A Decades Old Dispute Over the Falkans Islands Is Heating Up Again

A Decades-Old Dispute Over the Falkland Islands Is Heating Up Again FALKLAND ISLANDS After the British government announced sanctions against Israel over the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, Israeli officials accused the United Kingdom of “occupying” a territory in the South Atlantic, the Falkland Islands. The spat arose during a recent gathering of world leaders at the United Nations when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called British and French critics of Israeli policies hypocrites. “They accuse Israel, tiny Israel, of colonialism – some colonialism,” said Netanyahu. “And who’s accusing us? Among them are people in Britain and in France. For God’s sakes, they invented the term.” Argentine President Javier Milei jumped in soon afterward, saying the international community was “looking the other way” as Argentina's claim to the islands has been ignored. He added that the islanders do not have a right to self-determination, while calling for negotiations with the UK to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. Beyond the contretemps at the United Nations, a very real dispute over the Falkland Islands has been heating up lately, more than 44 years after Britain and Argentina went to war over the British overseas territory. In early September, Milei, seizing on statements by US President Donald Trump that the US may reconsider its neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty, blasted an oil drilling project just north of the islands, which lie about 300 miles from the Argentine mainland. “Argentina will not stand idly by,” Milei said in a televised address to the nation in September. “Any further advance on the [Falkland] Islands will be considered a violation of our national security.” The project, Sea Lion, promises to transform the Falklands’ economy, which has long been dependent on fishing. However, Argentina opposes the project that would allow foreign companies to extract oil deposits it regards as its own. Argentina has sought to impose sanctions on the companies involved in the project and has filed three criminal complaints against Tel Aviv-listed Navitas, the UK’s Rockhopper Exploration and eight other companies and their executives for allegedly violating Argentine law by pursuing oil operations without the country’s authorization. An Argentine judge has ordered it to halt. Meanwhile, the dispute escalated further this week, with Argentina vowing to use legal and diplomatic means to stop the project as Navitas said it was replacing two contractors that would no longer work on it amid the sanctions campaign. Rockhopper Exploration and Navitas Petroleum have said they would continue with the project under licenses granted by the Falkland Islands government and backed by the UK. Meanwhile, Argentina has also pledged to expand a military base in Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of the country, making it easier to deploy ships to the Falkland Islands – which Argentines call Islas Malvinas – in case of war. The UK has more than a thousand troops, jets and Royal Navy patrols in and around the Falklands. The history of the islands plays into the dispute. The Falkland Islands are a self-governing British territory, but Argentina has claimed them since 1833. In 1982, Argentina invaded but lost the subsequent 10-week war, helping bring an end to the military junta then running the country. In 2013, the islands’ roughly 4,000 inhabitants voted overwhelmingly to remain British. Argentina dismissed that referendum, however, saying Britain placed settlers on the islands when their status was disputed. Milei won’t deport those inhabitants, he says, if Britain gives up control of the islands. Meanwhile, the UK has repeatedly insisted it would not relinquish control over the Falklands. “The UK’s position on the Falkland Islands is unwavering,” Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said on X. “The Islands are British and will remain so because that is the overwhelming position of the Islanders.” The US has long formally recognized the UK’s de facto administration of the islands but has not taken a formal position on sovereignty. However, in April, the Trump administration floated the possibility of reversing its position to punish NATO allies such as the UK for declining direct involvement in the US-Israeli war on Iran. “Your country was not there to help me,” Trump said in early September. “We didn’t need help, but I did ask NATO, and I asked your former leader [Keir Starmer], ‘Why don’t you send a couple of ships?’ He said, ‘We don’t have any.’ It was pretty sad, the whole thing.” Meanwhile, Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Falklands is enshrined in Argentina’s constitution and frequently invoked as an expression of national pride – it is also one of the few issues that cuts across the country’s partisan divides. Still, some believe Milei, who is up for reelection next year, is seizing on the issue because of a decline in his approval ratings. “When you have political troubles, this is a tried and true way to try to get out of them and boost support,” Michael Shifter of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank, told the Wall Street Journal. “So it’s not surprising that Milei is trying to take full advantage of it for political reasons, because he is in trouble.”