As the Israel-Iran conflict escalates and will surely make new headlines in the following days, Tel Aviv’s ultra-Orthodox government vowed to respond to Tehran’s last weekend attacks. Meanwhile, in Argentina, President Javier Milei faces growing criticism for “emphatically” supporting Israel -when not even the United States expressed such effusiveness– and giving up on the country’s historical no-alignment position regarding third countries’ conflicts.
Israel stated on Monday that the country vows to respond to Iran’s attacks, without providing details as to when and how, while world leaders urge Tel Aviv not to retaliate, in an attempt to prevent a spiral of violence in the Middle East.
The Argentinian statement
As world leaders try to calm the waters to prevent the conflict from going full-scale and turning into a new World War, in Argentina many voices raised to criticize Milei’s statement of support to Israel.
Milei interrupted an international tour and returned urgently to Argentina to lead the meeting of a so-called crisis committee, bearing in mind the new threats between the two age-old enemies.
The meeting took place on Sunday evening and the Israeli ambassador in Argentina, Eyal Sela, was present, an unprecedented situation that did not go unnoticed to diplomats, political leaders and the media, even those supposedly aligned with the President.
Milei declared that the Israeli ambassador merely offered an introduction regarding the conflict in the Middle East, but he omitted that Sela recorded an official message and that the presidential press team had said he was part of the “meeting” held on the first floor of Casa Rosada, according to Clarín newspaper.
Growing Criticism
Immediately after the meeting, several voices raised to criticize the President for the recklessness of aligning Argentina to Israel, which would practically expose the country to the attacks of Tel Aviv’s enemies, like it happened in the 1990s when the Israeli Embassy and AMIA, a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, were the target of terrorist attacks.
Among the many critical voices, one that stood out was Diego Guelar’s. Guelar was Argentina’s ambassador in China under the Macri administration and has vast diplomatic experience, since he was also ambassador in the United States twice.
“There are no reasons” to take a pro-Israeli stance, Guelar said and reminded that “in terms of historical politics, Argentina has recognized the Palestinian embassy” just like Israel’s, so the country should maintain “a message of peace and a perspective of negotiation between both states” in Jerusalem.
“There is currently an open war between Iran and Israel, a declared war”, Guelar said and underlined that the conflict could lead one or both contenders to use nuclear weapons. “We don’t know if Iran has nuclear weapons, but Israel does”, he stated.
Former presidential candidate and leader of Frente Patria Grande, Juan Grabois, was also critical of Milei’s position and emphasized the danger of “having a war between two world powers on our land”.
“Milei continues to put his ideological and personal prejudices above the interests of our nation. We don’t want to have a war between world powers on our land. We already have enough problems dealing with this planned poverty”, he said.
Lastly, the Argentinian Association of Jurists also criticized the President for “seriously distorting reality” when he supported Israel’s right to defend itself without taking into account Israel’s attack against the Iranian consulate in Syria on April 1, “or the attacks against the Israeli embassy and AMIA in our country”.