No Israel does not care about Jews, even its own.
JVL Introduction
While it is not Israel’s job to protect Jews across the world whatever it claims, it might be reasonable to expect the so called Jewish State to protect its own Jewish (and non Jewish) citizens and not to actually contribute to harming Jews in other countries. Here Ben-Daniel describes the extent of Israel’s support for the brutal Argentinian Junta and its continued support even as they murdered a large number of Jews, proportionately twelve times as many as their presence in the population.
Of course, Israel’s support of far right and racist governments is not unusual, it was the main supporter of and supplied weapons to, the apartheid regime in South Africa and has happily hobnobbed with far right leaders such as Hungary’s Victor Orban. Here Ben-Daniel also links this history with the abandonment of the Israeli hostages and argues that “The government that sold arms to the murderers of Jews yesterday will also abandon Jews today”.
LL
This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Sun 31 Aug 2025. Read the original here.
October 7 Wasn't the First Time Israel's Government Abandoned Jews for Political Gain
Just like Hamas, the Argentine junta benefited from cooperation with right-wing Israeli governments. But unlike Hamas, it continued to benefit from those governments in the form of weapons and training, even after it was known that these weapons were being used to murder Jews.
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This is a very important article. It adds to our knowledge of what the Israeli state did. The final chapter of my book Zionism During the Holocaust is on Argentina. Over the years essence of what happened has become clear.
It should be borne in mind that the policy the Israeli state adopted was outlined by Ben Gurion when he differentiated between the needs of Jews and the Jewish State saying that in the event of a conflict the latter always takes priority.
This was true during the Nazi holocaust and during the Argentine holocaust.
Just one thing I disagree with the authors on. Hamas did not kill Israelis because they were Jews but because they were occupiers. The Junta killed Jews because they were Jews which makes the Israeli state even more despicable.
We should also bear in mind that there was no difference between Labour and Likud. Motta Gur and Haim Laskov were both from the Labour Zionist strand and when Begin took over in 1977 there was no change in policy.
Indeed ironically amongst those small group of MKs who did challenge Israel’s policy was Geula Cohen of the far-right Tehiya Party.
Tears come unexpectedly. I know about the Argentinian junta, the leftists thrown from planes, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. I didn’t know about the massively disproportionate number of Jewish victims – though it didn’t surprise me (I was brought up by working class East End secular leftwing Jews to believe that Jews had a proud history of standing up for those on the receiving end of racism and injustice) – but I didnt know about cynical Israeli complicity. And so I cried – not because Jewish victims of the murderous Argentinian government deserved more tears than others, but because of all that waste, all that commitment, all that pain and all that cynicism with which Israel has cemented itself into the souls of so many Jews, who cannot wrench themselves away from the fantasy of the security provided by the State which lords it over the promised land.
Its absolutely shocking, but not surprising: when we strip back the abuse of Jewish symbolism, remove the emperors clothes and see the “Israel” product in wider context – as a “Western” Capital extension of Imperialism, racism, apartheid, social, economic and political dominance – it represents the ultimate self-interests of the “Western” elite. Double Down News on September 5th published a video by Jewish Journalist, Katie Halper, in which she asserts “Israel are todays Nazis” [https://x.com/kthalps]. In her account she parallels those points made in the article above. Ultimately, “Israel” doesnt care about anyone, other than its ideological and political masters. Jews are seen being beaten up in Yaffa, by the Israeli police and military, because they are protesting the war on Gaza. With regards Jews knowingly being murdered in Argentina and the lies that covered it up, the current regime lies continuously about releasing “hostages”: its real goal, as we are all aware, is the extermination and expulsion of the Palestinian people. This actions of this fascist terrorist state is going to hang over Judaism for many decades. It is the true cradle of western antisemitism.
This is such an important article. I have always known about Israel’s behaviour during the time of the junta. But this article fills in the gaps and exposes the cynicism and contempt that the state has for the people it pretends to serve. However it is important not to gloss over the response of Jewish leaders. It is so shocking as is the response of the so called Jewish leadership. It is worth refelcting how the leadership of the Argentinian Jews attacked their own people while supporting the junta. This is no different from the leadership of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies who rejected Jewish anti-apartheid activists until the tide turned. And of course we only have to look at the disgraceful behaviour of the Jewish leaderships throughout the world in their eagerness to support Israel’s genocide while paying lip service to the lives of the Israeli captives.
Great article
I had never heard before that Jews formed such a large part of The Disappeared. Nor had I any idea that Israel made such a devil’s pact with the military dictators.
The same sort of apologists for policies like this still exist, like Stephen Pollard in UK, a deeply unpleasant neocon who claims that to say There is a genocide in Gaza is antisemitism.
So continues the deep disrespect of those who actually died in the 1940s, and since.
While the Argentinian Junta was killing Jews and other dissidents, during the Falklands war against the UK in 1982, the Israeli Prime minister, Menachem Begin gave Israeli military support to the Argentinian military. The evidence is that he was aware of what was happening to Argentinian Jews.
Regarding part of Diana Neslen’s comment, “It is so shocking as is the response of the so called Jewish leadership. It is worth reflecting how the leadership of the Argentinian Jews attacked their own people while supporting the junta. This is no different from the leadership of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies who rejected Jewish anti-apartheid activists until the tide turned”, I would add it’s no different, either, from the Jewish “community leaders” of Bucharest during the war, who sold out their fellow Jews to the Nazis in return for safe passage to Switzerland. (The selling-out consisted of not tipping their people off about the coming round-up and transportation to the death camps, in order to avoid a repetition of the Warsaw uprising).