How an Israel oil firm deepens Argentina-UK Malvinas dispute

For Javier Milei, few foreign policy commitments have been as emphatic as his alignment with Israel. Argentina’s president has described himself as “the most Zionist president in the world”, repeatedly visited Israel, moved his government closer to Benjamin Netanyahu and sought to make the relationship one of the defining features of his presidency. Yet today an Israeli company stands at the centre of one of the most aggressive sovereignty campaigns launched by Milei’s government.

In early September, Buenos Aires announced measures targeting companies involved in hydrocarbon activity around the Malvinas Islands. It subsequently filed a criminal complaint against Israel’s Navitas Petroleum entities and other companies allegedly holding licences issued by the island authorities for exploration or exploitation in the North Malvinas Basin.

At the same time, Milei is preparing legislation to widen the sanctions regime, potentially extending penalties beyond offshore oil exploration to affiliates and other activities affecting natural resources around the islands.

For a president who has made his attachment to Israel so central to his international identity, the apparent contradiction is striking. But it also reveals something important about Milei’s foreign policy: ideology can reshape national interests, but it cannot always replace them.

When ideology meets a national red line

The dispute did not begin with Milei. Argentina has opposed offshore exploration around the islands for years, and in 2022 formally declared Navitas clandestine and barred it from operating in Argentina for 20 years. What Milei has done is different. Rather than quietly distancing himself from a policy inherited from the previous government, he has escalated it.

His government has sought to widen the potential targets of penalties, pursued criminal proceedings and announced legislation designed to increase the economic cost of participating in activities Buenos Aires considers an infringement of Argentine sovereignty.

Sea Lion makes the dispute increasingly difficult to ignore. The field is estimated to contain around 1.7 billion barrels of oil. Navitas controls 65% and Rockhopper Exploration the remaining 35%, with first production expected in 2028 and initial output projected at around 50,000 barrels per day.

For Argentina, however, this is not primarily an energy issue. The claim to sovereignty over the Malvinas transcends normal partisan divisions. It is embedded in the Argentine constitution and has historically united governments of radically different ideological orientations. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, maintains that the sovereignty question must reflect the wishes and right to self-determination of the islanders.

Milei cannot simply exempt an Israeli company from Argentine policy without paying a substantial domestic political price. That is particularly significant because his own approach to the Malvinas had previously been unusually conciliatory by Argentine standards.

Milei praised Margaret Thatcher as one of the world’s “greatest leaders” — a provocative and even insulting gesture in Argentina given her role in the 1982 war — and argued that sovereignty should eventually be recovered through diplomacy rather than confrontation. His current turn is notable not only because it affects Israeli interests, but because Milei previously tried to subordinate traditional Argentine diplomatic reflexes to his broader ideological worldview.

Malvinas has proved harder to subordinate. The domestic sensitivity of the issue had already surfaced during the 2026 World Cup. After Argentina defeated England 2–1 in the semifinal, players displayed a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, despite an Argentina–UK understanding with FIFA that political banners would be kept out of the stadium.

Milei, who before the match had urged against mixing football with the sovereignty dispute and dismissed “cheap patriotism”, quickly backed the players afterwards, a revealing indication of the political cost of appearing detached from the Malvinas claim.

Israel’s unexpected response

The Argentine government has been careful to separate Navitas from its relationship with Israel. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno explicitly insisted that the dispute would not damage bilateral relations, saying Argentina remained in constant communication with Israel and recalling that Navitas and Rockhopper were already sanctioned in Argentina.

The more surprising reaction, however, came from Israel itself. Instead of defending the Israeli company, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Benjamin Netanyahu to recognise Argentine sovereignty over the islands and impose sanctions on Britain “for as long as the occupation continues”. He also accused Britain of taking Argentine territory and exploiting resources belonging to the Argentine people. His intervention has not become official Israeli policy, but it was politically extraordinary.

The irony is difficult to miss. Ben-Gvir is one of the most uncompromising defenders of Israeli control and settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories. Yet when discussing the Malvinas, he suddenly adopted the language of foreign occupation, dispossession and stolen natural resources.

This came as relations between Israel and Britain were sharply deteriorating over British policy toward Palestine and Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The Malvinas dispute thus became useful in a completely different geopolitical quarrel. There is no need to claim that the Palestinian and Malvinas disputes are legally or historically equivalent. They are not. The revealing point is how quickly the vocabulary of occupation, sovereignty, and territorial rights can be embraced or rejected, depending on who is doing the occupying and who the political adversary happens to be.

Sovereignty à la carte

Milei’s foreign policy has frequently presented international politics in ideological terms. As I argued previously, his alignment with Israel has gone considerably beyond Argentina’s traditional diplomatic relationship with the country.

Milei has sought to place Argentina explicitly within a political camp built around Netanyahu, Donald Trump and a particular interpretation of the Western struggle against Iran and its allies. The Malvinas dispute exposes the limits of such alignment. When a core Argentine national claim conflicts with Israeli commercial interests, Milei chooses the Argentine claim.

When Britain clashes with Israel over Palestine, meanwhile, figures such as Ben-Gvir suddenly discover the virtues of Argentine anti-colonial rhetoric.

Neither development necessarily means the Argentina-Israel relationship is weakening. Quite the opposite, both governments have worked to prevent the Navitas dispute from becoming a bilateral crisis. This shows that the ideological solidarity between Milei and Netanyahu is far more selective than their rhetoric suggests.

Indeed, the events illustrate something broader about the emerging network of right-wing governments and movements that portray themselves as united by civilizational values, Western identity or common enemies. Their solidarity is strongest when their interests overlap. When they do not, sovereignty returns very quickly.

Milei’s contradiction

There may also be a domestic calculation behind Milei’s new assertiveness.

His harder Malvinas stance comes less than a year before Argentina’s 2027 presidential election and after Donald Trump said he was reviewing the United States’ position on Malvinas. Milei’s critics have consequently accused him of opportunistically rediscovering a national cause he once treated with unusual caution. That criticism may contain some truth, but it does not eliminate the importance of the shift; in fact, it reinforces it.

Malvinas demonstrates that even such an ideological presidency operates within constraints created by history, domestic politics and national identity.

There is a final irony. Milei’s government is now invoking sovereignty to challenge an Israeli company operating under British authorisation. Ben-Gvir is invoking occupation to attack Britain. And Israel and Argentina insist that none of this should interfere with their unusually close relationship. Perhaps they are right, but precisely for that reason, the episode offers a useful reminder of how contemporary ideological alliances really work. Principles matter until interests change.

Dr. Luciano Zaccara is Principal Researcher at New Ground Research, Qatar. Also, a Visiting Associate Professor at the Georgetown University in Qatar, and Director of the Observatory on Politics and Elections in the Arab and Muslim World, Spain.

Follow Luciano on X: @LucianoZaccara

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