The Palestinian embassy in Argentina engages in anti-Semitic activism

Smears, anti-Semitic statements and closeness to Hezbollah supporters in a country taken over by Iran.

The Palestinians should be grateful for Israel’s triumph in the 1967 Six-Day War, when it liberated Judea and Samaria from the Kingdom of Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which had been under military administration since 1948. From then on and in the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians had more from Israel than from the Arabs themselves for centuries.

Palestine is not a recognised state, but has embassies

Palestine lacks all the elements of statehood. It has no established and recognised territorial boundaries; its power is also fragmented between terrorist organisations such as Hamas and a decaying structure such as the Palestinian Authority led by the 87-year-old Abu Mazen, whose succession will generate a fierce internal war. There is also the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Jenin Brigades or Lion’s Den.

No one can claim that the money Palestinian leaders receive does not end up funding Hamas tunnels, rockets or attacks from Judea and Samaria.

The Palestinians, as a result of the dispersion of power, also do not have a government that unifies all the characteristics of any governmental apparatus. Although they have their administrative headquarters in Ramallah, the power in the Gaza Strip is increasingly seeking to encroach on Judea and Samaria under the patronage of Iran and Hezbollah, two of Israel’s closest enemies on its northern border.

Twenty-eight years have passed since the Oslo Accords and the Palestinians have unilaterally violated most of the points committed to in those accords. This violation has cost them almost three decades of receiving huge amounts of international humanitarian aid resources that have not improved the lives of the Palestinian people, but of Hamas leaders living in Qatar or Turkey. No one can claim that the money Palestinian leaders receive does not end up funding Hamas tunnels, rockets or attacks from Judea and Samaria.

The scourge of a decaying Palestinian Authority could create an upheaval within Israel, leaving those areas under Palestinian control now under the direct control of Hamas, which is ultimately Iran. Back to the question of the Palestinian state: they are not a country, but they have embassies around the world.

They are not just diplomats.

The Palestinian embassy in Argentina has very strong links with sectors of the left, in turn related to the dictatorships of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, through diplomatic officials such as Husni Wahed, who in reality hides his real surname, which is not Wahed, but Tirawi. His links with leaders who commit anti-Semitism, such as the case of the late Raúl Sandoval (close to Hezbollah) or Luis D’elía (accused by the murdered prosecutor Alberto Nisman in the pact of understanding with Iran in 2013), are shocking. Husni Wahed is currently in charge of the Palestinian diplomatic unit in Madrid, Spain.

Not only do they use institutional networks to promote defamations and distort the conflict in the Middle East, such as identifying Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, but they also promote communiqués with strong anti-Semitic content according to the IHRA definition that Argentina adopted in Resolution 114/2020. On 25 August, the Palestinian embassy in Buenos Aires issued an official communiqué complaining about Ben Gvir’s remarks and in a paragraph referring to Israel as an occupying power and denying the right to sovereignty. In the same communiqué they reject Israel’s right to exist in “any part of Palestine”.

A statement that could only have focused on criticising Itamar Ben Gvir’s remarks resulted in an anti-Semitic confrontation within a country that has adopted the IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism and breached the behaviour of a diplomatic unit that can give its opinion, but under no circumstances promote anti-Semitism and prejudice against Israel.

This embassy was also singled out a few years ago for having promoted a campaign of solidarity with the Palestinian people and for having called on citizens to become Palestinian citizens. In an unprecedented move with little legal support, leaders of the Argentinean left and alleged human rights organisations have been granted this nationality following a call by the Argentinean Committee of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an umbrella organisation for the Palestinian cause in the southern country.

Handing over Palestinian nationality in Buenos Aires in 2021
(https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2271550276315771&set=pcb.2271552416315557)

Statements denying Israel’s right to exist and promoting prejudice against the Jewish people are recurrent on the embassy’s social networks, which for some time now have served no function other than to be voices amplifying anti-Semitism. On 18 May the embassy again referred to Israel as “the occupying power” and that Jews have no sovereignty over “any” part of Jerusalem. Then there are the distorting statements about Israeli operations in Gaza or Judea and Samaria that are far from the truth.

Husni Wahed and Saul Sandoval of the pro-Palestinian organisation Envar El Kadri
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1569410759757853&set=t.100000668335376&type=3)

Saul Sandoval, Hezbollah supporter in Argentina wearing terrorist insignia
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1138126966219570&set=t.100000668335376&type=3)

Argentina, like other Latin American countries, has been suffering for years from the interference of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah. Mosques such as At Tauhid in Flores continue today to contain people whose social networks express support for Hezbollah, committing the crime of promoting terrorism since the Lebanese organisation was declared a terrorist organisation in the country in 2019. The situation in the north of Argentina with drug trafficking groups and their links with Hezbollah in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, are extremely alarming.