Italy's new leader: an orgy of Judeophobic vulgarities of Europe's old anti-Semitic hatred

See also: Beppe Grillo called Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini an "old whore"

Giulio Meotti @ Israel National News

Beppe Grillo, the comedian turned politician, has just become the leader of Italy's largest party, the "Five Star Movement" in an upset victory.  This populist Europhobe got one fourth of the popular votes. He is the idol of Italy's youth. He is the anti-corruption crusader. He is the guru of the Internet.

But Beppe Grillo is also a demagogue with a virulent hatred for Israel and the United States. And his popularity, despite his despicable remarks, shows that the word "Jew" has become an accepted insult once again in Europe's public square.

Mr. Grillo does not hesitate to say that “talk of Israel is a taboo, as is talk of the euro. Just touch it, they will tell you that you are racist and anti-Zionist”.  He declared that “all that in Europe we know about Israel and Palestine, is filtered by an international agency called Memri. And behind Memri, there is a former  Mossad agent. I have the evidence: Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, has used Arabic texts with independent translations and he discovered a completely different reality". Then he goes on, alluding specifically to a 'Jewish conspiracy' and the need to "check" all information on the Middle East.

Grillo also said that his Iranian father-in-law explained to him that “the translations were not accurate …”, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s expressed desire to erase Israel from the map.  According to Grillo, Ahmadinejad’s regime is not like the one described by the Western media: "Those who escape, are opposed to it. But those who remained do not have the same concerns that we have abroad. The economy there is okay, people work. It’s like South America: before it was much worse. I have a cousin who builds highways in Iran".  On the executions ordered by Ahmadinejad: "One day I saw a person hanged on a square of Isfahan. I was there. I asked: what is this barbarity? But then I thought of the United States. They too have the death penalty: they put one on a diet, before killing him, because his head is not shrinking. And then: what is more cruel?".

During a show, Mr. Grillo declared: "There is a saying that 'where Attila has passed through, no grass will grow'. We can say 'where the Israelis have passed, no Palestinian will grow''".

Beppe Grillo called Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini an "old whore"

"Beppe Grillo has been the success story of the Italian election, with his Five Star Movement becoming the country's single biggest party.

Welcome to the new face of Italian politics – the Five Star Movement, led by mercurial comedian-turned-political activist Beppe Grillo. His movement's stunning success in Italy's election, becoming the country's single biggest party, is about to propel more than 150 "Grillini" as his supporters are known, into the two houses of parliament. The movement has won 108 seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies and 54 in the Senate."

Grillo says nasty things about Jews and Israel.  In 2001, he called the 1986 Medicine Nobel Prize Rita Levi-Montalcini, who was 91 at the time, an "old whore" and said that her prize had been "bought" by a pharmaceutical company.

Europe is looking better and better...

Five arrested in Rome for plotting against Jewish community

ROME (AFP-EJP)---Police in Rome have arrested five Italian neo-fascists belonging to the "Militia" movement on harges of plotting violence against the Rome Jewish community.

The accused plotted to attack Rome's Jewish community president, Riccardo Pacifici [right], as well as the city's mayor, Gianni Alemanno [left]; the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Gianfranco Fini; and the president of the Senate.

All five are charged with having spread ideas based on ethnic and racial hatred by means of a bimonthly magazine called "Insurrection," as well as through offensive graffiti on the eternal city's ancient walls.  Police said 11 others were under investigation.

Those arrested Wednesday include the "Militia" longtime leader, Maurizio Boccaci, who is in his 50s. Police raids were carried out in several cities across the country.

According to Italian state television, the accused wanted to foment a "revolutionary war" against the official Italian institutions. Alemanno and Fini both are mainstream right-wing politicians who had their political roots in the neo-fascist movement but now demonstrate strong support for Israel.

Niccolo Rinaldi, EU law-maker praises flotilla, Arrigoni, bemoans awful humanitarian blockade of Gaza

"Arrigoni was a brave man" (a friend of Hamas who called Zionists "rats" and who was murdered by his Palestinian friends ...)

Hostility to Israel at the European Parliament is rife - and it does not come only from the left, it is much alive within the conservatives and the far-right (also anti-Jewish).  It should come as no surprise that the flotilla and Hamas friends are not necessarily viewed with suspicion.  A young Belgian citizen involved in Hasbara activites, Fabian Cohen, who has previously worked close to the Italian MEP Niccolò Rinaldi (conservative, "Italy for Values" [!] group, ALDE-group at the European parliament), wrote to him (see his letter in French here), and this is the reply he received. It is interesting that this sophisticated politician relies on Al-Jazeera and Wikipedia for  "objective information".  For background see this: European parliament celebrating Hamas friend Vittorio Arrigoni.

De: RINALDI Niccolò [niccolo.rinaldi@europarl.europa.eu]
date : 23 mai 2011 19:36
objet : RE: Conférence de presse: Flotille 2
[Emphasis added]
Dear Fabian,

I never understood the reasons for so much hostility to the Flotilla. I know many of the Italian members of the Flotilla, including quite a number of Jews, and I can assure you that they are pure non violent activists. But exactly in order to avoid any misunderstanding, in their meetings in Strasbourg the organizers have requested to the President of the European parliament and to the High representative that EU curries inspections of the cargo so to assess that only humanitarian material will be on board, and to exert adequate control over the initiative, also in order to guarantee appropriate security for the participants.

What went wrong last time was rather the killing of activists, none of then was found with gunfire on board of the ship. Personally I'm convinced that the Israeli authorities make a major mistake in emphasising too much the actual potential and threat of the flotilla - which is what, after all, seek the organizers. What is at stake is likely a cultural obstacle in understanding that some European citizens wish to be active for the awful humanitarian blockade of Gaza, and this should not be interpreted as anti-semitic. [Latest photos from Gaza - construction and luxury cars and Maybe They Should Rename it ‘Plaza’ - and many thanks to the EU.]

On Arrigoni: I didn't agree with everything he said or did, but he was a brave man [who called Zionists "rats", it was mentioned in Fabian's letter]. In Gaza he liked to pay a tribute to the graves of Jews soldiers under the British Army who are buried there [he made sure he was filmed and posted it the film on YouTube doing this]. I never heard anything antisemitic from him and (you can find an interesting profile of him on Al-Jazeera, and several objective information on wikipedia).

Although none of us is a perfect man, dialogue should always prevail, and this implies also the attempt to understand the other's point of view.
Niccolò Rinaldi
Member of European Parliament
Vice-chair of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Head of Delegation Italia dei Valori
ASP 9G 351, T +3222845597, F +3222849597
www.niccolorinaldi.it

Awful humanitarian crisis in Gaza ...

The murder of a European 'pacifist' who hated Israel

"When you go to Gaza, or Afghanistan, you have to realise that our conception of life, is complitely different from any Islamic political conception of life. You can die because you are Jewish, because you are Italian, or Christian, because you are an apostate, or a corrupt Westerner... the extremist mentality, make no bones about it, cancels out friends and allies. No matter how much you have worked against the «Zionist power» or that you have called Zionists «rats» (and Arrigoni did this), nothing is of any worth if you break their rule, a rule which will remain unclear until the knife blade comes. Arrigoni was fan of political Islamism because he was an enemy of the Jews, but this did not save him from a cruel execution in front of the camera, just as the one of many others friends or enemies of Hamas or the Islamic Jihad, never mind."

Fiamma Nierenstein (excerpt) :

"Hamas is responsible for the captivity of Gilad Shalit; it was responsible for the armed destruction of the UN recreational camp for children, which did not abide by Islamic dictates; it was responsible for arresting 150 women under the accusation of witchcraft and the execution of several of them; it is Hamas that has introduced by law death penalty, whipping, cutting off hands and crucifixion, according to Sharia. Hamas killed the 32-year old Christian book salesman Rami Khader Ayyad, guilty of selling Bibles. Not all those who carry out these operations, or which Hamas gives orders to fire Qassam missiles against Israel, are members of the terrorist organization that rules Gaza; indeed at times it pretend to fight them. Hamas is a movement, a party, a fundamentalist State. Its statute stipulates that it wants to destroy the Jewish State, to exterminate Jews and impose an Islamic caliphate on the entire world. Salafite fringes and those linked more to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, those influenced to a greater or lesser extent by Iran or Al Qaeda and based in the Gaza Strip, join up and leave Hamas by turns. The fact that Hamas has now disowned the killers of Arrigoni [photo with Ismaïl Hanyeh] with is not of the slightest importance. In any case, they were still employed by Hamas as members of the Al Qassam Brigades.

To understand the death of this Italian activist, one important fact must be grasped: his death was triggered by the spurious way he mixed his humanitarian ideals with the cause of fundamentalist Gaza, by the fact that he mixed his life with that of his potential enemies, that he thought about as his best friends. But fundamentalists do not have stable affinities. Only their interpretation of Quran counts. Hamas Gaza, where Arrigoni has been killed, is for us a land ruled by awful and distant laws. Arrigoni loved the Palestinians, but he remained a total foreigner for them. It is for us unconcivable, even if you are a militant like Arrigoni, to live alongside those who fire missiles on civilians, wear belts packed with explosives and hand out sweets when an Israeli family is killed in Itamar, including a three months baby, a four years old child and another of nine.

MEP: Europe and the international community should re-establish the truth regarding the Goldstone Report

"Israel's reputation should be restored and, as a consequence, EU-Israeli bilateral relations should be upgraded."

BRUSSELS (EJP)---Italian MEP Firorello Provera thinks that the EU should call for the Goldstone Report on the Gaza war to be rectified after his author retracted the conclusions on Israel.

In response to a question from EJP, Provera, who is Vice-Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he was "astonished" by Goldstone’s remarks in an op-ed in The Washington Post.

"Either the report was conducted without the appropriate information and research on the ground, or it was targeted to depict an unrealistic situation for political purposes. In both cases, the report put Israel in a very difficult position in the eyes of the international community," the MEP from the Europe of freedom and democracy group, said.

"The priority for the European Union and the international community should be to re-establish the truth and clarify the responsibilities of all those involved in drafting the report," he added.

He said that "Israel's reputation should be restored and, as a consequence, EU-Israeli bilateral relations should be upgraded."


"I always keep in mind that Israel is the only true democracy in the region, and we share common values as well as, unfortunately, the same threat from fundamentalists."

Italian novelist Umberto Eco opposes boycotts of Israel

Eco told reporters that unlike McEwan, he faced no pressure from colleagues to stay away from the Israeli book fair, and he does not support boycotts. "I consider it absolutely crazy" and "fundamentally racist to identify a scholar, a private citizen, with the politics of his government," Eco said.

Source: Forbes/AP

JERUSALEM -- Renowned Italian writer Umberto Eco said at an Israeli book fair Wednesday that boycotting scholars for their governments' policies is akin to racism.

It was his response to British writers who called on prominent British novelist Ian McEwan to reject an Israeli literary prize this week as a way of protesting Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

McEwan, who wrote the celebrated 2001 novel "Atonement," accepted the Jerusalem Prize at the book fair's opening ceremony earlier this week but peppered his acceptance speech with tough criticism of Israeli policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Eco told reporters that unlike McEwan, he faced no pressure from colleagues to stay away from the Israeli book fair, and he does not support boycotts.

"I consider it absolutely crazy" and "fundamentally racist to identify a scholar, a private citizen, with the politics of his government," Eco said.

Eco, 79, is the author of best-selling books including "The Name of the Rose" and "Foucault's Pendulum." He is one of Italy's most widely read novelists.

Massimo D’Alema, anti-Israel’ Italian politician to become EU Foreign Minister ?

"What strikes me is that the most reasonable sectors of Israeli politics are not adequately supported by the more democratic Jewish world." (Massimo D’Alema)

With candidates like this one, the constant bickering and lack of consensus, no wonder European citizens are disappointed with the whole idea of the European Union ...

Source: article by Yossi Lempkowicz in the EJP

An Italian politician perceived as "anti-Israeli and anti-American" has emerged as frontrunner for the post of future EU Foreign Minister after British David Milliband killed off speculation that he would be interested, saying he prefers to serve for Britain.

Leftist Massimo D’Alema, a former Foreign Minister in the Italian government then led by Romano Prodi, is supported by the group of European Socialists and Social Democrats. But the designation of the new head of the EU foreign policy depends very much on who will become the first President of the European Union, a job created under the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s reform blueprint which is expected to come into force on December 1. [...]

The current Swedish EU presidency under Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has called for an emergency summit in Brussels next Thursday to settle the question of the designation of the two posts. Reinfeldt announced that after taking soundings from the other 26 heads of government this week, there was no sign of a consensus. [...] Gordon Brown is said to be still pushing for Tony Blair to be given the job of President but despite Europe’s Social Democrats backing for Massimo D'Alema, it is not clear if the Prime Minister, one of Europe's few Social Democratic Prime Ministers (as Labour party chief), will vote for him. The new eastern European member states are opposed to D'Alema because of his Communist past.

D'Alema, 60, is a member of Italy's main opposition party, the centre-left Democratic Party, but has apparently the backing of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He was Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister from 2006 to 2008 after Romano Prodi’s center-left coalition, won the elections.

During that time, he was at the center of several polemics with the Italian Jewish community and Israel’s embassy in Rome for his stance and statements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As Foreign Minister, "he didn’t miss a single occasion to criticize Israel", a Jewish community leader in Rome has said. "On several occasions he stated his position in favour of talks with Hamas and Hezbollah," according to Ricardo Pacifici. In 2007, D’Alema criticized the Jewish community by saying: "What strikes me is that the most reasonable sectors of Israeli politics are not adequately supported by the more democratic Jewish world".

According to The Guardian newspaper, the Israeli embassy in Brussels is understood to have voiced objections to a possible D'Alema appointment as foreign policy chief.

By attacking Israel, Europe commits suicide, Fiamma Nirenstein

"The representatives of almost all the European countries were actually mirroring the image of what was happening in the European squares, where marches took place, sometimes so incredibly aggressive to choose as slogan "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas", as it has happened in the Netherlands."

"In general, through the Barcelona Process, Europe fuels the conflict by funding all the organizations that call Israel a regime of apartheid and accuse it of war crimes."

Key-note speech at the inaugural event of the European Forum of the Knesset, by Fiamma Nirenstein, Vice President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Italian Chamber of Deputies
Jerusalem, July 28, 2009

"[...] Europe is today damned by an incredible increase of anti-Semitism episodes, only in England the Community Security Trust, that provides security for the Jewish community have recorded 609 anti-Semitic crimes from January to June, while last years in the same period they were 276. The worst happened during the operation Cast Lead; the bias on Israel, I don’t have to tell you this, are the basic reasons of the growth either of anti-Semitism and political parallel positions against Israel in Europe. Nathan Sharansky has written about the double standards that show the anti-Semitism inside antisraelianism. [...]


In my fresh experience as a member of the Italian parliament and as a deputy president of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I found myself delegated as a member of Strasbourg’s Council of Europe, precisely at the Political Committee and its derivate, the Middle East Committee. The first plenary discussion about the Middle East that I have attended was for me a real shock. It was held at the end of January about Operation Cast Lead. I expected a generic sense of pain toward the civil population involved in the war, accompanied by the understanding of the unbearable situation of the people bombed by Hamas from Gaza; and therefore I imagined that there would have been a thoughtful, problematic discussion about the question of asymmetric war, an army fighting against the terrorist Hamas’ decision of aiming at civilians hiding beyond civilians. Nothing of this kind. I heard a long string of speeches, from the Swedish to the Spanish, from the British to the Russian representatives, who chose to focus not on the clash in itself, but rather on the supposed Israeli war crimes, the Palestinian suffering, and the occupation - as if Gaza were still occupied. I think that only the Canadian observer and myself voiced a different opinion. The rest expressed a deep antipathy toward the Jewish State, even beyond the expected. The representatives of almost all the European countries were actually mirroring the image of what was happening in the European squares, where marches took place, sometimes so incredibly aggressive to choose as slogan "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas", as it has happened in the Netherlands.


In Italy, I will say it with pride, the Italy-Israel parliamentary friendship association, that counts a membership of more the 200 MPs, has been able on the contrary to organize a spectacular, courageous exit toward the square to support the Israeli right to self-defense; thousands of citizens were waiting for us in the square with Israeli flags, and the President of the Parliament, Gianfranco Fini, came out to greet us. The same attitude Italy has had about the Durban 2 conference in Geneva: our Parliament has been the first to vote unanimously for deserting the Conference, and our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Franco Frattini, has guided the little group of European countries (Germany, Holland and Poland) that declared the impossibility of joining the so called antiracism conference. But we cannot ignore that while standing and making a nice exit from the hall where Ahmadinejad was again calling for the extermination of the Jews, the European nations, except the Czech Republic, came back quickly into the Geneva assembly after he finished his speech.

The estrangement of Israel from Western Europe in my view is one of the most outstanding moral and diplomatic markers of our era. On the disintegration of any moral sympathy toward Israel, you can read the disintegration of Europe. The relations between Europe and Israel, do not only constitute a geostrategic axis that is aiming at the survival of a plurimillenary construction of democracy, and also at the physical survival of our civilization. It’s also the indicator, with other markers like low birthrate, aging population, fear and surrender in front of imported values that dismantle the conquers connected to the status of women and of sexual and cultural minorities, of the profound lassitude, the end of civilization weariness that holds in its grip the EU nations. It is also, as Ambassador John Bolton has written, the desire of being liberated forever from conflicts, war, from any problem that will recall the disgust and horror for itself that Europe felt after the Second World War. Since that time onward, Europe considers like a mistake anything connected to its own culture, to its own most intimate structure, its economic, familiar, national, juridical structure, its own civilization. Israel, felt as Europe rib, is a refused member of the family.

Moreover, the fact that religion has become a questionable, sometimes even laughable motivation, makes the State of the Jews become only an annoying incident. The Old Continent has a fantasy of having moved beyond history, and nowadays this attitude is enhanced by the USA new attitude. Sweden, which took over EU presidency on July the first, has been financing, according to “NGO-Monitor”, a precious watchdog organization of NGO activities, a radical NGO in the guise of human rights and humanitarian aids. Its activity is very relevant: Diakonia, Sweden’s largest humanitarian NGO, receives 9,3 million Euros and it distributes this money to some of the most radical centers, like the Alternative Information Center ("working with Peres Center for peace is morally disgusting") and Sabeel ("Israel places Jesus on the cross again, with thousands of crucified Palestinians everyday") [Swedish Christian NGO Diakonia's anti-Israeli activities, Swedish government funds fuel Mideast radical NGOs]. In general, through the Barcelona Process, Europe fuels the conflict by funding all the organizations that call Israel a regime of apartheid and accuse it of war crimes.

The Palestinians Center for Human Rights receives funds not only from the European Commission, but also from single countries like Norway, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland. This and a lot of other foundation program their appearances in public with booklets and researches so as to feed in coordinated times, always through funds that should encourage a peace culture, the culture of hate and war. I see this problem as a field of hard work for parliaments: discuss here where the citizens’ money go.The greatest confusion reigns in allocations of European programs, the names and possible conflicts of interest are hidden, the European Union deleted data in giving information to NGO Monitor. Lately a protest of the Israeli Ambassador to the Netherlands has brought the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to claim they will stop funding the organization "Breaking the silence", that we know is financed also by England and Spain: just one of the many organization of opposition on the Israeli soil financed by European nations. Here I cannot but underline, with respect with every opinion, how much whenever any intellectual, NGO, famous writer speak against the morality of Israel this become an enormously amplified argument, widely used for extreme and damaging statements all over the net, the media, the political spectrum of power and public opinion: sometimes you really have the impression that no sense of responsibility seems to be taken in consideration in front of the need of expressing one’s opinions and sometimes even simple impressions.

This attitude is perfectly consonant with a sort of categorical European imperative to help the Palestinians, however and whatever: in spite of the international boycott called on when Hamas won the elections, aid to Palestinians grew from about 1 billion in 2005 to more than 1.2 billion in 2006, and billions of dollars are arriving now, after three billion dollars have been raised at the conference of Sharm el Sheik following the war of Gaza. Arab country promised 1.65 billion dollars, the US 900 millions, the EU 436 millions. Now, after a conference on the 12th of July, held between the UNDP, the UN Agency that supervises the distribution, and the UNRWA, it came clearly out that several mechanism permit the funds to arrive in the hands of Hamas itself. Actually, I don’t think that all this generates more than a formal eyebrows rise.

Europe was stopped by watering down the Quartet’s three condition for dealing with Hamas and making the dialogue possible, only by the speech of Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan on June 14th. The same happened with a Belgian proposal that was about to introduce a EU clause in its resolutions saying that East Jerusalem should be the capital of a future Palestinian state. Nowadays, Europe is fascinated by the "settlement complete freezing" way chosen by Obama and feel encouraged on its traditional way, again expressed by Javier Solana last surprising speech that saw in the Israeli "occupation" the source of almost all the troubles of war, much more than Iran and Afghanistan. [...]

The dramatic diffusion of hate against Israel is directly connected with the loss of the most important principles of freedom, a Judeo-Christian conquer. You cannot forget it while working with Europe."

Source: Fiamma Nirenstein blog

Europe Reimports Jew Hatred, by Daniel Schwammenthal

Italy pulls out of "Durban 2" conference, Fiamma Nirenstein, Italian Chamber of Deputies

"Italy has kept its promise: it will not take part in an initiative spreading anti-Semitic hatred; and moreover, one that is promoted by the United Nations, which is unable to manage and monitor such hatred adequately."

Statement by Fiamma Nirenstein, Vice-president, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Italian Chamber of Deputies

"Italy’s decision to pull out of the forthcoming UN conference against racism, which is set to be held in Geneva on April 20-24, fills me with pride and satisfaction. This is in fact a courageous decision. It is the first coming from a European country, after those of Canada, Israel and the USA. We hope this decision will lead the way to a joint European position, against a conference that seeks to elevate anti-democratic and anti-Semitic hatred.

The decision taken by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini not only completes, but also puts into effect the resolution which, under our initiative, was voted on unanimously by the Italian Parliament on December 4, 2008 - the first time a country in Europe has taken such action. The resolution bound the Government to monitor "Durban 2" preparatory process. The documents formulated during this process have confirmed the worst expectations: as for the first Durban conference in 2001, Israel is being again slandered and defined as a racist state of apartheid, while every other effective case of racism and discrimination is being completely ignored.

Italy has kept its promise: it will not take part in an initiative spreading anti-Semitic hatred; and moreover, one that is promoted by the United Nations, which is unable to manage and monitor such hatred adequately. This gesture by the Italian Government is an important contribution in that it attempts to rescue the UN from the hands of those countries that - like in this case Iran, Libya and Cuba, who are among the States involved in the preparatory process of Durban 2 – are holding this institution hostage with their partisan and discriminatory positions.

On March 12, we will hold a conference in the Italian Parliament, promoted by the Italy-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Association, that will host lectures by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini, Prof. Gerald Steinberg (Bar-Ilan University, Director of Ngo-Monitor), Pierluigi Battista (Deputy Director, Corriere della Sera), Piero Ostellino (columnist, Corriere della Sera) and the board of the Italy-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Association (Enrico Pianetta, President, Rossana Boldi and Gianni Vernetti, Vice-presidents and me)."

Source: Fiamma Nirenstein blog

Italy: Fiamma Nirenstein will be in the next Parliament

But many Arabs are rooting against Hamas, Fiamma Nirenstein

Article in Il Giornale by Fiamma Nirenstein

"The most significant images of the war underway yesterday [28 December] are seen on the border between Gaza and Egypt with all the Arabesque plotting that the Middle East is able of composing. The Egyptian soldiers watch the border with grasped rifles from Rafiah along Tzir Philadephi; from the hours of the late morning unwinds the siege of the Palestinians who want to pass there beyond the border while the soldiers from the other part have ordered to hinder any fundamentalist tide of penetrating into the country of Mubarak, the moderate. Further along, there is the paradoxical scene of trucks full of humanitarian aid and ambulances, which the Palestinians won’t let pass as they yell at the Egyptians: "Let us enter alive instead of dealing with the dead".

Around five in the afternoon, while the sun sets on the Mediterranean Sea, F16s enter the scene fast and in four minutes destroy 40 tunnels under the border. It seems that they are the most important among the 600 dug for transporting inside Gaza goods of all kinds from Egypt, those that have filled Gaza with missiles. But yesterday the missiles, against all forecasts, did not rain from Gaza and the population of the south of Israel has passed a relatively tranquil day: sign that the targets hit by the IAF have been chosen with a clear intelligence operation and that the structures of Hamas find it hard to recover from an operation compared here in Israel to that of 1967, which hit Egyptian Mig-21s to the ground.

The Israeli military maintains that it has hit 50 percent of Hamas’s war resources, missiles, stored dynamite, etc. And Hamas prefers now to play the role of the victim, continues to point out, at least for a bit, that Israel continues to react in a "disproportionate" manner. But it is the Arab world, first and foremost, to be contradictory in front of Hamas’s victimization, and overall Egypt and the same Palestinian brothers guided by Abu Mazen: he has said from Cairo that he warned Hamas that its actions would bring an attack by Israel. Well, he has to take some of the responsibility, thus adding accusations for the dozens of Fatah militiamen who are Hamas’s prisoners who were killed in the prisons bombed by the Israeli: the massacre could have been avoided if they had been liberated beforehand. Also, the Egyptians have moved with ambiguity between demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinians and disapproval towards Hamas’s incomprehensible politics, which has brought its population to the present situation. From Sana in Yemen, to many cities and Middle Eastern villages, including those of the West Bank and East Jerusalem itself, to Tehran, where Khamenei has asked all Muslims to fight for Gaza "in all ways possible," to Beirut where the protests called by Hezbollah yell slogans in which Mubarak’s name rhymes with Ehud Barak, to Amman where the Muslim Brothers have paraded with angry slogans, to Damascus where Mashaal calls for a military Intifada of the entire Arab world, has shown the usual anti-Israel rage, but this time it has also sparked anti-Egyptian and anti Fatah sentiments. Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, has spoken with the same old tones of hatred, urging his men to be ready to defend themselves. But, cunningly, without inviting them to attack the Zionist monster.

It is the first time that moderates find themselves crushed in their reality, that they cannot wave the same flag of hatred against Israel. Hamas has immobilized them. And it is logical given the vertical rise of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. We have already written of a secret "moderate" Arab request to Israel of putting an end to it with Hamas, which is seen as Iran’s incendiary emissary, determined to destroy all equilibrium in the Middle East. Egypt, that has long attempted a truce between Fatah and Hamas, was furious beyond measure after that Hamas deserted the meeting of November in Cairo, surely by Iran’s request. In the meantime, Hamas searches for new shores: from Gaza City, Ismail Haniyeh has incessantly made many calls to Hamas’s leadership in Damascus, as well as to the King of Bahrain and to the rulers of Qatar. But Hamas can remain greatly harmed by the rupture with Egypt: there are in the works important economic agreements that seem very far from the snarling current reality. For sure now, after the facts of Gaza, the entire Arab world must come to terms with the new demonstrations of Israeli military deterrence, which after its war with Hezbollah in 2006 and because of the strategy of waiting chosen by the Israeli leadership, seemed to have greatly diminished. Now all neighbors, including Iran, know that the Israeli military is that of a time when it decides that - as Tzipi Livni said - "enough is enough.""

Source: Fiamma Nirenstein's blog

Italy: Fiamma Nirenstein will be in the next Parliament

Egyptian-born Magdi Allam's book "Long Live Israel" now in French

Magdi Allam's biography "Viva Israele" (Long Live Israel - From the Ideology of Death to the Civilization of Life: My Story), has now been published in French. Will it come out in English too ?

The Egyptian-born Italian journalist is noted for his criticism of Islam and his articles on the relations between the West and the Islamic world. He converted from Islam to Roman Catholicism in 2008 (Pope Baptizes Prominent Italian Muslim)

Source: Haaretz: "Muslim, Italian and Zionist", by Saviona Man (2007)

"It's not every day that a Muslim intellectual puts his own head on the line to defend Israel's right to exist. But that is exactly what Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born Italian writer and journalist, has been doing for years. He recently published a book whose name alone is enough to endanger his life: "Long Live Israel - From the Ideology of Death to the Civilization of Life: My Story."

Allam defends Israel even though Hamas condemned him to death in 2003, after he denounced the group's terror attacks. Because of this threat, the Italian government has provided him with round-the-clock bodyguards. But Allam is not afraid. He finds it hard to "live an armored life," but he tells Haaretz in an interview, "I'm willing to pay the price in order to continue to be who I am, to write and speak freely." Those who cut out tongues and slit throats will not subdue him, he writes in the book.

Allam, 55, is the assistant editor of Corriere della Sera and the 2006 Dan David Prize laureate. His new book, which immediately became a best-seller in Italy, is part of his consistent and uncompromising fight against extremist Islam and for Israel's right to exist. In addition, he is trying to convince people that "the culture of hatred and death that the West now attributes to Muslims is not embedded in Islam's DNA."

In "Long Live Israel", Allam directly links the denial of Israel's right to exist to the death cult being nurtured in fundamentalist Islamic circles, and refers to "the ethical erosion that has led to even the denial of the supreme value of the sanctity of life." Allam sees Israel as "an ethical parameter that separates between lovers of civilization and those who preach the ideology of death." The sanctity of life, he writes, "applies to everyone, or to no one." (...)

Allam was not always a defender of the Jewish state. "'Zionism' was a dirty word for me," he admits in his book. For years he considered Israel an aggressive, racist, colonialist, immoral entity, and he accepted the methods of the Palestinian struggle and its leader Yasser Arafat, "without criticizing the fact that Fatah adopted the path of terror extensively inside and outside Israel." After emigrating from Egypt to Italy in 1972, he even enlisted actively for the Palestinian cause, writing, lecturing and participating in demonstrations by the Italian left: "I also shouted 'Long live Palestine! Long live the Palestinian resistance!'" he writes in the book. "My passion for the Palestinian cause was strong, as was my enthusiasm for Arafat's personality."

In his new book he describes his long road from profound admiration for Arafat and "the prophet of pan-Arabism," Gamal Abdel Nasser, and strong support for the Palestinian cause, to his unreserved support for Israel. "I want to tell you about my slow and tortured path from the ideology of lies, tyranny, hatred, violence and death, to the culture of truth, freedom, love, peace and life, until it ripened into absolute certainly that defending the sanctity of life is more than ever in keeping with defending Israel's right to exist," he writes. At the end of this "slow and tortured path" he reached the conclusion that the Arab countries' refusal to recognize Israel during the 1950s and 1960s hurt the Palestinians, and that Arafat was a tyrant, a megalomaniac, corrupt and corrupting, and the worst disaster to befall them.

Regarding the present situation in Gaza, Allam says he never had any illusions about Hamas. "I thought it was a big mistake to allow a terror organization to participate in elections. Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair deluded themselves in believing that Hamas' very participation in the government would turn the group into a pragmatic political power," he says. "Instead, it turned out that Hamas will never recognize Israel's right to exist, will not relinquish terror and will not honor international agreements signed by the Palestinian Authority. Hamas wants absolute rule in order to impose sharia and to revive the international Islamic caliphate. As it pushes for absolute rule, it does not hesitate to massacre its Palestinian brothers in Gaza. It will try to do the same thing in the West Bank."

Do you believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved before the "ideology of death" is uprooted - that even if Israel returns all the territories it occupied in 1967, it will continue to live by the sword?

"The Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza demonstrates that the problem is not the need to withdraw from territories occupied in preemptive wars, but rather the Arabs' lack of desire to recognize Israel's right to exist. Israel erred in 1967 when it accepted the formula of territory for peace, and thus placed its very existence up for public auction. Experience teaches that the right to life cannot and should not be a subject for negotiation and bargaining. No negotiations should be held with extremists and terrorists who deny Israel's right to exist." (...)

Regarding the question of the Islamization of Europe, Allam says, "Europe is already a bastion of Islamic extremism. Just look at attack on Mike's Place in Tel Aviv, which was carried out by British suicide bombers drafted by Hamas; the massacre by Islamists in Madrid and in London; the slitting of director Theo Van Gogh's throat in Amsterdam; and the dozens of Islamic terror attacks that were prevented in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Holland."

This bastion exists thanks to a widespread network of mosques, Koran schools, financial bodies and charitable institutions linked to the Muslim Brotherhood; Moroccan, Tunisian and Algerian Salfists; Saudi Wahabis; Al-Qaida jihadis and Pakistani groups. This multicultural Europe, which has trampled its values and betrayed its identity, is satisfied with reacting to the obvious terror, which is only the tip of the iceberg, but is afraid to deal with terror's ideological and organizational roots." (...)"

Rome to host International Jewish Literature Festival

Article by Daniel Mosseri, EJP

The first edition of the International Jewish Literature Festival in Italy will take place in Rome from 20 to 24 September.

Writers, journalists, critics and emerging talents will gather at the Casa dell'Architettura to present their works and to discuss their views on various themes of Jewish culture.

Literature has always played an important role in Jewish culture. Jewish literature is wide and multifaceted, ranging from humorous to dramatic, from fictional to historic, not to mention the infinite array of holy texts and comments thereof.

The festival gives a glimpse of this universe which requires a long exploration.

Many still remember the controversy that struck the last edition of the Turin Book Fair, in which a tribute to Israel's 60th anniversary brought a number of anti-Israeli demonstrations.

According to the organizers, this Rome festival aims at somehow counteracting this prejudice by presenting and analyzing the works of such an important literary tradition.

"Many people associate Judaism with little more than the Shoah and Israel" explains Shulim Vogelmann, writer and organizer of the festival together with Ariela Piattelli and Raffaella Spizzichino.

"Literature can be a useful tool to reveal its complexity and to show its deepest roots and its most subtle shades," he added.

The four-day festival features readings, poetry, panels, discussions, a film screening, and a writing contest, all of this enriched by the presence of a number of special guests."

Largest Book Fairs in France and Italy to Honor Israel

Former Italian President: We Signed Pact With Terrorists

Here we have Aldo Moro, a highly respected European politician, secretly signing a "non-belligerence pact" with terrorist groups intent on the destruction of Israel, while cynically blaming Israel all along for the violence. Democratic countries' past engagement with terrorists helps explain present-day European attitudes towards Israel.

Source: Arutz Sheva

"In a letter appearing in the weekend edition of the respected Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga revealed that the government of Italy agreed to allow Arab terrorist groups freedom of movement in the country in exchange for immunity from attacks in Italy.

Cossiga wrote that the government of the late Prime Minister Aldo Moro reached a "secret non-belligerence pact between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups," in the 1970s. According to the former president, it was Moro himself who designed the terms of the agreement with the foreign Arab terrorists. Ironically, Moro later met his death at the hands of homegrown Italian terrorists, the Red Brigades, in 1978.

"The terms of the agreement were that the Palestinian organizations could even maintain armed bases of operation in the country, and they had freedom of entry and exit without being subject to normal police controls, because they were 'handled' by the secret services," Cossiga explained.

As Interior Minister, Cossiga said that he learned PLO members in Italy had diplomatic immunity as representatives of the Arab League. When he became alarmed by the heavy weapons defenses installed around the homes of PLO members living in Rome, the guards were persuaded to switch to light arms.

Cossiga was later elected president of Italy from 1985-1992 and is today a senator-for-life in the Italian legislature.

In his letter, the former Italian president also linked the Arab terrorist groups of the 1970s with the Italian far-left. According to Cossiga, he received a telegram from the head of an anti-Israel terrorist group headquartered at the time in Beirut requesting the return of one of their surface-to-air missiles that had gone missing. The missile was intercepted by Italian police while being "driven on the streets by a well-known ideologue of the extra-parliamentary left!" Cossiga wrote.

In an article in Corriere della Sera the week before Cossiga's admission, a former leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also claimed that his terror group and the Italian leadership had reached an accord protecting Italy from attack in exchange for Italian non-interference in PFLP activities in Italy. The former PFLP boss, Bassam Abu Sharif, later became a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and personal advisor to the late terrorist leader Yasser Arafat.

While there were several terrorist attacks on targets in Italy in the years following the alleged "protection" deal, most of them could be traced to Abu Nidal's terrorist organization. Abu Nidal rejected the authority of the PLO leadership and many of his attacks, including those in Rome, were assassinations of PLO figures and other Arab diplomats."

Related:
Italy's ex-president admits terror deal

Italian Foreign Minister "Israel's security is not negotiable"

Source: Bennauro (Israel without ifs or buts)

"Israel's security is not up for discussion, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Monday during his first official visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories since taking office in May.''

The message is that Israel's security is not negotiable," Frattini (photo) told journalists on arrival in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv.

He said the conservative Italian government viewed the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas and Iran "with great concern."

The purpose of his trip to the region is to "reaffirm Italy's role in the Middle East peace process and as a player that is loved and respected by all sides," Frattini stated.

Frattini will on Tuesday meet Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, President Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. He and Livni are due to hold a joint press conference after their meeting."

Italy: Fiamma Nirenstein will be in the next Parliament
European Union has taken an unbalanced stance on Israel, says Franco Frattini
European Commissioner Franco Frattini expresses regret at EU treatment of Israel

Achille Lauro: the Palestinian hijacker nobody wants

Source: Bennauro (Israel without ifs or buts)

"Abdellatif Ibrahim Fatayer, one of the men convicted of hijacking the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985, was freed in Rome on Monday.

Fatayer, who was born in the Tel al-Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp north of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, is the youngest of the hijackers. According to the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, Fatayer was expected to be deported from Italy after serving a 21-year sentence plus three years under police surveillance. But Lebanon refused to accept him after he was freed from jail.

Fatayer was sentenced to 25 years' jail by an appeals court in the northern Italian city of Genoa but was freed after serving 21 years in April 2008, although he continued to remain under police surveillance.

He was one of four Palestinian terrorists who hijacked the ship on 7 October 1985, taking hostage 450 people in exchange for the release of 82 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. During the siege they shot and killed a wheelchair bound Jewish-American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, before throwing his body overboard.

At the beginning of April, a judge said Fatayer could be freed but could not obtain a residency permit to remain in Italy due to his previous terrorist activities. He was transferred to Rome's Ponte Galeria temporary reception centre, but was freed on Monday because Lebanon, his country of birth, does not recognise him as a citizen because he is a Palestinian refugee.

Of the other three hijackers, one disappeared in 1994 while on parole, one died in 2004 and the third, Youssef Al-molqi was sentenced to 30 years' jail in Italy. The militants belonged to the Palestine Liberation Front, a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation considered the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people at the time."

European Union has taken an unbalanced stance on Israel, says Franco Frattini

Article in Haaretz (via Solomonia)

"Italy's newly appointed foreign minister said Tuesday that the European Union has in the past taken an unbalanced stance on Israel, at times blurring the line between legitimate criticism and anti-Semitic sentiments.

Speaking before a forum on Israel-European relations in Berlin, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said: "I have to admit, if I look at the past, EU has taken on some occasions an unbalanced stance visa vis Israel, even by making an unacceptable confusion between the legitimate political criticism of the Israeli gut and the sentiment of intolerance against Jewish people that can become anti-Semitism."

Frattini, who was appointed by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is considered a supporter of Israel. His predecessor, Massimo D'Alema, often took a harsh line against Israel, particularly with regard to the Second Lebanon War and the situation in the Gaza Strip.

In his speech to the Israel-European forum, Frattini criticized the EU for delivering aid to Palestinian organizations which have incited against Israel.

"We ever found money given to NGOs close to Hamas using it to indoctrinates children against Israelis," he said, but added:

"Now things are changing completely. More awareness of the risk of growing anti-Semitism. Firmness vis a vis with Hamas. Support for the legitimate request of security of Israeli vis a vis the increasingly dangerous activities of Iran in the nuclear field.""

Read also:
European Commissioner Franco Frattini expresses regret at EU treatment of Israel

Vice President of European Parliament Luisa Morgantini stirring up trouble in Israel

YNet News reports:

"Top EU official hurt in Bil'in protest

West Bank: Vice President of European Parliament Luisa Morgantini hurt by IDF tear gas Diplomatic incident in West Bank: Vice President of the European Parliament Luisa Morgantini and Irish Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire were hurt Friday after inhaling tear gas during an anti-security fence protest in the West Bank village of Bil'in.

Later, Italian Judge Julio Toscano reportedly suffered head wounds after being hit by a tear gas grenade. The judge was taken to a Ramallah hospital for treatment.

According to protestors, dozens of the hundreds of demonstrators on hand were hurt by tear gas, while several were hit by gas canisters."

Read full article here

On Luisa Morgantini:
Israel on trial in Brussels: Iranian and Syrian Ambassadors give standing ovation to judges

""The Ambassadors of Lebanon, Syria and Iran, as well as the Vice President of the European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini, were among the 300 odd attendees who gave the judges a ten-minute standing ovation after the reading of the verdict", excerpt from an article "The "tribunal of conscience" harshly condemns Israel from Brussels" by Scarlett Haddad for L’Orient-Le Jour. Posted on Islam in Belgium, tag: the Empire of Evil"

Italy: Fiamma Nirenstein will be in the next Parliament

Berlusconi win means seat for pro-Israel J'lem-based journalist, by Ruthie Blum, TJP

"The results of Monday's Italian election - placing media magnate Silvio Berlusconi back in power for a third run as prime minister, this time after two years of Romano Prodi rule - have one unexpected outcome: Jewish journalist, author and global terrorism expert Fiamma Nirenstein will be in the next Parliament.

Nirenstein, the long-time Israel correspondent for the liberal daily La Stampa, and more recently for the Berlusconi-owned, right-wing Il Giornale, is famous in Italy for her unapologetic support of Israel and the United States, and for her vocal opposition to Islamic fundamentalism. Indeed, her most recent book, Israele Siamo Noi (Israel Is Us), was a huge best-seller. She also backed the war in Iraq, from where the previous Prodi-led government withdrew Italian troops as soon as it took office.

In Israel, Nirenstein is best known for her association with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where she is a fellow, and for being one of the few European journalists whose reportage on the Middle East portrays Israel and the IDF in a positive light. She has spent nearly two decades dividing her time between Rome and Jerusalem, where she lives with her Israeli husband, news photographer Ofer Eshed.

That Nirenstein was asked to join Berlusconi's joint list with Gianfranco Fini, and was placed in the No. 4 slot to guarantee her seat, is a statement on the part of the People of Freedom Party, whose victory indicates a swing back to the pro-Western platform that the previous Berlusconi government espoused, before it was replaced by Prodi."

This pro-American, pro-Israel worldview is connected to a strong identification, on the part of at least one major sector of the Italian people, with the same values of freedom and democracy,"
Nirenstein said in a phone interview from her Rome apartment, where she watched the election results on TV with her family.

Nirenstein pointed to the massive wave of illegal immigration into Europe as one possible explanation for the public's having reinstated Berlusconi.

"It is a desire to restore the sense of identity which Italians feel has been affected by the influx of other cultures, most notably Muslim," said Nirenstein.

Nirenstein's celebrity in Italy - both for her writings and for her now-defunct television show on global politics - made her the target, during the period leading up to the election, of a smear campaign from the ranks of the extreme Left. An anti-Semitic cartoon that appeared in the Communist paper Il Manifesto, which depicts "Fiamma Frankenstein" wearing a star of David on one lapel and the symbol of the fascist regime in Italy on the other, was circulated widely on the Internet. After being condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and other groups, the Italian press association suspended the membership of the cartoonist for three months.

"It was a frightening example of how anti-Semitism has not only reemerged, but has crept into the mainstream of European discourse," asserted Nirenstein."

Italian elections: a Jewish vote ?, by Daniel Mosseri

From EJP: "What do the 30,000 Italian Jews expect from the early general elections? 48 million Italians will vote next Sunday and Monday to renew the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate after the outgoing Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s centre-left coalition government lost a confidence vote in January. Despite its modest size, the Italian Jewish community is well-integrated in society and somewhat influential, since it includes a number of prominent journalists, intellectuals and, last but not least, a life Senator - Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology and Medicine Prof. Rita Levi Montalcini (99) - whose uninterrupted support to the outgoing cabinet of Prime Minister Romano Prodi proved to be essential during the last legislature. … Traditionally anti-Fascist, secular and politically neo-liberal, in the last 30 years Italian Jews have been dealing with the anti-Israeli attitude of the Communist and Catholic left. At the same time, they started appreciating former centre-right Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's political revolution. The 71-year-old media tycoon openly embraced Israel's issues, continuously sympathized with Jerusalem and helped turn its ally, the post-Fascist Alleanza Nazionale party of Gianfranco Fini, into a pro-Israeli political organization. This does not mean, however, that most Italian Jews will be voting for Berlusconi's 'People's Freedom Party' (PDL), observers say. When his cabinet lost its majority in the Senate, Romano Prodi, a former president of the European Commission, announced his withdrawal from active politics and Rome's Mayor Walter Veltroni took the centre-left political spectrum. Veltroni made his own political revolution by "sacking" two communist parties and the Greens. At the same time, he "cleaned" his Democratic Party (PD) from the most anti-Israeli fringes, challenging his rival Silvio Berlusconi on the same centrist ground. Although outgoing Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, a politician who more than once urged Israel to talk to Hamas and Hezbollah representatives, is still a prominent member of the PD, Veltroni declared earlier this week to Israeli newspaper Maariv that "Israel should not dialogue with those who wish its destruction" and that "the international community underestimated Iran's actual threats to Israel". Berlusconi's sympathy for Israel is probably more deep-rooted."