TY - JOUR
T1 - Anti-semitism from the standpoint of its Arab victims in a South American border zone
AU - Karam, John Tofik
N1 - Funding Information:
This article is based on research funded by three DePaul University grants. For all their help wading through many documents, the author is grateful to Rose Palau, Zayda Caballero Rodríguez, and everyone at the Archivo del Terror and the Biblioteca Nacional del Paraguay in Asunción. In Foz do Iguac¸u, the author is deeply indebted to Mohamad Barakat, Rogério Bonato, Fouad Fakih, and everyone at the Biblioteca Pública Elfrida Engel Nunes Rios and A Gazeta do Igua¸cu. For moral support and camaraderie, the author wants to thank colleagues in Asunción, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro, especially Silvia Montenegro, Paulo Pinto, Adelina Pusineri, and Fernando Rabossi. Although the author uses common surnames in order to protect individuals who have suffered intrusions in the past, he wants to express deepest gratitude to the entire Arab community in Foz do Iguac¸u and Ciudad del Este for making this research possible. The author also thanks Dwight McBride and his Race and Ethnicity Study Group in Chicago where a prior version of this work was presented. The author is most deeply indebted to Jeff Lesser, Raanan Rein, and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies for giving me the chance to present this work at Emory University. Finally, the author wants to thank Leon Zamosc whose helpful review made this a better piece.
Copyright:
Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2011/7
Y1 - 2011/7
N2 - This article excavates three violent moments that culminate in the collective victimization of Arabs in the so-called 'tri-border area' between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina: a 1970 shooting at the Israeli embassy in the Paraguayan capital of Asunción; a 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires; and, finally, the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a major Jewish community center complex in Buenos Aires. By exploring how Arabs in the two main cities of this tri-border zone, Foz do Iguaçu and Ciudad del Este, were constructed in relation to two earlier attacks against Israeli diplomatic offices in Asunción and Buenos Aires, this article aims to grasp how these episodes were recast after the 1994 AMIA bombing. It suggests that while the 1970 incident at the Israeli embassy in Asunción was all but forgotten, the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was memorialized within a more powerful narrative about anti-Semitism, which framed as its foil Arabs in the Triple Border region. The wider goal of this article is to show how the tragic 1994 event rooted in Jewish suffering was also employed to collectively victimize Arabs in the Triple Border through the late 1990s.
AB - This article excavates three violent moments that culminate in the collective victimization of Arabs in the so-called 'tri-border area' between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina: a 1970 shooting at the Israeli embassy in the Paraguayan capital of Asunción; a 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires; and, finally, the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a major Jewish community center complex in Buenos Aires. By exploring how Arabs in the two main cities of this tri-border zone, Foz do Iguaçu and Ciudad del Este, were constructed in relation to two earlier attacks against Israeli diplomatic offices in Asunción and Buenos Aires, this article aims to grasp how these episodes were recast after the 1994 AMIA bombing. It suggests that while the 1970 incident at the Israeli embassy in Asunción was all but forgotten, the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was memorialized within a more powerful narrative about anti-Semitism, which framed as its foil Arabs in the Triple Border region. The wider goal of this article is to show how the tragic 1994 event rooted in Jewish suffering was also employed to collectively victimize Arabs in the Triple Border through the late 1990s.
KW - Anti-semitism
KW - Arabs
KW - Jews
KW - South America
KW - Terrorism
KW - Tri-border area
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U2 - 10.1080/17442222.2011.579726
DO - 10.1080/17442222.2011.579726
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79960770218
SN - 1744-2222
VL - 6
SP - 141
EP - 167
JO - Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies
JF - Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies
IS - 2
ER -