Buenos Aires - The UK Broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, imposed a fine of £40,000 on Islam Channel for airing in February 2021 adocumentary with explicit Antisemitic content alleging that Israel was trying to take over part of Argentina and Chile.
The hour-long film “El Plan Andinia” reported on the ongoing plans to create a new Jewish state in Patagonia.
(Screenshot from the film)
This conspiracy theory created more than 50 years ago in Argentina by Walter Beveraggi Allende, who was a professor at theUniversity of Buenos Aires until the mid-1980s, was nothing more than an adaptation of the anti-Semitic libel of the tsarist era, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and was considered a truebasis for the interrogations that illegal missing detainees of Jewish origin suffered during the dictatorship.
The same so-called theory is cited again from time to time. The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project hasover the years, captured this lurid anti-Semitic “theory” on the internet and on Social Media posts.
The young Israeli tourists who usually travel on a sabbatical year after being discharged from military service were accused morethan once of being spies sent by the army that kill Palestinian children to inspect the terrain, as the then Chilean Senator Eugenio Tuma was quoted in the film.
After being notified of the sanction, Islam Channel issued an apology, which is added to all those it gives after being sanctionedfor broadcasting expressly Antisemitic content.
“The Andinia Plan is one of those conspiracy theories that are ridiculous and at the same time periodically reiterated as anundisputed truth. It speaks more about those who wield it, but at the same time forces it to be condemned with the full force of the law,” said Dr. Ariel Gelblung, Wiesenthal Center's Directorfor Latin America.
For further information, please contact Dr. Ariel Gelblung at +54 9 11 49695365, join the Center on Facebook,or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent directly to your Twitter feed.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations,UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).