Cristina Kirchner’s Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theory

In a recent article, complemented by a series of tweets, Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner laid out the theory that the state prosecutor Alberto Nisman, tasked with investigating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center, was murdered by a Jewish conspiracy aligned against her. Her theory involves an American Jewish investor engaged in a longstanding dispute with Argentina over unpaid debts, a Washington think tank, and Argentina’s central Jewish communal organization. Ben Cohen writes:

In common with many of today’s anti-Semitic rants, Kirchner didn’t mention the word “Jew” in either her article or in a bizarre series of tweets. . . . But the underlying meaning was crystal clear.

Given the flimsy connections [that tie together Kirchner’s theory]—grounded not on concrete evidence but on the anti-Semitic assumption that Jews who involve themselves in international affairs do so with a hidden agenda—it is hardly surprising that Nisman’s case against the Argentine government has been summarily dismissed in the wake of his death. Yesterday, the pro-Kirchner prosecutor Javier de Luca announced that he would not be pursuing Nisman’s complaint against the government. For good measure, de Luca added that German Moldes, another prosecutor who argued that Nisman’s complaint merited a federal investigation, was a “gangster.”

Read more at Tower

More about: Alberto Nisman, AMIA bombing, Anti-Semitism, Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, Politics & Current Affairs

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF