Argentina has reportedly designated Hamas as a terrorist organization and has ordered to freeze all the financial assets of the palestinian groups. In a most symbolic action, the country’s far right president Javier Milei seeks to align Argentina strongly with the US and Israel.
Announcing the decision, Milei’s office cited that the attack by a Palestinian terrorist group on Israel on October 7 last year, which killed 1200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages, was the deadliest attack in Israeli’s 76 year history.
The statement also mentions Hamas’ close ties to Iran, which Argentina blames for two deadly terror attacks on Jewish sites in the country.
On his first state visit as president in February, Milei flew to Jerusalem in a show of support for the Israeli government and promised to move his nation’s embassy to the contested capital – drawing praise from Netanyahu and criticism from Palestinians.
Although Milei was raised a Roman Catholic, he feels a strong spiritual connection to Judaism. He strongly supports Israel and compared the October 7 attacks to the Holocaust, calling them “21st-century Nazism.”
Argentina and Nazi War
After World War II, Argentina became a haven for many Nazi war criminals and SS soldiers fleeing prosecution in Europe. The Argentine government under President Juan Perón actively collaborated with Nazi smuggling operations, known as “ratlines”, that helped prominent Nazis escape to Argentina .
Specific Nazi war criminals and SS soldiers who fled to Argentina include:
- Hans-Ulrich Rudel, an SS officer who started an organization called “Kameradenwerk” to help other Nazi fugitives escape
- Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon”, who was helped by the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps to flee to Bolivia and then Argentina
- Dinko Šakić, a Croatian Ustashe concentration camp commander who fled to Argentina in 1947
- Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp, who fled to Brazil and then Argentina
The small town of La Falda in the Córdoba province of Argentina was particularly known as a haven for Nazis, with some even claiming that Adolf Hitler himself spent time there in hiding 4. Overall, Argentina’s collaboration with Nazi war criminals and SS soldiers was a dark chapter in its history
