A catastrophic wildfire that tore through parts of Argentina’s Patagonia region has ignited a parallel political and media firestorm, after a provincial court determined the blaze was caused by human intervention — a finding that quickly metastasized into antisemitic and anti-Israeli conspiracy theories online.

The ruling by a court in Chubut Province, in southern Argentina, concluded that the fire that ravaged a nature reserve and nearby residential areas was not accidental and may have been deliberately set. Within hours, social media platforms and fringe media outlets were flooded with baseless claims accusing Israelis — and Jews more broadly — of orchestrating the blaze.

Fueling the uproar was a viral video posted shortly after the court’s decision, showing a local resident confronting tourists who had lit a campfire in a protected area where fires are prohibited. The clip, whose subjects were never identified, was rapidly repurposed online with captions alleging the tourists were Israeli soldiers dispatched by the IDF or even agents of the Mossad sent to deliberately ignite Patagonia.

One widely shared caption urged viewers to “defend yourselves from arson” and called for the expulsion of Israeli soldiers from Argentina.

Those claims unraveled quickly. An investigation by the Argentine news outlet Ahora Caleta found that the video was filmed roughly 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) from the actual wildfire site. The individual who recorded the footage told the outlet he personally extinguished the campfire and that it did not result in any wildfire.

Still, the debunking did little to slow the spread of disinformation. Anti-Israeli and antisemitic activists continued circulating the narrative, embellishing it with new fabrications — including false claims that Israeli tourists had been arrested in connection with the fire and that weapons were discovered nearby.

Among the outlets amplifying the false allegations was Fars News Agency, which repeated the invented details in reporting that sought to attribute responsibility for the wildfire to Israel.

The episode has also drawn attention to a broader pattern of scapegoating in Argentina. Alongside Jews and Israelis, members of the Mapuche nation — an Indigenous community in southern Argentina and Chile — have also been accused by nationalist and far-right groups of arson and sabotage, a charge human rights organizations say has long been used to justify discrimination and repression.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)