On Thursday, hundreds of protesters stormed the building of the Israeli embassy in Mexico, vandalized the place and wrote anti-Semitic Nazi inscriptions on the walls. Behind the corruption there is a particularly painful story in Mexico, regarding the murder of 43 students who cheered against the government. Israel provides political asylum to one of the whistleblowers of the event, which could lead to a serious crisis in relations between the two countries
Last Thursday, hundreds of protesters furiously stormed the Israeli embassy in Mexico, where Ambassador Zvi Tal serves.
The demonstrators sprayed hateful inscriptions on the walls of the embassy, damaged the cameras there and caused great anger among the Israeli Foreign Ministry personnel about Mexico. The Mexican ambassador in Israel was summoned to a reprimand conversation at the Foreign Ministry, and the Foreign Ministry said in response to the unusual and serious incident: “We have an expectation that the Mexican government will meet its international obligations. We will bring the matter to the Mexican ambassador.”
Behind the unusual protest at the Israeli embassy building in Mexico is a difficult and painful story among the Mexicans, in which Israel has a part.
On September 26, 2014, Mexico was shocked: 43 students from the city of Iguala who were celebrating against the economic policies of the Mexican government were kidnapped, and their traces disappeared.
That morning the students were on their way to the city of Chilpancingo to protest against the economic policies of the Mexican government regarding the discrimination against rural students. During their journey, the local police stopped them, and within moments a shootout broke out between the hawks. The police had the upper hand, and after the fire stopped, the students were put into the police cars.
Apparently the police were sent to suppress the student protest by the mayor. She handed the abductees over to the “United Fighters” criminal organization, who took them to a nearby landfill. On the same day, 43 students were murdered by members of the organization. When word of the students’ disappearance became known, huge protests began throughout Mexico, which led to the opening of an investigation into the disappearance of the abductees. The investigation was led by Tomas Saron, the head of the Federal Agency in Mexico, the equivalent of the FBI. The investigation was biased and smeared the part of the Mexican government in the murder of the students. Saron placed full responsibility on the police officers who kidnapped the students, and claimed that corruption is only at the local level.
On the other hand, the international investigation opened in 2016 regarding the incident reached other conclusions and stated that there were also federal soldiers and police officers at the scene of the murder. It also revealed that: “The delays in transferring the evidence, which could have been used to find additional lines of investigation, are essentially interpreted as a decision to allow the guilty to escape punishment.”
In 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president of Mexico, who holds this position to this day. Obrador cleaned out stables in the Mexican government and wanted to prosecute the people behind the affair and those involved in it, including Thomas Saron who led the investigation that shook responsibility for the incident from the Mexican government. Saron was accused of corruption, kidnapping, torture and tampering with evidence in the investigation of the disappearance of the 43 students.
Saron claimed that the charges are unfounded and false, and that they stem from political considerations only. The Mexican Deputy Minister of Human Rights rejected this claim, saying in an interview to “The Times”: “What political persecution? There is a public video in which this man is seen torturing someone and threatening him with death.”
Saron realized that he had to flee Mexico, otherwise he would be put on trial and put in prison. In 2019 he fled to Canada, and in the same year he flew to Israel. Saron found political asylum in Israel, and has been there since September 2019 until today. According to the “Times”, Israeli companies helped Saron immigrate to Israel, and the name of the “Pegasus” company was even mentioned in this context. Why did the State of Israel agree to take in Saron? The “New York Times” claims that the reason for this may be Israeli revenge on the Mexican government for supporting anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations.
The Mexican president more than once appealed to Israel to extradite Saron, but his requests were not answered positively. A senior official at the Foreign Ministry admitted to “Yediot Ahronoth” that Saron’s lack of extradition does indeed come as a result of Mexican support for opening an investigation against Israel at the United Nations, and even stated: “Why would we help Mexico?”.
Against the background of Israel’s refusal to extradite Saron to Mexico, a lot of anger against Israel has accumulated among the students’ families, their friends and just ordinary citizens. This anger was significantly expressed last Thursday, with the arrival of hundreds of student members and their families to the Israeli Embassy in Mexico. Among the hateful inscriptions sprayed on the embassy wall was written: “Death to Israel”.
This damage to the Israeli embassy building is serious and unusual, and it could lead to an acute crisis in relations between Israel and Mexico.