Israel and Argentina have launched a direct flight beginning in November as the 2 international locations increase their ties beneath Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The twice-a-week flight comes as Israel is aggressively pushing to cement its geopolitical footprint in Latin America amid its rising worldwide isolation and its entrenched picture as an occupying energy.
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On Could 7, Israel’s nationwide provider, El Al, opened bookings for a direct flight between Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires masking a distance of 12,000 kilometres (7,460 miles) – the longest route within the airline’s historical past.
Nevertheless, the 16.5-hour journey is pushed by political ambitions fairly than mere industrial viability.
Throughout a celebratory occasion in occupied East Jerusalem final month, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed Argentina’s Milei to hail the “first direct flight” between the 2 nations.
The occasion showcased a placing political alignment, additional highlighted by the presence of US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, who jokingly promised to purchase the primary ticket and described the 2 leaders as US “President Donald Trump’s largest mates”.
The route goals to translate the “Isaac Accords” – a Latin American framework impressed by the “Abraham Accords” – into tangible actuality. Morocco and Sudan established diplomatic ties with Israel as a part of the Abraham Accords signed beneath President Trump’s first time period.
Championed behind the scenes by Rabbi Axel Wahnish, Argentina’s ambassador to Israel, the framework goals to determine strategic cooperation in safety, counterterrorism, and synthetic intelligence with Latin American nations, together with Ecuador, Costa Rica and Paraguay.
Buying and selling tech for legitimacy
Israel is acutely conscious that its standing as an occupying energy, exacerbated by the genocidal warfare on Gaza, has severely broken its worldwide standing. To safe recognition and bypass boycotts, notably from an more and more important Europe, Israel is leveraging its superior navy and surveillance applied sciences.
Ihab Jabarin, an analyst specialising in Israeli affairs, advised Al Jazeera that Israel’s technique has shifted.
“Israel’s ethical picture has utterly eroded,” Jabarin stated. “The logic now’s: ‘you could not like us, however you want us.’ Israel is providing its experience in cybersecurity, AI techniques like Lavender, border administration, and drones – applied sciences examined on Palestinian our bodies and land – to international locations grappling with inner conflicts and organised crime,” he advised Al Jazeera.
Jabarin famous that Israel makes use of infrastructure – whether or not ports, underwater cables, or civilian aviation – as instruments for nationwide safety and affect. “This flight isn’t just about transporting passengers; it’s a everlasting hall for safety and tech businessmen,” he defined.
This technique of utilizing know-how and safety to purchase diplomatic loyalty mirrors Israel’s method in Africa. It has solid shut ties with Ethiopia, Kenya and Chad. Final December, Israel turned the primary nation on the planet to recognise Somaliland, a breakaway area of Somalia.
It has used smaller island states like Micronesia within the Asia Pacific to safe beneficial votes on the United Nations and break its worldwide isolation.
“Israel is making an attempt to create a worldwide community of pursuits that forces international locations to weigh their relationship with Israel towards their stance on the Palestinian trigger,” Jabarin added. “It needs to make the world unable to reside with out it.”
The Milei-Netanyahu chemistry
The driving pressure behind this Latin American hyperlink is the ideological bond between Netanyahu and Milei. Whereas left-wing leaders within the area, akin to Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have severed ties or strongly condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza, Milei has embraced the Israeli narrative unconditionally.
For Milei, who declared himself probably the most Zionist president on the planet in March, the alliance affords fast positioning within the Center East, nearer ties to Washington lobbies, and a stance towards Latin America’s conventional left. For Netanyahu, Milei affords unconditional emotional and symbolic help that Israel has largely misplaced in Europe.
“Netanyahu understands the worth of a symbolic ally,” Jabarin stated. “He wants leaders who will be marketed as proof that Israel can nonetheless forge ideological alliances, not simply pragmatic ones. Argentina, beneath Milei, has develop into Israel’s most essential ‘island of affect’.”
A ‘protected haven’ from warfare crime probes
The direct flight additionally serves a extremely sensible safety goal for Israel. With mounting authorized challenges and arrest warrants focusing on Israeli troopers and officers in Europe over alleged warfare crimes in Gaza, the Tel Aviv-Buenos Aires route affords an important bypass.
On Tuesday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated he was knowledgeable that the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC) had requested a warrant for his arrest. Prime Minister Netanyahu can also be sought by the ICC for warfare crimes dedicated in Gaza.
Presently, travellers between the 2 international locations depend on 21 to 33-hour transit flights by way of European hubs like Madrid or Paris.
Diego Ruzzarin, a Brazilian author and analyst, argued that the challenge goals to safe hassle-free journey for Israelis, notably navy personnel, sparing them from worldwide safety interrogations or the danger of arrest in Europe.
Jabarin echoed this evaluation, noting that the concern of authorized pursuit in Europe is a big concern throughout the Israeli institution.
“The direct flight bypasses any potential authorized harassment in Europe,” he stated. “Latin America is now showing in Israeli calculations as a extra politically versatile area in comparison with rights-focused Europe.”
Financial dangers and home pushback
Regardless of its strategic worth, the flight faces vital logistical and financial hurdles. As a result of Israeli planes are banned from the airspace of a number of African nations, together with Libya, the flights should take a expensive detour over the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
To mitigate the financial dangers of the long-haul route, the Israeli authorities has taken the weird step of granting El Al a 20-million-shekel ($5.4m) subsidy, unfold over three years.
The success of the route will closely rely on Argentina’s Jewish group – the most important in Latin America, estimated at as much as 300,000. In keeping with Sabre information, roughly 55,300 individuals travelled between the 2 international locations in 2025, a 37 p.c improve from 2024, however nonetheless under the 71,200 recorded in 2019.
The challenge has sparked home criticism in each international locations. In Israel, the transport ministry reportedly warned that pulling Boeing 787 Dreamliners from extremely worthwhile US routes to service Buenos Aires may drive up ticket costs for Israelis travelling to North America.
In Argentina, left-wing congresswoman Myriam Bregman accused Milei’s authorities of dragging the nation into an “imperialist warfare” with out congressional approval, warning of a constitutional overreach.
Moreover, the inflow of Israeli vacationers, lots of whom are lately discharged troopers, has precipitated friction in southern Argentina. Native residents and activists have blamed Israeli vacationers for devastating fires within the Patagonia nature reserves as a consequence of negligence, the newest being a large blaze in January 2026 that destroyed 77,000 hectares (190,000 acres) and led to the arrest of an Israeli vacationer.
For Israelis, nevertheless, an El Al flight to Buenos Aires carries profound historic symbolism. In Could 1960, the Mossad used an official El Al flight to smuggle captured former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann out of Argentina to face trial and execution in Israel.
