[Polítics] On the 30th anniversary of the attack, Israel will once again accuse Iran of the bloody attack on the embassy in Buenos Aires

[Inkriql]

 

Next Thursday, around three in the afternoon, the bells of the Mater Admirabilis church will ring again, a few meters from the Buenos Aires corner of Arroyo and Suipacha, where thirty years ago a terrorist attack reduced the Israeli embassy to rubble in the country and left a balance of 29 dead and several dozen wounded.

Three decades after that attack, the first of its kind in the history of our country, a high-level delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Gideon Saar will participate in the memorial service that day, in the dry square erected at the site of the attack and together to relatives of the victims. In the presence of government officials-the Minister of Justice, Martín Soria, the Deputy Foreign Minister Pablo Tettamanti and the Secretary of Worship, Guillermo Oliveri-the delegates of the Hebrew State will renew the request for Justice and will once again blame Iran and the Hezbollah armed militia for the attack, which ended up being a mournful antecedent of the attack on the AMIA, which two years later sowed death and horror in the heart of downtown Buenos Aires.

 

Saar, one of the key men in the Israeli government, will be received by President Alberto Fernández before the event, and will also visit Congress, where he will be received by the head of the Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Massa, and will meet with leaders of Together for the Change, according to sources from the organization of the visit.

“The attack on the Israeli embassy, as well as the AMIA, are two open wounds for Israeli society and especially for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are still waiting for justice, we know who was responsible, who sent the terrorists from Tehran, and who carried it out, the Hezbollah terrorist organization,” Lior Jaiat, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told LA NACION.

 

“Each year that passes, the lives lost and the certainty that those responsible are not brought to justice never cease to be in our minds. As a diplomat that I was for several years in Argentina, I remember the dead and the wounded. For the Iranian government we are all targets of terrorism,” he added. In addition to Saar, who also holds the position of Minister of Justice, Miri ben Zeev, widow of Eli ben Zeev, one of the Israeli officials who died in the attack, a government representative and Israel's ambassador to the country, Galit Ronen.

Last year, it was Foreign Minister Felipe Solá who represented the Government at the commemorative act, which, like the one in 2020, was carried out in virtual format. Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero, who replaced him in September, will be able to attend, before he leaves for the Middle East on Saturday - he will go to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia - for a trade mission, along with a delegation of businessmen and governors.
Israel's claim

The renewed request for justice is related to a legal case paralyzed decades ago. In December 1999, the Supreme Court - which took up the case from the beginning because it was within its original jurisdiction - ruled that "the attack against the Israeli embassy in Argentina was organized and carried out by the terrorist group called Islamic Jihad, an arm armed Hezbollah."

It also ruled that the case should remain open to find and prosecute those responsible for the attack, something that is still pending more than twenty years later, despite the fact that the current Minister of the Court Ricardo Lorenzetti affirmed in 2015 that "the sentence for the The cause of the Israeli embassy was consented to by the parties, so that we as a court cannot modify what has already been accepted and is res judicata”, said the then president of the high court.
Ricardo Lorenzetti, minister of the Supreme Court, said in 2015 that the sentence for the attack on the Israeli embassy was "consented to by the parties" Justice
Ricardo Lorenzetti, minister of the Supreme Court, said in 2015 that the sentence for the attack on the Israeli embassy was "consented to by the parties" Justice Fabián Marelli

Israel's singling out of Iran as the intellectual author of the attacks makes the Argentine government uncomfortable and comes at a time when Russia's invasion of Ukraine reconfigures part of the political board. Iran, an ally of Moscow, is today an alternative source of oil in the face of the US embargo against Vladimir Putin. While Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Benett is trying to mediate to stop the conflict (he met with Putin), the Iranian government is trying to take advantage of this favorable circumstance and has already asked the United States to lift sanctions against two accused and wanted by Interpol for the attack on the AMIA.

They are the former foreign minister of Iran Ali Akbar Velayati and the current vice president Mohsen Rezai, whose presence at the recent act of resumption of Daniel Ortega as president of Nicaragua led to a diplomatic scandal and the renewed request for the resignation of the opposition against ambassador Daniel Capitanich, who was in the same act and did not notify the chancellery.

“Sending a minister of such significance to Argentina demonstrates the importance that Israel assigns to the commemoration of the attack. Despite the years that have passed, we continue with the memory and with the request for justice”, concluded Jaiat.