Earlier this month, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who had served as president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015, was sworn in as the country’s vice-president—an office that will likely protect her from prosecution for various charges of corruption. Some of these charges relate to her government’s attempts to help Iran avoid repercussions for its role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in exchange for access to oil and economic support. Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz write:

On January 18, 2015, the day before the special prosecutor for the AMIA investigation, Alberto Nisman, was due to present his findings of Kirchner’s alleged cover-up to the Argentine congress, he was found brutally murdered in his apartment. . . . The charges against Kirchner for this episode included “treason against the homeland,” punishable by up to 25 years in prison. But there is now serious doubt that the case will go to trial.

When [the former president Mauricio] Macri originally took over from [Kirchner] at the end of 2015, he sought to improve . . . relations with the West by strengthening intelligence ties and voiding the memorandum of understanding [Kirchner had concluded] with Iran. It had called for a joint Iranian-Argentine investigation of the Jewish-center bombing—despite the fact that Nisman had provided evidence that it was Iran’s most senior officials who planned and ordered the attack.

Macri also went a step further by launching a proper investigation into Nisman’s death, one that determined the prosecutor was in fact assassinated for investigating the AMIA bombing (and didn’t commit suicide, as Kirchner’s government was initially quick to claim after his body was discovered). On July 18, 2019, the 25th anniversary of the AMIA bombing, Macri’s government formally declared Hizballah—which had executed the bombing as Iran’s proxy—a terrorist entity.

Despite reports that it was considering reversing this decision, the new government has decided not to. Still, note Dubowitz and Dershowitz, “the message has been sent that Hizballah can likely count on weak, if any, enforcement against its activities in the region.” But there is a sliver of good news: Buenos Aires is eager for American economic support, which gives Washington leverage that can be used to pry it away from Tehran.

On Friday, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli police officer and was then shot by another officer after trying to grab his rifle. Commenting on the many similar instances of West Bank-based terror during the past several months, Amit Saar, a senior IDF intelligence officer, predicted that the violence will likely grow worse in the coming year. Yoni Ben Menachem explains the Islamic Republic’s role in fueling this wave of terrorism:

The escape of six terrorists from Gilboa prison in September 2021 was the catalyst for the establishment of new terrorist groups in the northern West Bank, according to senior Islamic Jihad officials. The initiative to establish new armed groups was undertaken by Palestinian Islamic Jihad in coordination with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, implementing the strategy of Qassem Suleimani—the commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards who was assassinated in Iraq by the U.S.—of using proxies to achieve the goals of expansion of the Iranian regime.

After arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Iran moved in the last year to support the new terrorist groups in the northern West Bank. Iran has been pouring money into the Islamic Jihad organization, which began to establish new armed groups under the name of “Battalions,” which also include terrorists from other organizations such as Fatah, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. First, the “Jenin Battalion” was established in the city of Jenin, followed the “Nablus Battalion.”

Despite large-scale arrest operation by the IDF and the Shin Bet in the West Bank, Islamic Jihad continues to form new terrorist groups, including the “Tulkarem Battalion,” the “Tubas Battalion,” and the “Balata Battalion” in the Balata refugee camp.