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<h1 id="reader-title">Israel and Paraguay: Two Peas in a
Counterterror Pod?</h1>
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<p itemprop="description alternativeHeadline"
class="subtitle">September 20, 2016<br>
</p>
<p itemprop="description alternativeHeadline"
class="subtitle">Israel and Paraguay are working together
to fight Hezbollah – in South America's Tri-Border Area?</p>
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<p>While attending the 2009 General Assembly of the
Organization of American States in Honduras,
then-Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon <a
href="http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2009/Pages/Deputy_FM_Ayalon_interviews_Latin_America_3-Jun-2009.aspx">sounded
the alarm</a>: “We know that there are flights from
Caracas via Damascus to Tehran.” </p>
<p>Although flight routes by now have presumably been
altered on account of the war in Syria, the possibility
of air travel between Latin America and Iran continues
to serve as one of the pillars of alleged evidence that
the Islamic Republic has “<a
href="https://www.amazon.com/Irans-Strategic-Penetration-Latin-America/dp/0739182668">penetrated</a>”
the Western Hemisphere with its usual aims of bringing
destabilization and terror to the United States’ “<a
href="http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/fpi-bulletin-iran-renews-ties-latin-america">doorstep</a>.”
</p>
<p>Other bits of “proof” of nefarious meddling include the
fact that Iran happens to maintain various <a
href="http://english.aawsat.com/2016/08/article55357188/joseph-humire-irans-embassies-latin-america-function-intelligence-centers">embassies</a>
and cultural centers in the region. Never mind that the
Iranians are not the ones penetrating Organization of
American States meetings — or that Ayalon himself
proclaimed in regard to Israel’s diplomatic history:
“(We) have had embassies in Latin America, more
embassies here than we had in many other parts of the
world, even though the distance is great.” </p>
<p>A few years back I paid a visit to the Iranian embassy
in La Paz, Bolivia, portrayed in traditional propaganda
as a terror command and control center <a
href="http://www.washdiplomat.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8197:is-irans-latin-tour-of-tyrants-just-a-desperate-flyby-for-friends&catid=1483&Itemid=428">guarded
by</a> the Quds Force, an elite division of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. As of 2012, it
consisted of a house with a yard and a female Bolivian
receptionist. The Quds Force had managed to disguise
itself as a solitary Bolivian policeman. </p>
<p>And while the Israelis and their backers in the U.S.
insist on casting as potentially apocalyptic in nature
each and every diplomatic and economic maneuver in the
hemisphere by Iran and other Shia entities, Israel
barges ahead with its own perfectly acceptable forms of
hemispheric conquest. </p>
<p>In early September, the Jerusalem Post <a
href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Jlem-acknowledges-cooperation-with-Paraguay-against-Hezbollah-operating-in-tri-border-area-467141">announced</a>
the opening of a new-and-improved Israeli embassy in the
Paraguayan capital of Asunción. “After Colombia,” the
article notes, “Paraguay is considered Israel’s closest
friend in South America,” having persevered by Israel’s
side during tough times such as the summer 2014 Israeli
assault on the Gaza Strip known as Operation Protective
Edge. </p>
<p>According to the United Nations, the 50-day affair
killed <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/22/the-u-n-report-on-israels-gaza-war-what-you-need-to-know/">2,251
Palestinians</a>, among them 551 children. Of course,
regular bouts of slaughter haven’t propelled Israel onto
the <a href="http://www.state.gov/j/ct/list/c14151.htm">list</a>
of U.S.-designated “state sponsors of terrorism,” an
honor reserved for places like — you guessed it — Iran.
</p>
<p>The Jerusalem Post goes on to mention other instances
of Paraguayan solidarity with the Jewish state, as in “a
very significant vote in the (International Atomic
Energy Agency) last September that would have forced
Israel to open its nuclear facilities to international
inspectors.” </p>
<p><span><strong>What was that about Iranian nuclear
obstinacy? </strong></span> </p>
<p>But back to Asunción. An Israeli Foreign Ministry <a
href="http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2016/Pages/Official-opening-ceremony-of-Israel%27s-new-embassy-in-Paraguay-held-in-Asuncion-5-September-2016.aspx">press
release</a> about the opening of the new embassy
offers some clues as to what Israel is up to in Paraguay
aside from buying meat and providing “risk-prevention
systems” to a massive hydroelectric power plant. </p>
<p>The third paragraph of the press release specifies that
“Israel cooperates with Paraguay in the battle against
terrorism and maintains a supportive role in actions
against Hezbollah at the tri-border region.” </p>
<p>This region — the Tri-Border Area where Argentina,
Brazil, and Paraguay meet — has long been hyped as an
epicenter of Shia Islamic terror consisting of militant
training camps, rampant drug trafficking and money
laundering operations, and even the Hezbollah-sponsored
“pirating of compact disks,” as Jeffrey Goldberg <a
href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/10/28/in-the-party-of-god-2">wrote
in The New Yorker</a> in 2002 as part of what appeared
to be an extended hallucinatory fit. </p>
<p>When in 2013 I visited Ciudad del Este in the
Paraguayan section of the Tri-Border Area, superior
officer José Almada of a Paraguayan special forces unit
created specifically to investigate such accusations
told me that no evidence of terrorist cells had thus far
turned up despite regular encouragement from the U.S.
intelligence community. </p>
<p>In Ciudad del Este I also spoke with the elderly imam
of a mosque who hailed from the south Lebanese village
of Houla, which has been on the receiving end of Israeli
penetration ever since October 1948, when Zionist forces
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-security-zainab-fawqi-sleem-and-question-lebanon/6396">massacred</a>
scores of villagers just months after the establishment
of the state of Israel. </p>
<p>The imam was visibly horrified by the idea that the
border area’s sizable Arab expat population could be so
easily marketed as militant hordes. It bears mentioning
that Israel’s regular destruction of Lebanon itself
constitutes one possible reason for Lebanese emigration,
since it’s often easier to do business when you’re not
being bombed. </p>
<p>Alas, there is room for neither logic nor empathy in
the campaign to convert the Islamic Republic and its
allies into a direct threat to the Western hemisphere
and thereby justify future bellicosity. </p>
<p>According to the Jerusalem Post, an Israeli official
has acknowledged that counterterror collaboration
between Israel and Paraguay in the Tri-Border Area has
been going on for years: “Israel’s support for Paraguay
in the area takes the form of intelligence cooperation,
the official said, without elaborating.” </p>
<p>And while Paraguay stands little chance of ousting
Colombia as Israel’s regional BFF — the current
Colombian president has, after all, <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/2012157415226260.html">boasted</a>
of being “the Israelites of Latin America” — Paraguayan
President Horacio Cartes has put a lot into the
relationship, particularly during his recent visit to
Israel. </p>
<p>The Times of Israel <a
href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/paraguays-president-tells-netanyahu-we-had-our-own-holocaust/">reported</a>
that Cartes not only brought up the “Holocaust” faced by
his own nation in the 1800s, but also made the following
pledge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “I
want our countries to be much closer because we share
principles and values.” </p>
<p>To be sure, both countries appear to share a <a
href="https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553">strong
commitment</a> to the tradition of <a
href="http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11401">indigenous
dispossession</a>. </p>
<p>As for other “principles,” a separate Jerusalem Post <a
href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Paraguayan-President-rare-ally-in-South-America-arrives-for-visit-460635">article</a>
on Cartes’ visit notes that the Paraguayan leader “was
assisted in his 2013 election campaign and during his
first 100 days in office by an Israeli-based consultant
firm called 3H Global,” founded by former Netanyahu
chief of staff <a
href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Who-really-is-Ari-Harow-462092">Ari
Harow</a>. </p>
<p>Apparently, Cartes arrived to Israel “just days after
(Harow) was questioned by police… and placed under house
arrest for five days”—reportedly as part of a police
investigation into <a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/benjamin-netanyahu-money-laundering-investigation-israel-prime-minister-a7130991.html">money
laundering accusations</a> against Netanyahu &
Co., as well as possible financial discrepancies in the
sale of 3H Global. </p>
<p>Cartes himself, meanwhile, was described in a <a
href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10BUENOSAIRES5.html">leaked
cable</a> from the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires in
2010 as the head of an “organization believed to launder
large quantities of United States currency generated
through illegal means, including through the sale of
narcotics, from the TBA (Tri-Border Area) to the United
States.” </p>
<p>All the more reason, presumably, to shift the blame for
illicit Tri-Border Area activity to other parties. </p>
<p>Looks like Paraguay and Israel will make one hell of a
team. </p>
<p><em>Belén Fernández is the author of “<a
href="http://www.versobooks.com/books/1024-the-imperial-messenger">The
Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work</a>,”
published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at <a
href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/">Jacobin</a>
magazine.</em> </p>
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