Videla reserved special treatment for Jews, and among those kidnapped there were approximately 1300 Jews, significantly higher than their share of the population. They also received special treatment in terms of torture. There is a slight irony that this antisemitic ruler secured the fervent cooperation of the Israeli government. In late 1977 the Ambassador to Buenos Aires [Ram] Nirgad declared that "since the military junta came to power there has been an improvement in the relations between Israel and Argentina". Following the US arms embargo, 30 per cent of sraeli arms exports in those days went to Argentina, to the tune of $2 billion. In June 1981 there were 118 Argentine officers in Israel. A letter sent by the Israeli Embassy said that there is "no country in the world in which so many Argentine officers were staying simultaneously for the purposes of weapons procurement, training, etc.''
John Brown
John Brown was born in Argentina. (Translated from Hebrew by Sol Salbe )
Jorge Videla died [on Friday 17 May] Aged 87. He was the head of a military junta that murdered 30,000 Argentinians between the years 1976 and 1983. No one not crying today in Argentina, a few are celebrating and have offered chuck his body from a plane as a tribute to his own mode of operation.
Others are sad that he was not able to complete his 49-year prison sentence for his part in the torture, rape, kidnapping and murder of opponents of the fascist Right. I make do with the fact that he spent his last days his little cell in Marcos Paz jail knowing that the promise given to him by those whom he tortured, "Your own Nuremberg will come one day for you guys", has been kept in full. Which was unlike the rest of his blood-stained cohorts elsewhere in South America. He refused to take responsibility for his actions to his last day, and claimed that he acted against the left order to save the country. A month before he died he told an interviewer: "The goal of our coup was to impose discipline on a society that has turned into an anarchy. As far as the economic aspect is concerned we wanted to adopt a liberal market economy liberal. The industrialists told us 'do whatever you need to do' and afterwards they said that we should have killed many more".
Videla reserved special treatment for Jews, and among those kidnapped there were approximately 1300 Jews, significantly higher than their share of the population. They also received special treatment in terms of torture. There is a slight irony that this antisemitic ruler secured the fervent cooperation of the Israeli government. In late 1977 the Ambassador to Buenos Aires [Ram] Nirgad declared that "since the military junta came to power there has been an improvement in the relations between Israel and Argentina". Following the US arms embargo, 30 per cent Israeli arms exports in those days went to Argentina, to the tune of $2 billion. In June 1981 there were 118 Argentine officers in Israel. A letter sent by the Israeli Embassy said that there is "no country in the world in which so many Argentine officers were staying simultaneously for the purposes of weapons procurement, training, etc.''
This cooperation was not only limited to the supplying of weapons. In his book "Let my people go to hell" Marcel Zohar tells of Jews who were persecuted but the embassy refused to give them a visa to Israel because they were "too left-wing". One of the police officers who participated in torture called Peregrino Fernandez said that he received instructions how to deal with subversive elements from embassy counsellor Herzl Inbar (who later became Israel's Ambassador to Spain).
The most famous Jewish prisoner of the time Jacobo Timerman (the father of the current Argentine Foreign Minister) wrote: "I will forget my torturers, but I will never forget the Jewish leaders who acquiesced to the torture of Jews" (Timmerman was exiled to Israel but left after his son was imprisoned due to his refusal to participate the 1982 invasion of Lebanon).
That silence did not come easily, eight motions for discussion of those who disappeared in Argentina were rejected by Knesset Speaker Menachem Savidor in order not to impede the arms trade with the dictatorship. Shulamit Aloni has regaled that " at the time not only had they shut me up, but the late Knesset Member Yigal Horowitz threatened me not to dare open my mouth. It was at a time when the Israeli government was suppliying weapons to the brutal colonels who ruled Argentina and liquidated civilians en masse. On the fifth floor of the Knesset rooms sat parents whose children had disappeared and asked for something to be done. So I submitted an item to the order of the day's proceedings, and demanded a discussion. They didn't let me. I was promised that a discussion would be held on this matter at the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. To the best of my knowledge no discussion ever took place as I wasn't invited."
While the military regime criminals were tried one by one, those who assisted them, Americans and Israelis from Menachem Begin down the chain of command of greedy accessories to murder, have been, and still are, immune from prosecution for their role.
Three Jewish mothers whose children were kidnapped, wrote about this:
- Frieda Rosenthal's son was kidnapped on 31 August 1976: "The Church and the army apologised. We know that they were not sincere -- they wanted to match the spirit of the time but clearly they were not really sorry. But at least they pretended to. But 'our own' people', the Jewish community and the Israeli governments, didn't even do that much."
- Renee Applebaum who co-founded the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo organisation, and whose three children were kidnapped: "We did not want to know that our kids were murdered with Israeli weapons. We Remember the slap in the face that we received from the Jewish community leadership who told us then that what happened was our fault, as we didn't bring up our children as Zionists."
- Maria Gutman's son was kidnapped on 28 November 1976: "I'm not surprised at the hypocrisy and audacity of the Israeli authorities. Israel supported the dictatorship economically, politically and morally and armed it. Our children have underwent a twofold persecution: from the fascists in uniform and the Jewish fascists who armed the murders. When then Israeli Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Shamir came to Buenos Aires, he was unwilling to meet us. Shamir was a fascist and I oppose fascism. So did my son. I'm proud of my son's struggle, who was Jewish and may have been murdered by Israeli weapons.
John Brown
22 May 2013
Original in Hebrew was translated here
Read this article together with
Israel's Worldwide Role in Repression
Zionism in the Age of the Dictators
