Anti-semitic Campaign Stepped Up

Argentine Jews are seriously concerned over an allegedly Arab-financed anti-Semitic campaign using slander characteristic of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to disrupt Argentina’s trade and other relations with Israel. The campaign surfaced last week with the appearance of leaflets claiming that “Zionist Jews” control virtually every aspect of the country’s business and cultural affairs and were plotting to dismember Argentina. The leaflets were produced by Walter Berveraggi Allende a right-wing political figure.

According to the rightist weekly, Prensa Confidential, edited by Jorge Vago, the leaflets were financed by the new cultural attache of an un-named Arab Embassy and will be distributed commercially in the coming weeks by members of the “Verbum,” a local section of the French nationalist Catholic movement. Vago named Col. Juan F. Guevara, the former Argentine Ambassador to Colombia, as one of the most prominent members of the group. According to Vago, sources close to the “Israeli Agency” have expressed serious concern over the imminence of an anti-Semitic campaign worse than that of the Nazi era.

Vago claimed that behind the slander of Jews, the target is commercial relations between Argentina and Israel. This country is believed to be a staging area for the shipment to Israel of US war materials otherwise banned, according to Prensa Confidential. It mentioned the acquisition of large quantities of fighter bombers by Argentina for shipment to Israel. According to Vago, Washington has expressed dissatisfaction with the supply from Argentina of enriched plutonium for Israeli tactical missiles. The anti-Semitic campaign is intended to counteract “excessive pledges” toward Israel, Vago wrote.