Anti-Israeli posters appear in Argentine tourist town
Placards urging boycott of Israeli backpackers anger local Jews, prompt probe by government
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BUENOS AIRES — Anti-Israel posters appeared in an Argentine tourist town popular with Israeli backpackers.
Posters appeared Monday saying “Boycott Against Israeli Military Tourism” in the city of Bariloche, a major tourist spot located in the foothills of the Andes. They were signed by the Palestine Solidarity Committee in Argentine Patagonia.
Israelis make up about 10 percent of the lucrative tourist trade there and most of the stores have signs in Hebrew to attract Israeli visitors.
Locals also said they found peso bills defaced with scrawls reading “Jews out of Patagonia.”
Following a protest by the local Jewish community, the National Institute Against Discrimination, or INADI, opened an investigation. Its regional delegate, Julio Accavallo, demanded sanctions against the proponents of the campaign and called for the posters to be removed.
The Argentine Jewish political umbrella organization DAIA criticized the anti-Israeli campaign and expressed satisfaction with INADI’s investigation.
“Our center has expressed its solidarity with the Bariloche Jewish community and offered its support and cooperation against the BDS hatemongers,” Sergio Widder, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for Latin America, told JTA. BDS stands for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
Bariloche was a refugee city for Nazis after World War II. The late Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke served as the director of the German School of Bariloche for many years.
The Times of Israel Community.