Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei for leading the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) allegedly orchestrated by Iran through its proxy, Hezbollah.
Herzog also thanked the presidents of Uruguay and Paraguay, Luis Lacalle Pou and Santiago Peña respectively, for “coming together and sending a clear and important message to their region and the world” in demanding justice for the attack, which remains unpunished.
“Thank you for standing in solidarity with the Israeli people as we continue to face the threat of terror and hatred,” Herzog said in a social media post on Thursday.
President Milei and members of the Argentine government accompanied AMIA representatives, members of the Jewish community in Argentina, and families of the victims on Thursday morning to mark the 30th anniversary of the July 18, 1994, terrorist attack against the Jewish community center.
On that day, a group of terrorists from the Shiite jihadist organization Hezbollah allegedly drove a van filled with explosives into the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and leaving hundreds injured. The AMIA bombing was preceded by the 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, when Hezbollah allegedly carried out a similar suicide bombing that left 29 dead and 242 injured.
The 1994 AMIA bombing is the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history and was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the Western Hemisphere prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
AMIA’s president Amos Linetzky spoke at the commemoration, questioning why Argentina’s legal system had not been able to find the culprits of the attack.
“It seems unbelievable that 30 years have passed since that cold morning. 30 years without a single person answering for this attack,” Linetzky said. “30 years in which the Argentine State looked the other way, full of patience, delays and mistakes.”
Linetzky also criticized Argentine lawmakers for not modifying the laws to fight terrorism and the socialist government of Bolivia for signing military agreements with Iran despite the fact that six Bolivian citizens died in the attack.
While it was largely believed that Hezbollah executed both attacks on behalf of Iran, numerous local prosecutors, officials, and judicial proceedings working throughout 30 years failed to produce a definitive ruling bringing to justice those responsible.
Iran’s deep ties to the administration of socialist former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who served from 2007 to 2015, and to her predecessor and late husband President Néstor Kirchner, who served from 2003 to 2007, are also believed to have resulted in a lack of justice. During her administration, Fernández de Kirchner had Argentina sign a “memorandum of understanding” with Iran that granted Iran authority over the AMIA bombing investigations — effectively allowing Iran to investigate itself.
Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman accused Fernández de Kirchner of helping Iran cover up its involvement in the terrorist attack in exchange for beneficial trade deals. Nisman was found dead of a gunshot wound on January 18, 2015, hours before he was slated to testify to Congress with his findings against Fernández de Kirchner. Kirchner’s administration ruled Nisman’s death a “suicide.”
The president who succeeded Fernández de Kirchner, Mauricio Macri, rescinded the Iran memorandum of understanding. While the AMIA cover-up investigations continued in the years after Nisman’s death, the case was controversially dismissed in 2021.
In April 2024, Argentina’s Federal Criminal Cassation Court finally ruled to formally declare both Iran and Hezbollah responsible for the 1994 AMIA bombing and the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina, opening the way for the Argentine executive government to present a formal complaint at international courts against Iran.
Prior to Thursday’s 30th anniversary of the AMIA bombing, Milei was joined by Uruguay’s Luis Lacalle Pou and Paraguay’s Santiago Peña at an event hosted by the World Jewish Center in Argentina. All three heads of state made calls for justice for the victims of the AMIA bombing.
During the event, Milei stressed that the 30th anniversary of the AMIA bombing also marked “three decades of impunity, of smokescreens and crude maneuvers by shady characters to cover up one of the worst atrocities in our history.”
“Today we choose speech, not silence. We choose to raise our voices, not to lower our arms,” Milei said. “Ultimately, we choose life, because we know that anything else is playing into the hands of death.”
Milei also compared both attacks to the Jihadist terrorist organization Hamas’ October 7 terrorist siege on Israel. Last week, Argentina formally declared Hamas a terrorist organization.
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña, who described the AMIA bombing as “cowardly, perverse, and cruel,” reiterated his decision to move his country’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem while stressing that Paraguay “is on the right side of history” by siding with “the great Jewish people.”
Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou made calls to support the fight against antisemitism and terrorism, pointing out, “If a ruler does not love his neighbor as himself, he will surely not fulfill his purpose and will have neither the tools nor the legitimacy to strongly oppose acts of terrorism.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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