1.

In Argentina in the 1970s hundreds of young Jewish people were kidnapped, tortured and murdered because  they adhered to one of the revolutionary branches of Peronism or Marxism, because they were in contact with someone who did or simply because the rabid antisemites in  the police and army saw being Jewish as necessarily being some kind of Bolshevik. 1n 2010 some of their murderers and tortures are having to answer for their acts in courts throughout the country. The  present government  deserves much credit for this as large sectors of society would prefer the crimes of the 1976 - 1983 dictatorship to be forgotten about.

2.

On the 18^th of July, 1994 85 people, almost all of them Jews, were murdered in a bomb attack on  the AMIA  Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in Buenos Aires. The government of Iran is suspected of being responsible and a number of Iranian citizens, including Iran’s current defense minister, are wanted by the Argentine courts in connection with the attack. The official position of the Argentine government is that it supports the demand for their extradition.

3.

President Bashir al-Assad of Syria has just visited Buenos Aires. He was dined, if not wined, by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The diplomatic love-in with Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world wasn’t spoiled by any mention of dead Jews. In today’s edition of Pagina/12, a national daily and government mouthpiece, there appears a report by Santiago O’Donnell in which describes a press conference given by al-Assad and his own participation in it.

Under the headline “Secular, Modern and Multilateral” the young tyrant is presented as the very model of potable, progressive leadership. His lie about the existence of a flourishing Jewish community in Syrian is accepted at face value and his attempts to play down the Holocaust are described as a “stumble”. O’Donnell can’t bring himself to ask the obvious question about the Iranian fugitives so he asks instead about Syria’s relations with Hezbollah and gets a bromide in response. Right at the end O’Donnell excuses himself for not asking any questions about the totalitarian nature of al-Assad’s rule on the grounds that journalists rarely get access to leaders of such importance. The overall tone of the piece is one of mild fawning.

4.

Al-Assad’s visit, the warmth of the reception given to him by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the treatment given to  the Syrian leader by the government press are further evidence, if any was needed, that the present administration, just like the one before it, is in no way serious about securing the extradition of those suspected of the mass murder of Argentine Jews in the AMIA attack. The annual mouthing of a few words at the UN General Assembly about the importance of having the suspects extradited is just for the gallery and to please the representative organizations of the local Jewish community.

5.

The slaughterers of Argentine Jews whose deaths can be inscribed in a narrative of revolutionary social and political struggle are being prosecuted by the courts, in large measure due to the efforts of the present government. The same government warmly embraces the closest friends of the  likely slaughterers of Argentine Jews who were murdered just for being Jewish.