Daniel Parisini, known as “Gordo Dan”, once again found himself at the center of controversy for a tweet with an ironic tone and anti-Semitic undertones directed at Itai Hagman, Fuerza Patria’s candidate for deputy: “My vote was for La Libertad Avanza to support the javeto reforms but since I found out that Itai Hagman was born in ISRAEL I have decided to change it to Fuerza Patria. My number one priority “it is and will always be to destroy Palestine. LET’S GO ISRAEL. COME ON ITAI HAGMAN.”
The comment, full of sarcasm and accompanied by Israeli flags, was read as a mockery of the origin of Hagman, born in Jerusalem in 1983. The publication went viral and revived an already latent controversy: days ago, libertarian leaders such as Sabrina Ajmechet and Agustín Romo had questioned Hagman for not mentioning “Israel” in a campaign video in which he said he was born “on the outside.”
Hagman’s response to the attacks was immediate: “The truth is that they made me laugh today. I never hid it, as can be seen in a lot of interviews where I talked about the subject. I’m sorry to disappoint you if you wanted the place where I was born to define my identity more than the country where I lived all my life. But in case it’s necessary, I remind the Twitter users and libertarian candidates that they have a minister who was imprisoned for covering up the attack on the AMIA and they take a deputy accused of being anti-Semitic even by the DAIA,” he shot in reference to Mariano Cúneo Libarona and Alejandro Fargosi.
“By the way, would you say the same thing if instead of Israel you had been born in any other country? I don’t care, but know that ‘Tell me where you are from’ is a reissue of one of the most classic anti-Semitic arguments in history,” he concluded his argument.
It is not the first time that Parisini resorts to provocation. In September, he had launched a cruel attack against Senator Luis Juez, which generated widespread condemnation. His new publication confirms a pattern of offensive messages and deliberate search for scandal.
The case once again shows how political sarcasm on networks can become hate speech. As Hagman seeks to get away from the center of the attack, the episode reflects the level of polarization that dominates the Argentine political scene.
