At the foot of the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, Argentine President Javier Milei hugs his rabbi while sobbing. He then places his palms on the stone and kisses it.
For most heads of state traveling to Israel, a visit to the Jews’ holiest site is little more than an obligatory photo opportunity. But Milei, with his eyes closed and dressed in a kippah – the round cap that covers her head – seemed to be in a trance.
The eyes of many Argentine Jews moistened at that scene. Many others, however, were invaded by restlessness.
Milei, a libertarian who was raised Catholic, has gone further in his support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than any other leader as the right-wing premier’s government faces growing diplomatic isolation. Even the United States, his main ally, questioned during Israel’s war against the Islamist group Hamas the actions that ended the lives of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.
Since Milei took office in December, his alignment with Israel has led to differences with leftist governments in the region such as those of Chile and Bolivia. It also generated a rift in the Jewish community in its country, since sectors of the center-left warn that its position could lead to another attack like those that destroyed the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992 and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) two years later. .
Both attacks, for which no one has been convicted, were attributed by the Argentine justice system to the Hezbollah group and Iran, a country that has systematically denied its link with the attacks.
Héctor Shalom, director of the Ana Frank Argentina Center, questioned that the country “is suffering from a certain leading vocation in the international concert that favors it very little.” He pointed out that “if it is necessary to hit the Jews” the South American nation would be more attractive due to the “decades of impunity” for the two attacks, which demonstrate its vulnerability.
Milei’s visit to Israel in February was the president’s first to a foreign country.
When remembering that moment in front of the wall alongside the president—whom he accompanied—Orthodox rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish felt “gratitude and pride” that in his country there was “such a determined leader with such deep spiritual values,” he told The Associated Press.
Wahnish, leader of the Latin Israeli Community Association of Buenos Aires, was named Argentina’s ambassador to Israel where, as he explained, he will seek to strengthen Argentine support for the country that Milei considers a strategic ally.
Milei’s approach to Judaism – a religion to which, however, he has not yet converted – originated in 2021 when, as a media economist, he was accused of being anti-Semitic and sought advice to give a talk that proved the opposite. Wahnish was his advisor and over time guided him in Torah study.
Milei’s interest grew as he found points in common in that religion with his libertarian ideas.
“Within Judaism and in Moses, Milei sees it as a cultural and spiritual revolution toward freedom,” Wahnish explained. “He always tells me that (Moses) was his idol and his hero,” added the rabbi about the figure who freed the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt.
In May, during the commemoration in Buenos Aires of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto uprising (1943), Milei again repudiated the Hamas attack to Israel on October 7, criticized the countries that “turn a blind eye” to the Islamic group supported by Iran and asserted that “denouncing Islamic terrorism is an obligation, because without heroes we are defenseless in the face of an increasingly dark night.” .
“I look around me… especially at the leadership of the great nations that should be the pillars of freedom at a global level, and I see indifference in some and in others fear of standing on the side of the truth,” Milei said in allusion to Western governments that question Israel’s tactics.
The words drew applause from Jewish leaders who praised their unwavering support for the Israeli government.
The head of the AMIA, Amos Linetzky, defended Milei not being neutral in the face of “a group that kills civilians, rapes women and takes babies.”
Sofía Levita, an elderly woman attending the event, said she did not feel insecure about the president’s closeness to Netanyahu. ”I appreciate it and it seems to me that it is the correct position. And you don’t have to be afraid to say what you think is right.”
But on Saturday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – which brings together 57 countries and is considered the voice of the Muslim world – repudiated the “hostile” expressions made by Milei on various occasions, establishing an “association of terrorism with Islam”.
“They are incompatible with the mutual respect that characterizes the relations between the Argentine people and the Islamic peoples,” stated the general secretary of that organization.
These are gestures by the president that fuel anxiety. Since the attacks of the 1990s, the extensive Argentine Jewish community—the largest in Latin America—has lived in a state of alert that has worsened since October 7. For a time, students from Jewish schools stopped wearing uniforms so as not to be identified on the street. Synagogues still maintain extreme security measures.
For Diana Malamud, whose husband is one of the 85 victims of the AMIA attack, “this government is not mincing its words… that entails risks. “Those who suffer the risks are not precisely the politicians, but people on the street.”
The Argentine government has considered the recent decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to request the arrest of senior Israeli officials for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza to be wrong. He also opposed the project to declare the State of Palestine a full member of the United Nations.
Following in the footsteps of former US president Donald Trump (2017-2021), Milei has promised to move the Argentine embassy located on the outskirts of Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, provoking the condemnation of Hamas and the satisfaction of Netanyahu, who defines the Argentine as “a great friend of the State of Israel.”
The most critical question that, in parallel with his affinity with the Israeli government, the Argentine baselessly agitates the fear that Islamic groups are present in Latin America.
The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, said in April that Argentina has its alerts on due to the existence of Hezbollah cells in northern Chile and members of the Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran, in Bolivia, a country which in 2023 signed a defense agreement with the Iranian regime and broke relations with Israel.
The minister also stressed that “neutrality and “politically correct messages such as the call for peace” are not part of the Argentine position.
Chile and Bolivia denied Bullrich’s statements, which generated bilateral conflicts. The minister — who did not provide evidence of her statements — ended up apologizing to Chile, home to the largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East.
Critics of alignment with Israel maintain that Milei’s fervor for the Jewish religion should not influence foreign policy.
Pablo Gorodneff, secretary general of the progressive group Argentine Jewish Appeal, pointed out that one of the maxims of foreign policy is “do not get involved in a conflict that is not yours” and Milei “for this issue, on a sincere point… makes “This fable is believed, which I find quite dangerous.”
In contrast, Jorge Knoblovits, head of the Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations (DAIA), ruled out that the proximity with Israel will lead to a new attack on Argentine soil. “Everyone is exposed to terrorism. “It has affected different types of governments, from the left, from the right,” said the leader of the group that represents different Argentine Jewish institutions.
Milei’s devotion to Judaism was evident even before he became president. During his last proselytizing act, the sound of the shofar was heard in the background, a wind instrument preferably made from the horn of a ram that is blown in religious ceremonies. Throughout the campaign he cited the Torah and after being elected president in the November runoff he visited the New York grave of Menachem Mendel Schneerson—a revered rabbi—to thank him for his victory.
Nearly 4,000 Argentine artists and intellectuals of Jewish origin then repudiated “the political use” that Milei made of the texts and symbols of Judaism. They further stated that her references to the “aesthetic superiority of the right and the fight against cultural Marxism” should function as a “wake-up call for Jews and non-Jews, who are committed to peaceful coexistence and dialogue.”
Within the framework of its proximity to Israel, Argentina showed its fear about Iran’s potential aggressiveness.
Upon news of the first Iranian attack against Israeli territory on April 14, Milei interrupted a trip abroad and flew to Buenos Aires to convene a crisis committee together with the Israeli ambassador.
The US and Argentine intelligence services have been trying for years to prove the existence of potential terrorist cells supported by Iran on the triple border where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet.
In 2023, the United States sanctioned dozens of people and companies in Lebanon and South America for allegedly financing Hezbollah. In November of that year, two people were arrested in Brazil on suspicion of having been recruited and financed by said group to commit an attack.
Hezbollah denies any ties to the region. “What would Hezbollah want from Latin America?” he declared to AP his spokesperson Rana Sahili, who claimed that Milei is “playing a political game.”
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