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February 12, 2024

Days of miracles and wonder in Argentina

By Monica Showalter

Argentina's president, Javier Milei, traveled to Jerusalem to announce the moving of Argentina's embassy to Jerusalem, the Israeli capital where it belongs. While he was there, he put on a kippeh and pray quite intensely at the Western wailing wall. The left, of course, abused him because of course they did, but it didn't stop him. 

 

 

And by the wildest of coincidences, two hostages held by Hamas since Oct. 7, were freed by the Israeli Defense Forces.

According to the New York Times:

Israeli security forces said early Monday that they had freed two hostages who were being held in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, in only the second known rescue of its kind in Gaza since the start of the war. Officials in Gaza said that accompanying Israeli strikes had killed dozens of Palestinians in the city overnight.

The hostages, Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, were undergoing tests at a hospital near Tel Aviv and were both in good condition, according to a joint statement from the Israeli military, the police and the domestic security agency, Shin Bet.

They were both Israeli ... and Argentinian.

Nice coincidence Milei was in town, paying his respects.

It was as his prayers at the Wall had been answered, and it wasn't surprising that many Argentinians and Israelis, Christian and Jewish, thought so.

 

 

There were some people in Israel who interpreted it even more mystically, seeing signs that it was divine intervention.

 

 

For Christians, the reference to 'leper' within the video above, too, was interesting, given that at Catholic Mass on the same Sunday, the biblical readings according to the Church calendar, were all about the plight of lepers.

Lots of coincidences.

Divinely ordained or not, many people viewed what happened as miraculous and it came with the backdrop of another miracle of sorts, that of the sudden recovery of Argentina's long-stagnant economy.

After decades of moribund ups and down, it appears to finally be coming to life, and some are forecasting a revolution that will spread like wildfire all through the Latin American continents.

According to Axel Kaiser, a longtime libertarian thinker in the region:

I’m writing this column from the iconic Palacio Duhau in Recoleta, Buenos Aires, where I have met several well-informed friends. They all concur that, so far, Milei is well on the way to achieving the unthinkable: putting an end to a century of collectivist decline. The lion of the Andes, as Milei is sometimes called, has not wasted time.

Shortly after coming to power, Milei dramatically narrowed the gap between the official and the market exchange rates by devaluing the peso 54%. He went on to shut down ministries and public offices and lay off swarms of useless bureaucrats. He also passed an emergency decree with 300 measures to deregulate the economy. Among them are the privatization of all public companies, the elimination of rent controls, an open sky policy, cutting subsidies to different sectors of the economy, ending import restrictions, deregulating satellite services and many others. In addition, the reduction of fiscal deficit is moving forward.

During the first month of Milei’s administration, public spending decreased by 30% in real terms compared to the previous year and the previous month. In other words, the government is already spending almost a third less than in the same period last year when adjusted for inflation. 

It helps that Milei, a week earlier, got through a big second package of reforms, laying off 30% of government bureaucrats and freeing the country of countless regulations. Of course the economy would recover. This is how economies recover.

Kaiser thinks it's a revolution that's going to spread, citing how libertarian ideas have been seeded all over Latin America over the years:

But one thing is certain: At long last, the region is starting to experience an intellectual revolution that is elevating liberty to the place it deserves. And, although this phenomenon still has a long way to go, it might change the course of history.

For there is one revolution with the potential to end all Latin American socialist failures: a freedom-oriented revolution capable of delivering lasting individual liberty, economic progress and dignity for hundreds of millions of people.

What he describes, I saw myself firsthand on my Latin American travels. The revolution is now catching fire.

Against this backdrop, the miraculous things for Argentina kept coming.

Following his trip to Israel, Milei headed out to Rome to meet with Pope Francis, another Argentinian, with whom he's clashed sharply.

But it wasn't fireworks -- it was a lovefest. Look at them!

 

 

That was not on anyone's bingo card.

They made some kind of peace accord, the pope recognizing Milei's popularity and not wanting to mess with it, and Milei suddenly all hugs and Argentinian kisses. The pope had just canonized Argentina's first saint in its history, and the president invited him to come to Argentina to visit his country for the first time since his papacy. 

Obviously, things are coming up roses for Argentina, with one heartening and encouraging piece of news after another. 

What an amazing sequence of events, days indeed of miracles and wonder. Let's hope that streak just keeps continuing for Israel, and for Argentina.

Image: Screen shot from Twitter video 

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