Jewish community maintains many educational, cultural and religious institutions, including a Hebrew and a Yiddish press, publishing houses and an educational system from kindergarten through university. The leading Jewish organization is the DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas), which represents communities and organizations to the authorities and is responsible for safeguarding the rights of members. AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) is the main community organization. The Vaad ha-Kehilot is the umbrella organization of all the communities in the provinces.

The pauperization of Argentina’s middle classes as a result of the collapse of the country’s economy had a direct impact on a significant portion of the Jewish community. Social welfare organizations have been hard-pressed and there has been a steep rise in applications for aliya to Israel and for emigration to other parts of the world (see also ASW 2001/2).

 

EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS AND GROUPS

Partido Nuevo Orden Social Patriótico (New Social Patriotic Order Party – PNOSP) and Partido Nuevo Triunfo (New Triumph Party – PNT) continue to be the leading antisemitic organizations. The PNT’s application to register as a political party was rejected by the judicial authorities on the grounds that it is an extremist racist group.

The PNT publishes an online journal, Libertad de Opinión, on its website, Ciudad Libertad de Opinión. A print version of the journal is sold at kiosks on the streets of Buenos Aires. Principal themes that appeared in PNT publications in 2003 were the US attack on Iraq and a defense of General Roberto Bendini (see below). Writings of Julio Meinvielle, a virulently antisemitic priest, who was active from the 1930s until his death in the 1970s, also appeared on the PNT website. The PNT’s website coverage of its activities tends to be inflated. Its membership is probably no more than 150 and its events attract a maximum of 50 people.

Although both the PNT and the PNOSP are extremely right-wing and antisemitic, publicly and in their platforms they exercise caution because of Argentina’s anti-discrimination law. However, they deny the Holocaust and have conspiratorial notions about the Jewish presence in Argentina (for more information on both groups, see ASW 2000/1).

Besides the above-mentioned Libertad de Opinion, the main antisemitic publications continue to be Patria Argentina, El Fortin and Cabildo (see ASW 2002/3).

 

ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS

The level of antisemitism in Argentina in 2003 remained relatively stable: 177 incidents were recorded compared to 149 in 2002 and 185 in 2001. Seventy-one percent were reported in the city of Buenos Aires; 13 percent in Greater Buenos Aires, 11 percent in the provinces, including the Province of Buenos Aires, and in 5 percent of cases the location was not specified. The relatively large number of incidents reported in the City of Buenos Aires may be explained by the accessibility of monitoring agencies such as the DAIA and INADI, as well as by the fact that the majority of Jews live there..

 

Violence, Vandalism and Threats

Some of the violent incidents recorded broke out after an argument between neighbors. For example, on 14 October, a Jewish citizen in the Province of Buenos Aires was cursed as, inter alia, a “dirty Jew” and beaten by his neighbor and the neighbor’s wife.

On 20 September, 19 tombs were desecrated in the Jewish cemetery of the Province of Santa Fe and on November 27, the Jewish cemetery in the city of Posadas in the northern province of Misiones was vandalized.

Threat letters and phone calls to Jewish individuals and institutions were also recorded.

There were numerous cases of swastikas and other graffiti daubed on and near Jewish property, as well as on the streets and subways of Buenos Aires (see below). For example, the inscription “The World Monetary Fund=Star of David,” was scrawled on the home of Jewish citizen in Buenos Aires. A Buenos Aires rabbi found a large swastika drawn on his car, which was parked near his home, on 2 September.

Red paint was also splashed over the monument to Raoul Wallenberg in Buenos Aires in June 2003.

 

Discrimination and Antisemitic Expressions

Antisemitic prejudice was expressed in various sectors of Argentinean society: sport, the military, the police, the Church, and the university campus. The football stadium has often been the scene of antisemitic manifestations. For example, every time the Atlanta football team plays, antisemitic slogans are shouted from the stands because the team is located in a Jewish neighborhood and is therefore associated with Jews (although there is no Jewish connection whatsoever).

Another issue that had a major impact was the case of the president of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), Julio Grondona who, when asked on an TV program in July why there were no Jewish referees at football matches in Argentina, replied: “To be a judge is very hard work and Jews don’t like that kind of work.” The DAIA called for his prosecution under the anti-discrimination law.

            In the case of the army, an article published in the journal Infobae, on 13 August, stated that the chief of the armed forces, General Roberto Bendini, had claimed before a conference of army officers that Israeli citizens were planning to invade southern Argentina, a remark that recalled the 1971 Andinia Plan, a local version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (see ASW 1997/8). An investigatory commission was set up following protests from the DAIA and AMIA, but it concluded that the general had been misquoted by the press. The DAIA and the AMIA eventually accepted this explanation.

An antisemitic expression was also made by a former member of the legislature in the Province of Tucumán. Former congressman Ezequiel Avila Gallo accused the DAIA of working for the State of Israel. He was referring to the DAIA’s intervention on behalf of the elected governor of Tucumán, who is of Jewish descent, so that he might be exempted from swearing an oath on the New Testament during his inauguration ceremony (see ASW 2002/3).

The police were involved in a serious antisemitic incident. When a police officer stopped a driver and saw from his documents that he had a Jewish name, he told him that he was being arrested for soliciting sex in a public place. When the driver protested, the policeman replied: “You have to be a Jew; what party are you planning with children?” Another policeman who claimed to be chief of the squad, arrived, grabbed his arm and scoffed: “Who is going to pay attention to you at the police station?” when the driver threatened to report him.

There were several incidents of abuse of Jewish students on campus. In addition, at the inauguration of a new university college in the city of Bariloche in the south on 11 April a senior university official made a speech expressing empathy with Erich Priebke, a war criminal who was extradited from Argentina to Italy, where he was prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment for murdering Italian partisans (see ASW 1997/8).

 

Propaganda

Several antisemitic sites on the Internet disseminated antisemitic messages. The site deremate.com promoted sales of Mein Kampf. Another Internet site, mercadolibre.com, was selling Nazi paraphernalia. When INADI asked the operators to remove the advertisement, they refused on the grounds that the symbols were collectors’ items.

An extremely antisemitic message was left at the http//:gbooks1.melodysoft.com site in August. It read: “Those fellows with a beard and a kippa, which make them feel better than others and who complain about discrimination… complain about the Holocaust, while they torture and kill Palestinians… Hitler slaughtered very many of them but his error was to leave some of them alive; he should exterminate all of them and put an end to so much misery.”

On the listeners’ discussion radio program “De Rensi Informa” on Radio Splendid broadcast on 22 October, one person called in to say that he thought all the Jews in Argentina should be expelled, and that there were no Jews killed in the Malvinas/Falkland war “because Jews don’t love our country.” In response, the host told the listener to create a political party to advance his ideas.

A documentary film promoted by the newspaper Ambito Financiero and the BBC of London claimed that the Jews killed Jesus.

As noted there were many reports throughout the year of swastikas and antisemitic graffiti daubed in the streets and subway stations of Buenos Aires. For example, in spring, one such inscription, accompanied by a Star of David, read: “If we want them to leave the country, we have to throw them out.”

 

PUBLIC OPINION SURVEY

A telephone survey carried out by the Muraro polling institute in 2003 in Buenos Aires dealt with prejudice against Jews. Eighty-three percent of interviewees did not think Argentina would be a better country without Jews; 80 percent said that it would not be a problem if a member of their family were to marry a Jew; 47 percent said that they believed that there was antisemitism in Argentina; 60 percent said that they did not think that the Jews controlled the Argentinean economy; and 26 percent said that they did not believe that Jews were behind major financial organizations.

These results do not appear to change the picture formed following the 1992 Catterberg survey and the 2000 Gallup survey which demonstrated that antisemitism did exist in Argentina, but that the Jews were not the most discriminated group (see ASW 2000/1). The conclusion drawn by the DAIA from these surveys was that antisemitism was “of low intensity” but was present in certain segments of Argentinean society.

 

RESPONSES TO ANTISEMITISM

Court Cases

Complaints lodged by the DAIA have led to several trials against the perpetrators of antisemitic events and expressions. For example, the trial has begun of a man who placed a bomb in the home of a Jewish psychologist. She had been the victim of several telephone threats at her own home and at that of her parents, and of a home-made bomb in her university department.

            After a protracted trial which began in 1996, ex-General Suarez Mason was convicted and sentenced to 3½ years imprisonment in 2003 for antisemitic statements he made in the journal Noticias in November 1995.

 

The Amia Case

From 24 September 2001, when the oral, public proceedings investigating the 1994 terrorist attack on the AMIA community center began, to early 2004, 1,500 testimonies were heard. Of the five principal locals accused, one civilian, Carlos Alberto Telleldin, and three policemen, were jailed for life for being principal accomplices in the attacks. A fifth policeman was given 20 years for being a minor accomplice.

The oral proceedings also focused on other aspects of the attack, such as the terrorists who planned the crime, the kind of explosives used, organizing the placing of the explosive in the car and the international connection.

The chief judge, Juan Jose Galeano, was suspended from the case after it was discovered that he had allegedly paid 400,000 dollars to Carlos Alberto Telleldin to provide more details for the investigation.

Much hope for a resolution of this trial has been placed in President Nestor Kirchner, whose administration projects a cleaner image than that of previous heads of state.