(Buenos Aires) -- 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
-Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV
commentator in Argentina. <http://www.asalbuchi.com.ar>www.asalbuchi.com.ar
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