# The “Andinia Plan,” a claim that Jews plotted to seize Patagonia for a breakaway Jewish state, is a debunked antisemitic myth with no documentary basis

**Verdict: Contradicted.** The Andinia Plan is a false, antisemitic conspiracy theory, and this file treats it as one. It alleges a secret Jewish or Zionist scheme to carve a second Jewish state out of Patagonia, the region straddling southern Argentina and Chile. No such plan exists: there is no document, no map, no organization, and no evidence of any kind behind it, a point the Anti-Defamation League states plainly and that historians of Argentine antisemitism confirm. The myth was assembled in 1970s Argentina out of the recycled template of the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion, distorting real, benign history (Baron Maurice de Hirsch's farming colonies for Jews fleeing pogroms, and Theodor Herzl's passing mention of Argentina as a possible refuge) into an imaginary invasion plot. It was propagated in army and ultranationalist circles, tied above all to Walter Beveraggi Allende, weaponized to justify torturing Jewish prisoners during the 1976–1983 dictatorship, and revived to blame Israeli backpackers for Patagonian wildfires in 2011 and again in 2026. The verdict is locked to the truth: debunked. This page reports the smear as a hoax and never asserts it as fact.

Category: Secret Societies & Power · Era: 1970s · First circulated: A leaflet titled “Plan Andinia” circulated among Argentine army officers in 1971; the theory was popularized through the 1970s in ultranationalist media, above all by the economist Walter Beveraggi Allende and the magazine Cabildo. · Believed by: A fringe but persistent belief in Argentine and Chilean ultranationalist, neo-Nazi, and some military circles since the 1970s, periodically amplified to a much wider audience by pundits, retired officers, and social media during moments of crisis such as the 2011 and 2026 Patagonia wildfires. Mainstream historians, fact-checkers, and anti-hate organizations classify it as an antisemitic hoax.
URL: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/plan-andinia

## Summary
The “Andinia Plan” (Plan Andinia) is a false, antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims Jews, or the State of Israel, secretly plot to seize Patagonia and establish a breakaway Jewish state in the south of Argentina and Chile. It has no documentary basis whatsoever: the Anti-Defamation League describes it as an allegation without evidence, and historians trace it not to any real plan but to the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion, rewritten in an Argentine key. The myth surfaced among army officers in a 1971 leaflet and was propagated through the 1970s by the ultranationalist economist Walter Beveraggi Allende. It hardened into state paranoia during the 1976–1983 military dictatorship, when interrogators tortured Jewish prisoners, among them the editor Jacobo Timerman, demanding details of an invasion that did not exist. It resurfaces in each new crisis, most recently to blame Israeli tourists for wildfires. This file reports the myth as the debunked hoax it is; it never asserts the plot as real.

## The claim
The myth asserts that international Jewry, world Zionism, or Israel has a long-running secret plan to colonize Patagonia, survey and map the land, seed it with settlers and agents (in the modern version, Israeli backpackers said to be soldiers in disguise), and ultimately detach the region from Argentina and Chile to found a second Jewish homeland. As believers tell it, Jewish agricultural settlement in Argentina, early Zionist interest in the country, and the presence of Israeli travelers are all stages of this scheme.

## Origin and timeline
- 1891: Baron Maurice de Hirsch founds the Jewish Colonization Association to resettle Jews fleeing pogroms in the Russian Empire on farmland, including agricultural colonies in Argentina such as Moises Ville. This is real, documented humanitarian migration to the Pampas; decades later conspiracists would distort it into supposed evidence of a territorial plot.
- 1896: Theodor Herzl, in Der Judenstaat, briefly weighs Argentina alongside Palestine as a possible site for a Jewish refuge. It is a passing line in a founding Zionist text, not a plan to annex Patagonia, but antisemitic writers later seize on it as a supposed smoking gun.
- 1960s: In the wake of Israel's 1960 capture of Adolf Eichmann on Argentine soil and rising Cold War nationalism, Argentine far-right and neo-Nazi circles increasingly frame Jewish citizens as a foreign fifth column, priming the ground for a homegrown territorial conspiracy theory.
- 1971: A leaflet titled “Plan Andinia” circulates among officers of the Argentine army, accusing international Jewry and Zionism of a plan to take over the south of the country. The document has no verifiable provenance and names no real plan; it is the first appearance of the label.
- 1971–1970s: The ultranationalist economist and lawyer Walter Beveraggi Allende (1920–1993) propagates the theory in the far-right press, notably the magazine Cabildo, elaborating the fiction of an Israeli scheme to conquer part of Patagonia and declare a Jewish state. His writings become the theory's main reference point.
- 1976–1983: During the military dictatorship's “Dirty War,” the myth is institutionalized inside the repressive apparatus. Jewish detainees, among them the newspaper editor Jacobo Timerman, later report being tortured and interrogated about the supposed Andinia Plan and about imagined Israeli preparations to invade Patagonia.
- 2011: After an Israeli backpacker's campfire accidentally sparks a large wildfire in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park, some politicians and commentators revive the Andinia claim, tying the blaze to the imagined plot. The Anti-Defamation League publicly condemns the linkage as antisemitic.
- 2026-01: As wildfires sweep Argentine Patagonia, opposition figures, a retired army general, and radio pundits amplify claims that Israeli tourists deliberately set the fires as part of the Andinia Plan. Fact-checkers debunk the supposed evidence (including a “Israeli grenade” that proved to be Argentine-made), a prosecutor calls the accusations an “invention,” and at least one pundit publicly apologizes and retracts.

## The evidence, claim by claim
- Claim: The myth asserts that a real, written “Andinia Plan” exists, documenting a Jewish scheme to seize Patagonia.
  Evidence: No such document has ever been produced. There is no plan, no map, no minutes, no organization, and no primary record of any kind. The Anti-Defamation League catalogues the Andinia Plan as an allegation with no supporting evidence, and historians of Argentine antisemitism describe it as a fabrication modeled on the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The 1971 leaflet that first used the name is itself an anonymous tract of unknown authorship, not evidence of a plan.
- Claim: Believers point to Jewish agricultural colonies in Argentina as proof of a land-grab in progress.
  Evidence: That distorts real, benign history. From 1891 the Jewish Colonization Association, funded by Baron Maurice de Hirsch, resettled Jews fleeing violent pogroms in the Russian Empire on farmland, founding colonies such as Moises Ville in the central Pampas, not Patagonia. These were refugee farming communities that integrated into Argentine life; treating a humanitarian resettlement as a covert invasion is exactly the sleight of hand that turns ordinary Jewish presence into an imagined conspiracy.
- Claim: Believers cite Theodor Herzl's mention of Argentina as evidence of a Zionist plan for the country.
  Evidence: Herzl's 1896 pamphlet Der Judenstaat weighed Argentina alongside Palestine in a single passage as a hypothetical refuge for a persecuted people. It proposed no annexation of Patagonia and led to no such project; the Zionist movement pursued Palestine. Lifting one line from a foundational text and recasting it as a secret territorial blueprint is a textbook conspiracist move: take a real citation, strip its context, and present it as a hidden confession.
- Claim: The modern version asserts that Israeli backpackers in Patagonia are soldiers in disguise, scouting and mapping for the invasion.
  Evidence: Israel is a country with universal military service, so most young Israeli travelers have served; that is true of the population generally and proves nothing. Large numbers of young Israelis backpack through South America after their service, a well-documented tourism pattern. No evidence connects these travelers to any territorial scheme. Framing ordinary tourists as covert agents because of their nationality is ethnic profiling dressed up as intelligence analysis.
- Claim: In 2011 and 2026, believers claimed Israelis deliberately started Patagonian wildfires to advance the plan.
  Evidence: The 2011 Torres del Paine fire was an accident caused by a backpacker's campfire, not sabotage, and the ADL condemned the antisemitic spin placed on it. In 2026, Argentine fact-checkers debunked the supposed proof: a purported “Israeli grenade” found at a fire site was identified as an FMK-2 made by Argentina's own Fabricaciones Militares, and a viral “two Israelis” story was retracted by the pundit who aired it. The chief prosecutor for the Lago Puelo blaze called the Israeli-and-Mapuche accusations “an invention” and pointed the investigation toward a local land dispute.
- Claim: Because officials, generals, and media figures have repeated the theory, it must have some basis.
  Evidence: Repetition by authorities is how the myth spreads, not proof that it is true. During the 1976–1983 dictatorship the theory was believed and acted upon by state torturers, yet it remained baseless; the fact that the security services tortured Jewish prisoners about an invasion of Patagonia says everything about institutional antisemitism and nothing about any real plan. When a retired general or a radio host amplifies it, they lend it false authority, which is precisely the danger a debunk is meant to counter.
- Claim: Patagonia really does have genuine disputes over land and foreign ownership, so the theory is grounded in something real.
  Evidence: Patagonia does have real, contested questions: large foreign land holdings, Mapuche territorial claims, and arson investigations tied to local conflicts. But none of these involve a Jewish or Israeli plot. The Andinia myth hijacks legitimate anxieties and pins them on a scapegoat, which crowds out the actual disputes rather than illuminating them. Real land politics is not evidence for an antisemitic fantasy grafted onto it.

## Why people believe it
- It is a local remix of a global template. The Andinia Plan maps the century-old structure of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a hidden Jewish cabal with a secret master plan) onto a specifically Argentine fear, which makes an imported hatred feel homegrown and self-evident to those already primed for it.
- It hijacks real history. Jewish farming colonies did exist, Herzl did mention Argentina, and Israelis really do backpack through Patagonia. Believers can point to genuine facts, then supply a sinister interpretation, so the theory feels documentable to anyone who does not check what those facts actually mean.
- It offers a simple villain for complex anxieties. Sovereignty over Patagonia, foreign land ownership, economic crisis, and Cold War fears are all hard, tangled problems; a single hidden enemy is an easier story, and scapegoating a minority is an old and reliable shortcut.
- It has carried the stamp of authority. Because army officers, a dictatorship's interrogators, retired generals, and broadcast pundits have all repeated it, the myth arrives wrapped in borrowed credibility, which is far more persuasive to a casual audience than an anonymous leaflet would be on its own.

## Open questions
- Why does it keep coming back? The plain answer is not that new evidence appears (none ever does) but that each crisis, a wildfire, a land conflict, an economic shock, offers a fresh hook on which to hang the same baseless story.
- Who benefits from recycling it? The pattern to watch is deflection: when the Andinia myth is invoked, it tends to redirect attention away from the real causes under investigation (accidental fires, local land disputes, arson tied to regional conflicts) and onto a scapegoat that cannot be investigated because it does not exist.
- What real issues does the myth crowd out? Patagonia's genuine debates over foreign land ownership and Indigenous Mapuche territorial rights are legitimate and unresolved. The conspiracy theory poisons that conversation by smuggling antisemitism into it, which is a reason to name the hoax clearly rather than let it masquerade as concern for sovereignty.

## Sources
- Allegation: The Andinia Plan, Anti-Defamation League (ADL): https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/allegation-andinia-plan
- Latin America's Very Own Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Jacobin (2023): https://jacobin.com/2023/05/latin-americas-very-own-protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion
- In Argentina, an old antisemitic conspiracy has been reignited by Patagonia's wildfires, Haaretz (2026): https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2026-01-13/ty-article-magazine/.premium/in-argentina-an-old-antisemitic-conspiracy-has-been-reignited-by-patagonias-wildfires/0000019b-b75b-d66b-a5df-b7dbc1de0000
- Argentina officials blame Israeli tourists for Patagonia fires, The New Arab (2026): https://www.newarab.com/news/argentina-officials-blame-israeli-tourists-patagonia-fires
- Retired Argentinian general claims Israelis caused Patagonia wildfires in antisemitic conspiracy, The Jerusalem Post (2026): https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-883035
- Patagonia's wildfires become weapons of disinformation, Buenos Aires Times (2026): https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/patagonias-wildfires-become-weapons-of-disinformation.phtml
- Antisemitic wildfire conspiracy theories spread in Argentina, targeting Israelis, Combat Antisemitism Movement (2026): https://combatantisemitism.org/cam-news/antisemitic-wildfire-conspiracy-theories-spread-in-argentina-targeting-israelis/
- Argentine pundit apologizes for linking fires to Israelis, JNS (Jewish News Syndicate) (2026): https://www.jns.org/world/argentine-pundit-apologizes-for-linking-fires-to-israelis
- Andinia Plan, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andinia_Plan
- Walter Beveraggi Allende, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Beveraggi_Allende

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