by Damian Pachter
In addition to entrenched corruption and crime, the region has become a hotbed of terrorist activity. Israel must operate carefully and wisely to avoid turning supporters into enemies.
The problem of terrorism in South America suffers from a PR problem. The reason: western journalism has an interest in the elementary barbarism of the Middle East more than in the predictable, familiar routine of corruption and crime.
However, the southern part of the continent was and still is a major center of activity for terrorist organizations – a place in which a number of factors come together and create a perfect area in which to foster terrorist activity: from governments corrupt to a level Israelis couldn't even begin to imagine (watch the new season of "Narcos" on Netflix to get an inkling); open border, and rudimentary security forces and anti-western ideology.
There is a reason why guerilla groups have been springing up there for decades and cooperation with international terrorist entities. Only about a month ago, Israel Hayom exposed how the Shiite Hezbollah is alive and kicking in Nicolás Maduro's socialist Venezuela. Colombia is well aware of that – it is the country's neighbor to the east, and has been suffering from border clashes ever since the Chavezites rose to power in Venezuela in 1999.
"El Comandante," Hugo Chavez, led a revolutionary process that early on fingered Bogota as an imperialist target, and Caracas provided haven to the terrorist organization FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). The goal was clear: to destabilize the entity seen as the servants of the "great Satan" (the US), but also "little Satan" (Israel). This is where the South American socialist narrative comes into the picture, which holds that there are three powers that control the world: the US, Britain, and the Jews.
Moreover, the southern part of America has suffered for years from a lack of resource to prevent terrorism. One important reason for this is that in the 1990s western security forces, Israel in particular, could not manage to cut off the long arm of Iran and Hezbollah. In 1992, a bomb-laden car blew up at the entrance to the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, erasing it from the face of the earth; two years later, only a few meters away, a suicide bomber rushed into the AIMA Jewish community building. These two terrorist attacks murdered 114 citizens, and left hundreds of other wounded.
Although the problem has long since been identified, the governments have largely remained the same, other than a few unusual local allies. Pressure from the US can help, but won't solve the issue, since this is precisely where the problem lies: large parts of the continent take a dim view of Washington intervening in the region, given its well-known history of supporting tyrants and bringing down governments.
The change needs to come from inside, since no dictatorship survives long-term without the support of the people. Israel needs to work carefully and wisely, because those who are currently strategic allies could quickly turn into enemies. That is the nature of the region.
Damian Pachter
Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/narcos-and-hezbollah-whos-really-in-charge-of-south-america/
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