“We did not know about the existence of this report until it was published in the New York Times”

Photo: AP Images

For years, the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people was believed to have been a terror operation carried out by the Iranian government. Now a New York Times report, bringing to light a dossier compiled by Israel’s Mossad, pins the blame instead on Hezbollah.

The report shocked the Argentinean Jewish community and threatens to upend the investigation of the bombing, one of the deadliest anti-Semitic terrorist attacks since World War II.

“It took us by surprise,” current AMIA president Amos Linetzky tells Mishpacha. “We did not know about the existence of this report until it was published in the New York Times.”

Linetzky adds, however, that it is still to early to accept the report as conclusive: “We should be cautious, because it is an internal report and not an official statement.”

Argentinean law enforcement agencies have been conducting their own investigations since the bombing occurred. The trail has offered some enticing leads, perhaps going all the way to the highest levels of the government. Most famously, prosecutor Alberto Nisman, a Jewish attorney, was about to present condemnatory findings to an Argentine congressional panel, but was found shot to death in his apartment the night before, in January 2015.

The main discrepancy between the Mossad report and the Argentinean investigation centers on the roles of a local connection and Iranian agents in the field. For more than 25 years, Argentineans have heard rumors about complicity of local officials and Iranian embassy staff who facilitated the attack. But against these widespread claims, the Israeli secret agency affirmed that the entire operation was carried out solely by Hezbollah agents.

Leftist activists seized on this discrepancy to try to cast doubts on the whole investigation. Many even tried to exonerate Iran completely, declaring that everything was orchestrated as part of an anti-Iranian campaign sponsored by American and Israeli interests.

“There are many who try to manipulate this information and twist it however they want, but the fact is that the report doesn’t deny the crucial role of Iran in the attack, and the Israeli government immediately made clear that there was a fundamental Iranian participation,” Amos Linetzky emphasizes. “The bombing was financed, planned, and designed by Iran. The only thing that the report points out is that the operation was carried out on the ground by Hezbollah members.”

And even pointing the finger at Hezbollah, Linetzky says, by extension implicates Iran. “We cannot ignore the fact that Hezbollah and Iran work jointly.”

Among the other important findings made by the Mossad are that the explosives were smuggled into Buenos Aires in shampoo bottles and chocolate boxes, and not purchased and assembled in Argentina, as the judicial investigation maintains;, and that the bombing occurred due to an internal failure at the Mossad. The dossier says the Mossad should have anticipated the attack, considering that two years earlier, in 1992, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was blown up, leaving 29 dead, in a very similar operation probably carried out by the same group.

Fear and Confusion

Amos Linetzky says that the Argentinean Jewish community’s main objective now is to make sure the shock to public opinion caused by this report doesn’t derail the whole investigation.

“The important thing right now is that the judges examine this new information and that the investigation continues,” he says. “We expect that the prosecutors will ask for the complete report from the Mossad, and will analyze how much it adds to the investigation.”

Linetsky says the impression should not be allowed to settle in the public mind that everything learned until now in the judicial investigations is suddenly invalidated. “It is not like ‘we don’t know anything’ about the bombing — there are many certainties, and international warrants have been accepted by Interpol,” he says. “The only thing we don’t have yet is justice, but we will keep on fighting for it, as hard as we have been for the last 28 years.”

The Mossad report comes to light during tense times for Argentinean Jews. In recent days, a Venezuelan plane carrying an Iranian crew was detained in Argentina, under very mysterious circumstances. The plane was supposed to be carrying spare automotive parts, but it was way too big for that task, and the crew of 17 was unusually large. Further investigations uncovered the fact that the plane had been sold to Venezuela by an Iranian firm accused by the US of having links with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“This case [with the plane] leaves us in fear and confusion,” Linetzky says. “The prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who turned up dead in his apartment while investigating AMIA’s bombing, had already alerted authorities about Iran’s intention to establish a terrorist network in Latin America, so we hope this won’t go unnoticed by the security agencies.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 922)