This month marks the 30th anniversary of the devastating bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (Spanish initials: AMIA), a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina: 30 years of pain, 30 years demanding justice and 30 years of impunity.
Eighty-five people were killed in the attack and 300 were wounded. It was (and is) the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Argentina, targeting Latin America’s largest Jewish community (200,000 at the time of the attack). It was the largest-ever terrorist attack against a Jewish institution outside of Israel.
And it was orchestrated by Iran via its cat’s-paw Hezbollah.
In April 2024, Argentina’s second-highest court ruled that the “1994 attack in Buenos Aires was organized, planned, financed and executed under the direction of the authorities of the Islamic State of Iran, within the framework of Islamic Jihad.” The court also ruled that Iran had been responsible for the 1992 truck bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people.
Iran, the court said, is a “terrorist state” that had committed a “crime against humanity.” Shortly afterward, Argentina announced that it was seeking the arrest of Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, a key mastermind of the attack. Argentina had requested that Interpol issue a red notice for Vahidi’s arrest, which was granted.
The AMIA bombing revealed the Iranian regime’s true face.
Iran, under this regime, is not a legitimate country. Inspired by the ruthless messianic vision of its founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, it is driven by virulent, unappeasable hatred for the United States, which it calls the “Great Satan,” and Israel, regularly vilified as the “Little Satan.”
Hatred of Israel and Jews writ large binds and fuels the regime. Its chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” are not mere signaling; they are the vocalizations of deeply held convictions.
There is a straight line connecting Iran’s behavior in 1994 and 2024. Some of the faces and the names—though not all—have changed, but the essence of the regime has not.
Iran gave the green light for the Oct. 7 attacks, as The Wall Street Journal reported the day after. It was only possible through decades of Iranian financial and material support for Palestinian terrorist groups.
Iran’s greatest asset to this day is Hezbollah, which—in contravention of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701—maintains a formidable presence in southern Lebanon; much more formidable than Hamas’s presence in Gaza. Some experts estimate that its tens of thousands of fighters have an arsenal of between 150,000-200,000 rockets, which in any future conflict would overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Iran finances Hezbollah to the tune of $700 million a year and has historically provided $100 million annually to Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas. While the Iranian regime and Hezbollah are Shiite and Hamas is Sunni, all three put doctrinal issues to the side when it comes to Israel. Hatred of the Jewish state and Jews trumps all else.
The AMIA bombing was a warning shot across the bow, a sign of Iran’s deadly antisemitism and its murderous reach. It previewed how Iran continues to operate: through the cowardly use of proxies to do its dirty work.
And yet it was largely ignored. Investigations were dilatory and stymied.
In 2019, Carlos Menem, Argentina’s president at the time of the attack, was cleared of charges of conspiring to derail investigations; other officials who served under him received light sentences.
Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman formally charged Iran and Hezbollah with the bombing in 2006. Nine years later, Nisman accused Argentina’s then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of attempting to cover up the crime in return for Iranian oil. He was found dead the day before he was scheduled to testify.
While recent developments are to be commended and have been rightly lauded by Argentine President Javier Milei, it is sobering that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recently held the Argentine government responsible for failing to prevent the bombing and for covering up and stalling the investigation.
Adding to this troubling picture, a recent Israeli intelligence report reveals that part of the terrorist cell responsible for the attacks against the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the AMIA in 1994 now lives and operates in Brazil. Some individuals have settled permanently in the country or continue to run businesses there.
These situations reveal a harsh truth: Argentina, along with the United States, still stands as a victim of the violence of contemporary fundamentalist terrorism in the Americas.
As a partner organization of AMIA, the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) demands justice. We are outraged that 85 innocent people were murdered in cold blood and hundreds more wounded, yet no one has ever faced justice for it.
As we commemorate the 30th anniversary of this despicable attack, it is high time that they do.