Anti-Semites on the Pampas

From the Washington Post‘s editorial page of April 23rd (“Argentina’s President Resorts to Anti-semitic Conspiracy Theories“):.

WHAT DO lobbyists at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the director of a Washington think tank have to do with hedge-fund manager Paul Singer and the Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who diedmysteriously in January? Well, according to Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, they are all part of a “global modus operandi” that “generates international political operations of any type, shape and color.” They “ ‘contribute’ to financial attacks or simultaneous international media operations, or even worse, covert actions of various ‘services’ designed to destabilize governments.”

It is sad to hear the paranoid fantasies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion echoed in the words of any public figure. It is more disturbing still when that figure is the leader of a nation of 43 million people. It is positively horrifying when that leader is responsible for the lives and well-being of 300,000 Jews.

But it should, perhaps, not be surprising. The Germano – Argentine community was very proud of its support for the Third Reich during World War II, and was an important factor in keeping Argentina neutral during that conflict. Colonel Juan Peron and his successors were arguably sympathetic with the aims and methods of National Socialism, and there was no shortage of Nazi refugees who found their way to Argentina during Peron’s rule. Indeed, Argentina was without equal in serving as a haven for unrepentant Nazis after the war, and not rocket scientists or former Luftwaffe pilots, but the blood-drenched scum who made up the core of the Gestapo, the SS, and the other organizations who carried out die Endlösung der Judenfrage. We cannot ignore that the Argentine president is a scion of this community.

I say this not to cast aspersion, but to raise a flag: as we all contemplate what must be done to save the Jews of Europe from the resurgence of anti-Semitic hatred, let us not forget the Jews of Argentina.