A lack of resolve following the 1992 bombing of Israel’s Embassy might be what
led to the even deadlier attack two years later at the Buenos Aires Jewish
community center, a senior Foreign Ministry official told Argentina’s ambassador
on Tuesday.
Yitzhak Shoham, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy
director-general for Latin America, summoned ambassador Atilio Norberto Molteni
to protest Buenos Aires’s decision to establish a “truth commission” with Iran
to investigate the 1994 Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) bombing
that killed 85 people, and wounded hundreds more. The bombing at the Israeli
Embassy killed 29.
“A lack of resolve in dealing with terrorism sends a
message of weakness,” Shoham said.
“Had Argentina dealt resolutely with
the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy, the 1994 AMIA bombing might not have
happened.”
Shoham said that Israel was “astonished and disappointed” at
the Argentinean government’s decision to collaborate with Iran after its
“responsibility for the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center was exposed
by the investigation conducted by the Argentinean authorities
themselves.”
Shoham also protested “the unacceptable attitude of the
Argentinean government towards Israel since the beginning of contacts between
Buenos Aires and Tehran.”
Shoham said that although the Argentinean
authorities themselves exposed the “great resemblance” between the attacks and
the involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in carrying them out, “Argentina has not
responded to Israel’s legitimate requests to be informed of its new diplomatic
moves with Iran, nor of the way in which Argentina envisages bringing the
perpetrators to justice.”
Shoham said that Argentina’s behavior in this
affair was “particularly disappointing” given the “intimate relationship to
which Israel is accustomed with Argentina, a very friendly country.”
The
“truth commission” agreement was signed on Sunday in Addis Ababa by Iranian
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman
who were attending an Organization of African Union summit.