A prominent Argentine radio host, who is also a professor of journalism, apologized on Tuesday for repeating conspiracy theories linking Israelis to wildfires in Patagonia.
Marcela Feudale, who hosts the “Feudalísima” show on Radio 10, a major national station with a 16% share of the listenership in Argentina, read the apology on air five days after she claimed to have learned from “good sources” that two Israelis were responsible for the devastating wildfires sweeping across Argentina’s southernmost region.
“I made a mistake and I apologize,” said Feudale on Tuesday. “I recognize that my comment contributes to the spread of hate speech. If the fires were intentional, it has nothing to do with nationalities, religions, or communities that deserve my respect.”
Her apology followed criticism by Argentine President Javier Milei, who on Saturday retweeted on X a rebuke of Feudale by Mauro Berenstein, the president of the DAIA umbrella of Argentine Jewish communities. “The dark side of Argentina. Period,” Milei wrote about Feudale, who has been a vocal critic of him and his government.
In the tweet that Milei reposted, Berenstein wrote: “Singling out ‘two Israelis’ as responsible for the fires without evidence is irresponsible and dangerous. It generates stigmas, reinforces anti-Jewish narratives and hatred. The media have a huge responsibility: a lie is not an opinion. At DAIA, we will not stand for it.”
On Monday, the Chequeado fact-check site determined that claims of Israeli involvement were “false and misleading narratives” devoid of any factual basis.
The Argentine-Jewish Iton Gadol newspaper reported that the rumors surfaced in antisemitic rhetoric, including in hateful messages to the Chabad House in Bariloche, a lakeside Patagonian city that draws many thousands of tourists, including hundreds of Israelis, each year.
The Spanish-language edition of Germany’s DW news site noted a pattern in which wildfires in Patagonia are followed by “unsubstantiated accusations that resurface on social media, pointing to people or groups of Israeli nationality as responsible” for the calamity.
These narratives often rely on the so-called Andinia Plan, an old and discredited antisemitic conspiracy theory that speaks of a plan to create a Jewish state in Patagonia
The Zionist Organization of Argentina (OSA) on Monday published a statement on this, saying that, “The so-called Andinia Plan is a conspiracy theory created in antisemitic circles in the mid-20th century, which falsely attributes to the Zionist movement the intention of appropriating territories in Patagonia. This narrative was promoted by extremists and has been repeatedly debunked by historians, academics, and the Argentine State itself. There neither is nor ever has been a plan by the State of Israel or Zionism to occupy Argentine territory. Its invocation in the 21st century reveals only ignorance, bad faith, and a clear discriminatory intent.”
The fires have consumed thousands of hectares in Chubut, a province in Patagonian Argentina famous for its vast plains between the Andes Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in the province, which is situated about 1,400 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and some 1,600 miles northwest of South America’s southernmost tip.
