Javier Milei is desperate to declare Netanyahu an “honorary resident” of Argentina. But if the Israeli prime minister visits the South American country, he could face arrest.
Argentina’s faux libertarian President Javier Milei is one of the world’s most vocal, unabashed supporters of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. As Eldar Mamedov writes in an interesting article for Responsible Statecraft, Argentina’s iron-clad alignment with Israel stems from Milei’s “ideologically Manichean worldview, framing global conflicts as a battle between absolute good (Israel/West) and evil (Iran/leftists)”.
Argentina “cannot be neutral in the Third World War,” Milei is reported to have said in an off-screen comment in Aril 2024. As Mamedov notes, the Argentine president, “determined to be on the ‘right side of history’,… has visited Israel twice since taking office, including a trip in June 2025 just days before Israel’s strike on Iran“:
Moreover, Milei’s devotion to Israel borders on the mystical — a Catholic who studies Kabbalah and offers tearful prayers at the Western Wall with rabbis, treating Zionism as both political ideology and personal spiritual awakening.
On Monday, Milei announced plans to use the $1 million in prize money he recently received from Israel’s Genesis Prize Foundation to launch a new nonprofit, the American Friends of the Isaac Accords (AFOIA), whose mission will be to build ties between Israel and Latin America.
Milei is also keen for Netanyahu to visit Argentina. In late July, the Jewish News Agency revealed that Netanyahu would soon travel to the South American country to meet with Milei after receiving an official invitation from the national government.
The invitation is intended as an expression of gratitude for Milei’s recent visit to Israel, where, in addition to meeting with Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, the Argentine president spoke in the Knesset to announce the transfer of Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem in 2026. Diplomatic and security channels have already begun to coordinate the logistics for Netanyahu’s visit which, according to Infobae, would take place in September.
However, the logistical challenges — in particular, the legal hurdles — could prove to be insurmountable. As La Politica Online (LPO) reports, the Israeli government is concerned about the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2024 for Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes in the Gaza Strip:
This opens up a can of worms for the Javier Milei government since Argentina is a member of the ICC and will have to comply with to that arrest warrant. State parties to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, have a duty to cooperate with the court.
Since the ICC does not have its own police authorities, it depends on the nation states for the execution of those orders. In this case, a judge should act despite the resistance of the executive branch.
The Rome Statute says that if this situation does not arise, a “finding of non-cooperation” could be applied. “Where, in contravention of the provisions of the present Statute, a State Party refuses to comply with a request for cooperation made by the Court, preventing it from exercising its functions and powers in accordance with the present Statute, the Court may make a finding to that effect and refer the matter to the Assembly of States Parties or the Security Council, if the latter had referred the matter to him,” details Article 87, paragraph 8 of the Statute.
Moves are already being made to try to prevent Netanyahu’s visit next month, or in the event that the visit takes place to ensure that he is immediately remanded in police custody. In recent days, two organisations from Argentina, ATE and H.I.J.O.S*., have requested in a complaint filed with the Federal Criminal and Correctional Court that Netanyahu be arrested as soon as he sets foot the country, in compliance with the ICC’s arrest warrant.*
“We have filed a formal complaint with the Federal Court requesting the immediate arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his responsibility in war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people, in accordance with the arrest warrants issued by the ICC on November 21, 2024,” the two organisations said in a press release.
From TRT Global’s Spanish edition (machine translated):
The brief cites reports and publications describing Israel’s actions since October 7, 2023, as part of a systematic plan to displace Palestinians. It also mentions that the ICC holds Netanyahu criminally responsible for causing death by starvation, assassinations, persecution and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Both organisations called on the Argentine authorities to hand [Netanyahu] over to The Hague or prosecute him in the country, in accordance with the principle “aut dedere aut iudicare” (extradite or prosecute).
Netanyahu “is criminally responsible as a co-perpetrator of the war crime of intentionally causing death by starvation; crimes against humanity such as murder, persecution and other inhumane acts; as well as the destruction of civilian infrastructure, including health centers, schools and United Nations refugee camps,” the complainants assert.
Public opposition to Netanyahu’s slated visit is also growing. In Argentina and Chile, thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities across both countries last weekend to call for a ceasefire and reject Tel Aviv’s policies. In the case of Argentina, it was the first time pro-Gaza protests of this magnitude had taken place. According to the event’s organisers, 10,000 people turned out in Buenos Aires alone.
Israel’s Growing Isolation
This is all part of a global trend. As Israel doubles down on its genocidal pogrom in Gaza, both the country and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, face increasing isolation on the world stage.
While depressingly few countries have taken direct action against Tel Aviv by, say, cutting diplomatic ties or imposing economic sanctions, Israel’s position is fast becoming untenable. Erstwhile allies in Europe, including even the UK, have begun to distance themselves from the Netanyahu government — in public at least — as the shocking, grisly reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza becomes impossible to hide or obfuscate (despite the best efforts of some media outlets).
Some countries, including France and the UK, are even threatening to recognise Palestinian statehood. Admittedly, by this stage in proceedings, with much of Gaza already flattened while Israel steps up its ethic cleaning of Palestinians in the West Bank, such a gesture amounts to little more than virtue signalling/ass covering. By the time these countries acknowledge Palestinian statehood, there will be little left of Palestine to recognise.
In the case of the UK, the government continues to provide military support for Israel’s actions in Gaza — on the hush hush, of course, though it is becoming increasingly difficult for the UK government and military to keep their complicity in the genocide under wraps. Even The Guardian has begun to ask questions about the UK’s “near-daily” surveillance flights over Gaza — with the help of a US contractor, Sierra Nevada Corporation. All paid for by UK taxpayers.
Now that these questions are finally seeping out into the public discourse, the British government is trying to block any possibility of a public inquiry.
At the same time, the UK government’s case for proscribing the Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian direct action network, as a terrorist group is also quickly unravelling:
There are even murmurs of disquiet on the back benches as Labour peers and MPs express regret over voting to ban the activist group. From The Guardian:
A former cabinet minister has said the UK government is “digging itself into a hole” over Palestine Action and fellow Labour peers and MPs were regretting voting to ban the group.
The warning by Peter Hain, who opposed proscription, came as a Labour backbencher who supported it said the issue would arise again when parliament returned in September.
Lord Hain, who was a leader of the anti-apartheid movement and the Anti-Nazi League in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s, was lacerating about the response to recent protests in support of Palestine Action.
“It will end in tears for the government,” he said. “We are seeing retired magistrates, retired and serving doctors and all sorts of people being arrested and now effectively being equated with terrorists such as al-Qaida, which is absolutely wrong.”
In other words, even a stalwart ally like the UK is struggling to maintain its support of Israel due to the growing public backlash. Granted, Israel can, for now, still count on the unquestioning support of the US executive and legislative branches. Netanyahu can still waltz into Washington whenever he wants and get treated as royalty by a bought-and-paid for Congress despite the fact that he has an international arrest warrant against him.
But the US is unique in a number of ways: unlike most collective West nations, it is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court; its politicians are totally beholden to the Israel lobby, and Washington can still do just about anything it wants on the world stage without facing serious legal consequences. However, even in the US, patience is running thin in certain quarters…
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Nick Corbishley 