Netanyahu’s Argentine Dilemma Reinforces Just How Isolated He Has Become On the Global Stage

Javier Milei is desperate to declare Netanyahu an “honorary resident” of Argentina. But if the Israeli prime minister visits the South American country, he could face arrest. 

Argentina’s Javier Milei government is arguably the most vocal, unabashed supporter of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. As Eldar Mamedov writes in Responsible Statecraft, Argentina’s iron-clad alignment with Israel stems from Milei’s “ideologically Manichean worldview, framing global conflicts as a battle between absolute good (Israel/West) and evil (Iran/leftists)”:

Determined to be on the “right side of history,” he has visited Israel twice since taking office, including a trip in June 2025 just days before Israel’s strike on Iran. [NC: Just over a year ago, Milei reportedly said in an off-screen comment that Argentina “cannot be neutral in the Third World War.”]

Moreover, Milei’s devotion to Israel borders on the mystical — a Catholic who studies Kabbalah and offers tearful prayers at the Western Wall with rabbis, treating Zionism as both political ideology and personal spiritual awakening.

On Monday, Milei announced plans to use the $1 million in prize money he recently received from Israel’s Genesis Prize Foundation to launch a new nonprofit, the American Friends of the Isaac Accords (AFOIA), whose mission will be to build ties between Israel and Latin America.

Milei is also keen for Netanyahu to visit Argentina. In late July, the Jewish News Agency revealed that Netanyahu would soon travel to the South American country to meet with Milei after receiving an official invitation from the national government.

The invitation is intended as an expression of gratitude for Milei’s recent visit to Israel, where, in addition to meeting with Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, the Argentine president spoke in the Knesset to announce the transfer of Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem in 2026. Diplomatic and security channels have already begun to coordinate the logistics for Netanyahu’s visit which, according to Infobae, would take place in September.

However, the logistical challenges — in particular, the legal hurdles — could prove to be insurmountable. As La Politica Online (LPO) reports, the Israeli government is concerned about the  arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2024 for Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes in the Gaza Strip:

This opens up a can of worms for the Javier Milei government since Argentina is a member of the ICC and will have to comply with to that arrest warrant. State parties to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, have a duty to cooperate with the court.

Since the ICC does not have its own police authorities, it depends on the nation states for the execution of those orders. In this case, a judge should act despite the resistance of the executive branch.

The Rome Statute says that if this situation does not arise, a “finding of non-cooperation” could be applied. “Where, in contravention of the provisions of the present Statute, a State Party refuses to comply with a request for cooperation made by the Court, preventing it from exercising its functions and powers in accordance with the present Statute, the Court may make a finding to that effect and refer the matter to the Assembly of States Parties or the Security Council, if the latter had referred the matter to him,” details Article 87, paragraph 8 of the Statute.

Moves are already being made to try to prevent Netanyahu’s visit next month, or in the event that the visit takes place to ensure that he is immediately remanded in police custody. In recent days, two organisations from Argentina, ATE and H.I.J.O.S*., have requested in a complaint filed with the Federal Criminal and Correctional Court that Netanyahu be arrested as soon as he sets foot the country, in compliance with the ICC’s arrest warrant.*

“We have filed a formal complaint with the Federal Court requesting the immediate arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his responsibility in war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people, in accordance with the arrest warrants issued by the ICC on November 21, 2024,” the two organisations said in a press release.

From TRT Global’s Spanish edition (machine translated):

The brief cites reports and publications describing Israel’s actions since October 7, 2023, as part of a systematic plan to displace Palestinians. It also mentions that the ICC holds Netanyahu criminally responsible for causing death by starvation, assassinations, persecution and destruction of civilian infrastructure.

Both organisations called on the Argentine authorities to hand [Netanyahu] over to The Hague or prosecute him in the country, in accordance with the principle “aut dedere aut iudicare” (extradite or prosecute).

Netanyahu “is criminally responsible as a co-perpetrator of the war crime of intentionally causing death by starvation; crimes against humanity such as murder, persecution and other inhumane acts; as well as the destruction of civilian infrastructure, including health centers, schools and United Nations refugee camps,” the complainants assert.

Public opposition to Netanyahu’s slated visit is also growing. In Argentina and Chile, thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities across both countries last weekend to call for a ceasefire and reject Tel Aviv’s policies. In the case of Argentina, it was the first time pro-Gaza protests of this magnitude had taken place. According to the event’s organisers, 10,000 people turned out in Buenos Aires alone.

🇦🇷🇵🇸 Thousands marched in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August 9 – one of the largest pro-Palestine mobilizations in Argentine history.

Protesters emphasized that despite the alignment of President Javier Milei with the US and Israel, the people of Argentina reject Israel’s… pic.twitter.com/Buqfx2kB90

— Peoples Dispatch (@peoplesdispatch) August 11, 2025

Israel’s Growing Isolation

This is all part of a global trend. As Israel doubles down on its genocidal pogrom in Gaza, both the country and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, face increasing isolation on the world stage.

While depressingly few countries have taken direct action against Tel Aviv by, say, cutting diplomatic ties or imposing economic sanctions, Israel’s position is fast becoming untenable. Erstwhile allies in Europe, including even the UK, have begun to distance themselves from the Netanyahu government — in public at least — as the shocking, grisly reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza becomes impossible to hide or obfuscate (despite the best efforts of some media outlets).

Some countries, including France and the UK, are even threatening to recognise Palestinian statehood. Admittedly, by this stage in proceedings, with much of Gaza already lying in smouldering ruins while Israel steps up its ethic cleaning of Palestinians in the West Bank, such a gesture amounts to little more than virtue signalling. By the time these countries recognise Palestinian statehood, there will be little left of Palestine to recognise.

In the case of the UK, the government continues to provide military support for Israel’s actions in Gaza — on the hush hush, of course, though it is becoming increasingly difficult for the government to keep its complicity in the genocide under wraps. Even The Guardian has begun to ask questions about the UK’s “near-daily” surveillance flights over the Gaza strip — with the help of a US contractor, Sierra Nevada Corporation, paid for by UK taxpayers.

We now know:

The RAF has gathered thousands of hours of footage over Gaza since December 2023

It has been sending the intel to the Israeli military

This intel sharing is done in “real-time” while spy plane is in sky

UK taxpayer is now paying a US contractor to spy for Israel pic.twitter.com/ALPjrIv1Vj

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) August 7, 2025

Now that these questions are finally seeping out into the public discourse, the British government is trying to block any possibility of a public inquiry.

The government says "there is no need for an inquiry" into British complicity in Israeli war crimes.

It's quite simple: if the government had nothing to hide, it would stop blocking our efforts to expose the truth.

Join us on September 4-5 for https://t.co/m0a24u3ofk. pic.twitter.com/Upu5sWJrWU

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) August 14, 2025

At the same time, the UK government’s case for proscribing the Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian direct action network, as a terrorist group is also quickly unravelling:

Leaked Palestine Action report shatters case for terror listing.

The leaking of the key JTAC (Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre) assessment of Palestine Action by journalist Craig Murray confirms suspicions that the Government was advised that the group focused its actions on… pic.twitter.com/g1yG3iu3tY

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 14, 2025

There are even murmurs of disquiet on the back benches as Labour peers and MPs express regret over voting to ban the activist group. From The Guardian:

A former cabinet minister has said the UK government is “digging itself into a hole” over Palestine Action and fellow Labour peers and MPs were regretting voting to ban the group.

The warning by Peter Hain, who opposed proscription, came as a Labour backbencher who supported it said the issue would arise again when parliament returned in September.

Lord Hain, who was a leader of the anti-apartheid movement and the Anti-Nazi League in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s, was lacerating about the response to recent protests in support of Palestine Action.

“It will end in tears for the government,” he said. “We are seeing retired magistrates, retired and serving doctors and all sorts of people being arrested and now effectively being equated with terrorists such as al-Qaida, which is absolutely wrong.”

In other words, even a stalwart ally like the UK is struggling to maintain its support of Israel due to the growing public backlash. Granted, Israel can, for now, still count on the unquestioning support of the US executive and legislative branches. Netanyahu can still waltz into Washington whenever he wants and get treated as royalty by a bought-and-paid for Congress despite the fact that he has an international arrest warrant against him.

But the US is unique in a number of ways: unlike most collective West nations, it is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court; its politicians are totally beholden to the Israel lobby, and Washington can still do just about anything it wants on the world stage without facing serious legal consequences. However, even in the US, patience is running thin in certain quarters.

“ “There’s a diplomatic tsunami against Israel like nothing anyone has ever seen,” said the Tel Aviv-based analyst Shira Efron after returning from a trip to Washington where, as he told The New York Times, he noticed a “great frustration” among American officials and experts.

The public mauling of AIPAC representative of Wisconsin Bryan Steil pic.twitter.com/c0ifg4GUYE

— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) August 10, 2025

Opening Up a Pandora’s Box in Argentina

So, how large a risk would Netanyahu be taking if he decided to go to Argentina?

It seems to be quite a large one. According to an unnamed diplomat specialised in legal affairs who was interviewed by LPO, “it would be unusual for Netanyahu to risk coming to Argentina, which is a signatory to the ICC treaty”. All it would take is for one prosecutor to issue a warrant and “we would have a full-blown diplomatic scandal on our hands”.

As the LPO article points out, Netanyahu has already cut down his trips abroad to the bare minimum since the ICC ruling. Vladimir Putin, like Netanyahu, has cut back on his overseas travels since the ICC arrest warrant issued against him in 2023. To my knowledge, the only ICC member country Putin has visited since then was to Mongolia last year, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy. Needless to say, no arrest was made.

With the world’s sixth-largest Jewish population, Argentina has traditionally been a close ally of Israel. Relations between the two countries have only grown stronger since Milei, an aspiring Jewish convert with close ties to the highly influential Chabad Lubavitch movement, took over as president in December 2023. However, as Mamedov notes, if Netanyahu were to visit Argentina next month, it would risk reopening scars from the past: 

[T]he 1992 Israeli embassy bombing and the 1994 AMIA Jewish community center attack, in which 85 people were killed, were linked to Iran and Hezbollah. Despite the conclusion by Israel’s own Mossad intelligence, that Hezbollah (with no “operational involvement” by Iran) was behind the bombings, no one has ever been convicted for the crimes, and Argentina’s own numerous investigations have been plagued by alleged cover-ups, incompetence and political interference.

The 2015 death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, just hours before he intended to formally charge then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with shielding Iranian suspects in the AMIA bombing, remains a major source of speculation and controversy in Argentina. While the official cause of his death was suicide, one court ruled in 2018 that he was murdered, although the judge in the case failed to establish who was the perpetrator or what was the motive.

A visit by Netanyahu risks reviving these deep emotional wounds and still-unresolved controversies. Argentina’s Jewish community (the largest in Latin America) is divided on the subject. Jorge Knoblovits, head of the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations (DAIA), dismissed concerns that closer ties with Israel could lead to new attacks on Argentine soil. “The whole world is exposed to terrorism. It has struck under all types of governments, left and right,” he said.

In contrast, Pablo Gorodneff of the Jewish group Llamamiento Argentino Judío, noted that a key principle of foreign policy is “don’t get involved in conflicts that aren’t yours,” adding that Milei “in some ways sincerely… believes this fabricated narrative, which I find quite dangerous.”

During his recent visit to Israel, Milei and Netanyahu signed a “Memorandum in Defence of Freedom and Democracy against Terrorism and Anti-Semitism” that reaffirms the strategic alliance between Argentina and Israel. The Memorandum sets the stage for unprecedented cooperation against terrorism, cybercrime investigations. It also establishes fast-track customs lanes, joint satellite launches and joint water technology centres on Argentina’s Paraná River. 

Milei also made official a long-standing proposal for a social security agreement with Israel that will enable the payment of welfare benefits to Israeli citizens with residency permits in Argentina. As we noted at the time, the move was controversial given Israel’s near-pariah status and Milei’s brutal austerity policies. While Milei’s government has chainsawed public spending, benefits and subsidies for Argentine citizens, including pensioners and the disabled, he is more than happy to loosen the purse strings for Israeli citizens looking to resettle in Argentina.

So, on the one hand Argentina is arguably the closest ally/vassal state (or vassally) Israel has left. Yet on the other, Netanyahu may still be prevented from travelling there to pick up his honorary resident title. If that is the case, it will be testament to just how isolated Netanyahu — and by extension, Israel — has become on the global stage.

However, let’s not confuse this with justice — justice will not be served until Netanyahu, Gallant, other senior Israeli officials and military commanders, and all the foreign leaders and businesses that made the genocide in Gaza possible — and profitable — are sitting in a dock in the Hague being sentenced to life-long prison sentences. Instead, we should see it as karma.

But Netanyahu is not taking it lying down. Israel is using just about every tactic in the book, including spying, hacking, threats and intimidation campaigns, to prevent British Chief Prosecutor of the ICC Karim Khan from pursuing his investigation into the war crimes committed by Israeli officials.

At the same time, Khan and other ICC prosecutors are facing intense pressure from the US and the UK. That includes the US State Department’s recent imposition of sanction measures targeting the ICC judges who issued the 2024 ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, described the measures as “deeply corrosive of good governance and the due administration of justice.”

 

---

*ATE is the Association of State Workers, which already has a big beef with Milei’s government given the number of public sector workers it has made redundant. HIJOS, standing for “Hijas e Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio” (English: Daughters and Sons for Identity and Justice Against Forgetfulness and Silence) is the name of an organisation founded by children of people who were forcibly “disappeared” by Argentina’s military junta whose mission is to keep the memory of the victims of the dictatorship alive.