 The Argentine presidential mansion, Casa Rosada.  Adriana Camisar The results of Sunday’s presidential elections in Argentina were quite surprising, mainly because most of the polls had predicted that Daniel Scioli (the candidate of the ruling party, who is currently the governor of the province of Buenos Aires) was going to win by at least eight points.
Despite the number of corruption scandals involving not only high ranking government officials but also the president herself; the mysterious death of AMIA case Prosecutor Alberto Nisman earlier this year, which really shocked the country; and the recent (and scandalous) flooding in the Province of Buenos Aires due to the lack of investment in needed infrastructure; the polls seemed to indicate that Scioli could become Argentina’s next president in the first round. But this simply did not happen. Scioli won the first round by only two points. He got 36.8 percent of the votes, while his main opponent, Mauricio Macri from the PRO party, got 34.3 percent. Sergio Massa, on the other hand, who is the current mayor of the locality of Tigre, got the third place with 21.3 percent of the votes. A ballotage between Scioli and Macri will therefore take place on Nov. 22. Now both candidates will try to attract the votes of Massa, but everything seems to indicate that this will be easier for Macri than for Scioli since Massa is a strong opponent of the current government. Macri’s chances of becoming the next president—ending 12 years of “Kirchnerismo” in Argentina—are therefore becoming very real. An important factor in the great election that Macri had is that Maria Eugenia Vidal, the current deputy major of Buenos Aires city, won the governorship of Buenos Aires Province by defeating Cristina Kirchner’s candidate Anibal Fernandez. In recent months, Fernandez had been accused of having close connections with drug-traffickers in the province. This, coupled with the scandal of the flooding which put into serious question Scioli’s capabilities as a governor, probably helped Vidal win the race, as she is widely seen as a non-corrupt, competent politician. The ruling party kept its majority in Congress but lost its majority in the House of Representatives. This means that, whoever becomes the next president, will need to negotiate with the opposition, something that has been unknown in Argentina for the last few years and that could certainly strengthen the democratic process. This report will be updated after the run-off election on Nov. 22. Adriana Camisar, is an attorney by training who holds a graduate degree in international law and diplomacy from The Fletcher School (Tufts University). She has been B'nai B'rith International Special Advisor on Latin American Affairs since late 2008, and Special Advisor on Latin American Affairs since 2013, when she relocated to Argentina, her native country. Prior to joining B'nai B'rith International, she worked as a research assistant to visiting Professor Luis Moreno Ocampo (former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court), at Harvard University; interned at the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs; worked at a children's rights organization in San Diego, CA; and worked briefly as a research assistant to the Secretary for Legal Affairs at the Organization of American States (OAS). To view some of her additional content, Click Here. Photo via Flickr  “This latest Palestinian uprising is a Facebook intifada” (USA Today 10/15/15) mimics the Palestinian narrative instead of presenting the facts. The article ignores organized incitement from Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and others at the top levels of the PA and in the terrorist group Hamas. Instead, it explains away the latest murderous attacks on the Jews of Israel in the gentlest terms. The report states: "Like the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 and the recruitment success of the Islamic State, the spreading violence against Israelis in recent weeks seems to have been sparked by spontaneous combustion on Twitter and Facebook, rather than by organized political groups.” When Hamas urges Palestinians to form “stabbing squads” and then praises the attackers and honors their families, and when the head of the PA publicly denies Jewish historical ties to the land of Israel and warns Jews to get their “filthy feet” off the Temple Mount, which is considered the holiest site to Jews, that is hardly the foundation of a “spontaneous” uprising. Palestinian incitement has been a major obstacle to peace for decades. But that fact is not in the report. The reporter ignores the daily reality faced by Israelis when she characterizes the “weapons of choice” in the attacks on Jews as “rocks, knives and social media.” In reality, Palestinians are using knives and meat cleavers to repeatedly stab Jews, they have driven cars into groups of people standing at bus stops and they have used fire bombs. The real cause of the rise in these murderous attacks is not social media. It’s deep-rooted, officially sanctioned anti-Semitism and anti-Israel fanaticism and incitement. Daniel S. Mariaschin B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Washington, D.C. Related Reading:Daniel S. Mariaschin is the Executive Vice President at B'nai B'rith International, and has spent nearly all of his professional life working on behalf of Jewish organizations. As the organization's top executive officer, he directs and supervises B'nai B'rith programs, activities and staff in the more than 50 countries where B'nai B'rith is organized. He also serves as director of B'nai B'rith's Center for Human Rights and Public Policy (CHRPP). In that capacity, he presents B'nai B'rith's perspective to a variety of audiences, including Congress and the media, and coordinates the center's programs and policies on issues of concern to the Jewish community. To view some of his additional content, Click Here.
Related Reading:Eduardo Kohn, Ph.D has been the B’nai B’rith executive vice president in Uruguay since 1981 and the B’nai B’rith International director of Latin American affairs since 1984. Before joining B'nai B'rith, he worked for the Israeli embassy in Uruguay, the Israel-Uruguay Chamber of Commerce and Hebrew College in Montevideo. He is a published author of “Zionism, 100 years of Theodor Herzl,” and writes op-eds for publications throughout Latin America. He graduated from the State University of Uruguay with a doctorate in diplomacy and international affairs. To view some of his additional content, Click Here.
  Eric Fusfield A recent international conference in Warsaw, Poland provided an opportunity to take inventory of the struggle against anti-Semitism. While the U.S. and European governments have made progress in addressing the problem, evidence of anti-Semitism’s persistence is in ready supply. 2014 saw a breakthrough at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a multilateral organization charged with, among other priorities, combating anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance. For the first time in more than a decade of tackling modern incarnations of Judeophobia, the 57 governments that make up the OSCE codified core principles of the fight against anti-Semitism in a high-level ministerial declaration. “We reject and condemn manifestations of anti-Semitism, intolerance, and discrimination against Jews,” the document intoned. 2014, meanwhile, was also a year that saw a spike in anti-Semitic incidents across Europe and the former Soviet Union. A wave of anti-Israel demonstrations has swept the OSCE region in 2014 and 2015; these gatherings typically have featured blatantly anti-Semitic themes and often have turned violent. Attacks on Jewish individuals and institutions have increased in frequency and intensity, as the landscape from Belgium to Bulgaria, Germany to Greece, Holland to Hungary, and Ireland to Italy has witnessed violence against Jewish targets. This spread of hatred has been accompanied by a corrosion of the public discourse with respect to Jews and Israel and has left European Jewry fearful for their safety and security. The rise of anti-Jewish hatred also has resulted in a proliferation of anti-Semitic propaganda, much of which is directed against the State of Israel. Tragically, the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state has become a daily occurrence, as Israel’s enemies repeatedly accuse it of being a Nazi-like occupier and an apartheid state that disenfranchises the Palestinians. Falsehoods about Israel are repeated so often that they become widely accepted in the popular culture and sometimes impact government policy. The effort by Israel’s relentless critics to denigrate the Jewish state is not only evidence that anti-Semitism is alive and well 70 years after the Holocaust—this new variation of the world’s oldest social illness actually poses a security threat to the Jewish state by intensifying its international isolation. Against this backdrop, an OSCE human dimension implementation meeting that B’nai B’rith attended in Warsaw this month underscored that while much has been done to fight anti-Semitism in the past decade or more, much work remains. The need for practical and effective strategies to combat and defeat this pathology is still crucial. B’nai B’rith’s recommendations to the Warsaw gathering included a call for OSCE member-states to affirm commitments made at the landmark 2004 Berlin Conference on Anti-Semitism— and reiterated in last year’s ministerial declaration—and assess the implementation of those commitments. B’nai B’rith also urged:
Related Reading:Eric Fusfield, Esq. has been B’nai B’rith International’s director of legislative affairs since 2003 and deputy director of the B’nai B’rith International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy since 2007. He previously served as assistant director of European affairs at the American Jewish Committee. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University in history; an M.St. in modern Jewish studies from Oxford University; and a J.D./M.A. from American University in law and international affairs. To view some of his additional content, Click Here
The report “New security measures considered amid continuing violence in Israel” goes through highly preposterous contortions to avoid using the word “terrorists” to describe the Palestinian perpetrators in the wave of murderous attacks on Jews. The use of the nebulous “violence” to characterize the shootings, car attacks and knifings of Jews in recent days maliciously mischaracterizes the situation by omitting who is perpetrating these deadly attacks—Palestinians. And omitting who the victims are—Israelis. The report states: “And neither side appears willing to back down.” How are Israelis supposed to back down when the Palestinian government is openly and successfully inciting these unprovoked attacks across Israel? Where is the examination of this incitement? This attempt at equalism is extremely offensive. The reporters’ transparent effort to protect the Palestinian terrorists is suspect throughout, including in this summary: “…one person died and eight were injured when a man drove into a bus stop, ran over three people, then get out of his car and began stabbing people.” In just calling him a “man” the report blindly adheres to the Palestinian narrative. The “man” was a Palestinian, and the people he attacked were Jews. Why is that not in the story? CNN’s incomplete and irresponsible reporting ignores the facts on the ground. Related Reading:Daniel S. Mariaschin is the Executive Vice President at B'nai B'rith International, and has spent nearly all of his professional life working on behalf of Jewish organizations. As the organization's top executive officer, he directs and supervises B'nai B'rith programs, activities and staff in the more than 50 countries where B'nai B'rith is organized. He also serves as director of B'nai B'rith's Center for Human Rights and Public Policy (CHRPP). In that capacity, he presents B'nai B'rith's perspective to a variety of audiences, including Congress and the media, and coordinates the center's programs and policies on issues of concern to the Jewish community. To view some of his additional content, Click Here.
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