Reflections on a 30-year struggle for justice
Looking back at the AMIA bombing attack in Buenos Aires
At 9:53 a.m. on July 18, 1994, an explosives-filled truck detonated at the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding 300 in the worst terror attack in Argentina’s history.
At 9:53 a.m. on July 18, 2024, a siren sounded in Buenos Aires as hundreds gathered outside the rebuilt AMIA building to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the attack. Holding up photographs of the 85 innocent victims, those gathered honored the lives lost while calling for them finally to receive justice. As family members of the victims told stories of loss, the crowded responded loudly, “Presente!”—“Present!” acknowledging the shared pain, not just within the Jewish community but for all of Argentina.
This is a country that has been scarred by Iranian-backed terrorism. On March 17, 1992, Hezbollah blew up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, murdering 29 people; it struck again two years later in the AMIA attack.
The victims of Hamas’s October 7 attack in Israel included seven murdered Argentine citizens and at least 15 hostages.
In a heartening show of solidarity with both Argentina and the Jewish community, the AMIA ceremony drew people from Argentina and around the world. I joined the commemoration alongside international Jewish communal delegations, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hadassah, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Sephardi Federation, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The week was marked by solemn remembrances of the AMIA bombing, as well as Hamas’s victims and hostages.
While investigators have blamed Hezbollah and its Iranian backers for the heinous terror attack, even now, 30 years later, justice has remained elusive for the victims of the AMIA bombing. No arrests have been made. Hezbollah remains a threat to global security. And Iran continues to sponsor terrorism around the world.
Justice has not been served.
As we stood in the street outside AMIA, the call for justice from the crowd could be heard in the halls of power in Tehran. “El terrorismo sigue. La impunidad tambien,” a banner over the central stage declared. “The terrorism continues. The impunity too.”
My trip began with a visit to the site of the 1992 bombing, which has been turned into a memorial to the victims; the embassy has been moved to another location. Next, we toured the rebuilt AMIA building, which serves the Jewish and non-Jewish communities of Buenos Aires, providing social and educational services.
“AMIA is a bridge between Argentina and the Jews,” AMIA president Amos Linetzky told my delegation. “AMIA represents the strength of how non-Jews and Jews can live together. That’s what terrorism attacks — the opportunity for dialogue.”
Coinciding with the anniversary, the World Jewish Congress and Latin American Jewish Congress held a summit, “Building a Safer Future: 30 Years After the AMIA Bombing,” discussing the global antisemitism pandemic. The meeting included envoys and government officials from across the world. It began with remarks from Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration’s special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism. Dr. Lipstadt labeled the AMIA bombing “an act of pure, unadulterated antisemitism.”
Since the October 7 attack, the world has witnessed “not a surge but a tsunami of antisemitism,” Dr. Lipstadt said. “Those who buy into the conspiracy myth that Jews control — and you can fill in the blanks — the government, the media, the judiciary, whatever it might be, have given up on democracy,” she said. Similarly, when Jews are threatened or feel threatened, when they are not sure whether the authorities can or will protect them, there is a loss of trust.
“Autocracies are built on fear,” she continued. “Democracy is built on trust. Antisemitism at its most basic is a threat to Jews, Jewish institutions, and those associated with Jews. That alone would make it a valid thing for governments to address, to fight with all their souls and all their might. It is more than solely that. Antisemitism is also a threat to democracy.”
According to Argentine prosecutors, Iran planned and financed the AMIA attack, and Hezbollah carried it out. Nonetheless, justice has eluded the victims. In 2006, Argentine prosecutors called for the arrest of a handful of Iranian officials, including former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, in connection with the bombing. The next year, prosecutors named several suspects, including Iran’s then defense minister, General Ahmed Vahidi, who was the commander of a special unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1994.
In January 2013, Argentina and Iran agreed to investigate the AMIA attack. According to the memorandum of understanding, Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the Iranian government would set up a joint commission to probe the matter. Detractors, including Argentine Jewish groups and many opposition legislators, argued that the agreement would hinder the investigation, and that Iran could not be trusted.
In January 2015, Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman accused Kirchner and other Argentinian officials of covering up Iran’s role in the bombing. He was found shot to death in his Buenos Aires apartment three days later. Authorities labeled Nisman’s death a homicide in late 2017, after a police report detailed findings that he was beaten and drugged before the murder, which was set up to look like a suicide.
On July 18, 2019, the 25th anniversary of the bombing, Argentina finally designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. On June 16, 2023, Argentina issued an international arrest warrant for four Lebanese citizens suspected of involvement in the incident: Hussein Mounir Mouzannar, Ali Hussein Abdallah, Farouk Abdul Hay Omairi, and Samuel Salman El Reda. According to the warrant, the four were employees or operational agents of Hezbollah. El Reda is specifically suspected of the “coordination of the arrival and departure of the operational group.”
On December 20, 2023, U.S. federal prosecutors accused El Reda of helping plan the 1994 bombing and of being a Hezbollah operative. El Reda, who remains at large, allegedly connected the 1994 operatives with Hezbollah leaders across Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. But the suspects remain at large, and Argentina does not have a mechanism to try suspects in absentia. So they have continued to escape justice while the nation continues to mourn.
Since the bombing, Hezbollah has continued to carry out deadly terror attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world. On July 18, 2012, the 18th anniversary of the AMIA attack, a suicide bomber exploded a device aboard a tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, killing five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver, and wounding 35 Israeli tourists.
Speaking during the WJC conference, Argentine President Javier Milei acknowledged the failure of the government over the decades in investigating the AMIA bombing and called for justice for its victims. Milei called for governments to be “firm and relentless against terrorism. There are no nuances. There is only good and evil.”
The Argentine government has made some progress in seeking justice for AMIA. Earlier this year, on April 12, Argentina’s Court of Cessation concluded that Iran planned the AMIA bombing and Hezbollah executed the attack. This month, the Argentine government introduced a bill allowing Congress to permit trials in absentia. On July 12, Argentina became the first South American country to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“Today we chose to speak out, not stay silent,” President Milei declared to conference delegates. “We’re raising our voice, not folding our arms. We choose life because anything else is making a game out of death.
“It is the silence of the righteous that serves the triumph of evil. “Life as a whole is a struggle between life and death, between good and evil.”
An Argentine presidential statement in March 2024 recognized that the bombing “left a deep scar” in Argentina’s collective memory. Indeed, throughout the week I kept hearing that the bombing was not just an attack on Argentina’s Jews — it was an attack on Argentina. And as we stood, holding pictures of victims, we were all “Presente.”
Josh Lipowsky of Bergen County is the senior research analyst of the Counter Extremism Project, a New York-based NGO dedicated to combating the spread of violent extremism.
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