Israeli backpackers targeted by antisemitic campaign in Patagonia

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Israeli backpackers targeted by antisemitic campaign in Patagonia

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
The Guardian, Wednesday 21 January 2015 23.24 GMT

Israeli tourists have been the victims of a violent antisemitic attack in the southern Patagonia region of Argentina, which has led to the targeted hostel being closed down by its owners.

The attackers screamed “You shit Jews, you are trying to take over Patagonia,” says Yoav Pollac, the 38-year-old owner of Onda Azul in the town of Lago Puelo, where many young Israeli backpackers stay.

“They came in throwing stones, smashing windows. They chased after three cars in which some of our guests tried to escape and wrecked them. They injured me, my brother and my father, who is almost 70 years old,” Pollac said.

The attack comes amid a growing hate campaign against Israeli tourists, who are described as Israeli soldiers by antisemitic groups in Patagonia. Authorities are increasingly concerned about the appearance of posters calling for a boycott of “Israeli military tourism” in the region.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/21/israeli-backpackers-antisemitic-campaign-patagonia

[shenmue]

1. Shame

So driven by hate.

[Jefferson23]

2. That is disgusting...there was an incident years ago some believed Israeli Jews burned

down a forest while vacationing. I thought, huh? They were not kidding, some believed it,
whatever happened...as intentional.

Israeli Jews travel to Patagonia to burn down forest? You can't make this stuff up.

[azurnoir]

8. I Googled Israel Patagonian and turned up some nasty stuff

including a vile Canadian Christian named Arthur something who claimed all kinds of antisemitic CT stuff including underwater bases, all pointed at an Israeli take over of Patagonia

[forest444]

3. Some urban legends never go away,

and the decades-old rumor regarding Andinia - the supposed plan by "international Jewry" to establish a kind of new Israel in Patagonia - still endures in some quarters.

The late publisher Jacobo Timerman, in his harrowing 1981 work, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number, recounted how, while enduring torture in 1977, his dictatorship-era captors were particularly obsessed about Andinia.

It's worth noting that these are the same people who, all these years later, are now trying to destabilize the Fernández de Kirchner administration. Having failed to do so by financing strikes and runs on the currency, it logically followed that they would resort to assassination (the Nisman case).

[MisterP]

7. it's on Wiki--presumably they're going to corner the market on good wine and bad jerky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andinia_Plan

[azurnoir]

4. Terrible thing to happen to vacationers

the area has a history though

Pro-Nazi graffiti and the stamping of two-peso bills with the legend “Jews out of Patagonia” has also been reported by Inadi in the Patagonian ski resort of Bariloche, notorious for being a safe haven for Nazi fugitives after the second world war.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/21/israeli-backpackers-antisemitic-campaign-patagonia

[Fozzledick]

5. BDST in action

[shaayecanaan]

6. I think I remember that hearing about that place...

As I recall, it is quite out of the way, so to gatecrash it would have taken some travelling time. Israeli backpackers are not particularly well liked there as far as I could tell, but that seems to be par for the course.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

9. I'm sorry to hear that. Nobody should be

singled out for who they are...let alone attacked.