I have not contributed to this thread before but have been lurking with some interest and appreciation to the level of discussion and the articles from around the world that many have offered to the participants. I finally found something that I feel powerfully compelled to share. It was sent on a professional chatline and I have edited out the intro comments by the sender. It's possible that someone already posted this but it bears repeating. Myron
"Many of you have heard of Oriana Fallaci, one of Europe's best
known journalists and authors. For those of you who have not, please
find below an article published this week in the Italian magazine
Panorama (as well as picked up by the daily Corriere della Sera) which
is starting to make lots of noise. Fallaci, now aged 71, broke onto the
scene in the late ' 60s when she covered Vietnam, the Greek colonels'
coup, the the Middle East etc etc. She was then ultra-trendy and a
strong supporter of the Palestinian cause."
Oriana Fallaci on Antisemitism
(April 12, 2002)
I find it shameful that in Italy there should be a procession of
individuals dressed as suicide bombers who spew vile abuse at Israel, hold
up photographs of Israeli leaders on whose foreheads they have drawn the
swasitka, incite people to hate the Jews. And who, in order to see Jews
once again in the extermination camps, in the gas chambers, in the ovens
of Dachau and Mauthausen and Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen et cetera, would
sell their own mother to a harem. I find it shameful that the Catholic
Church should permit a bishop, one with lodgings in the Vatican no less, a
saintly man who was found in Jerusalem with an arsenal of arms and
explosives hidden in the secret compartments of his sacred Mercedes, to
participate in that procession and plant himself in front of a microphone
to thank in the name of God the suicide bombers who massacre the Jews in
pizzerias and supermarkets. To call them "martyrs who go to their deaths
as to a party." I find it shameful that in France, the France of
Liberty-Equality-Fraternity, they burn synagogues, terrorize Jews, profane
their cemeteries. I find it shameful that the youth of Holland and Germany
and Denmark flaunt the kaffiah just as Mussolini's avant garde used to
flaunt the club and the fascist badge. I find it shameful that in nearly
all the universities of Europe Palestinian students sponsor and nurture
anti-semitism. That in Sweden they asked that the Nobel Peace Prize given
to Shimon Peres in 1994 be taken back and conferred on the dove with the
olive branch in his mouth, that is on Arafat. I find it shameful that the
distinguished members of the Committee, a Committee that (it would appear)
rewards political color rather than merit, should take this request into
consideration and even respond to it. In hell the Nobel Prize honors he
who does not receive it. I find it shameful (we're back in Italy) that
state-run television stations contribute to the resurgent antisemitism,
crying only over Palestinian deaths while playing down Israeli deaths,
glossing over them in unwilling tones. I find it shameful that in their
debates they host with much deference the scoundrels with turban or
kaffiah who yesterday sang hymns to the slaughter at New York and today
sing hymns to the slaughters at Jerusalem, at Haifa, at Netanya, at Tel
Aviv. I find it shameful that the press does the same, that it is
indignant because Israeli tanks surround the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem, that it is not indignant because inside that same church two
hundred Palestinian terrorists well armed with machine guns and munitions
and explosives (among them are various leaders of Hamas and Al-Aqsa) are
not unwelcome guests of the monks (who then accept bottles of mineral
water and jars of honey from the soldiers of those tanks). I find it
shameful that, in giving the number of Israelis killed since the beginning
of the Second Intifada (four hundred twelve), a noted daily newspaper
found it appropriate to underline in capital letters that more people are
killed in their traffic accidents. (Six hundred a year). I find it
shameful that the Roman Observer, the newspaper of the Pope--a Pope who
not long ago left in the Wailing Wall a letter of apology for the
Jews--accuses of extermination a people who were exterminated in the
millions by Christians. By Europeans. I find it shameful that this
newspaper denies to the survivors of that people (survivors who still have
numbers tattooed on their arms) the right to react, to defend themselves,
to not be exterminated again. I find it shameful that in the name of Jesus
Christ (a Jew without whom they would all be unemployed), the priests of
our parishes or Social Centers or whatever they are flirt with the
assassins of those in Jerusalem who cannot go to eat a pizza or buy some
eggs without being blown up. I find it shameful that they are on the side
of the very ones who inaugurated terrorism, killing us on airplanes, in
airports, at the Olympics, and who today entertain themselves by killing
western journalists. By shooting them, abducting them, cutting their
throats, decapitating them. (There's someone in Italy who, since the
appearance of Anger and Pride, would like to do the same to me. Citing
verses of the Koran he exorts his "brothers" in the mosques and the
Islamic Community to chastise me in the name of Allah. To kill me. Or
rather to die with me. Since he's someone who speaks English well, I'll
respond to him in English: "Fuck you.")
I find it shameful that almost all of the left, the left that twenty
years ago permitted one of its union processionals to deposit a coffin (as
a mafioso warning) in front of the synagogue of Rome, forgets the
contribution made by the Jews to the fight against fascism. Made by Carlo
and Nello Rossini, for example, by Leone Ginzburg, by Umberto Terracini,
by Leo Valiani, by Emilio Sereni, by women like my friend Anna Maria
Enriques Agnoletti who was shot at Florence on June 12, 1944, by
seventy-five of the three-hundred-thirty-five people killed at the Fosse
Ardeatine, by the infinite others killed under torture or in combat or
before firing squads. (The companions, the teachers, of my infancy and my
youth.) I find it shameful that in part through the fault of the left--or
rather, primarily through the fault of the left (think of the left that
inaugurates its congresses applauding the representative of the PLO,
leader in Italy of the Palestinians who want the destruction of
Israel)--Jews in Italian cities are once again afraid. And in French
cities and Dutch cities and Danish cities and German cities, it is the
same. I find it shameful that Jews tremble at the passage of the
scoundrels dressed like suicide bombers just as they trembled during
Krystallnacht, the night in which Hitler gave free rein to the Hunt of the
Jews. I find it shameful that in obedience to the stupid, vile, dishonest,
and for them extremely advantageous fashion of Political Correctness the
usual opportunists--or better the usual parasites--exploit the word Peace.
That in the name of the word Peace, by now more debauched than the words
Love and Humanity, they absolve one side alone of its hate and bestiality.
That in the name of a pacifism (read conformism) delegated to the singing
crickets and buffoons who used to lick Pol Pot's feet they incite people
who are confused or ingenuous or intimidated. Trick them, corrupt them,
carry them back a half century to the time of the yellow star on the coat.
These charlatans who care about the Palestinians as much as I care about
the charlatans. That is not at all.
I find it shameful that many Italians and many Europeans have
chosen as their standard-bearer the gentleman (or so it is polite to say)
Arafat. This nonentity who thanks to the money of the Saudi Royal Family
plays the Mussolini ad perpetuum and in his megalomania believes he will
pass into History as the George Washington of Palestine. This
ungrammatical wretch who when I interviewed him was unable even to put
together a complete sentence, to make articulate conversation. So that to
put it all together, write it, publish it, cost me a tremendous effort and
I concluded that compared to him even Ghaddafi sounds like Leonardo da
Vinci. This false warrior who always goes around in uniform like Pinochet,
never putting on civilian garb, and yet despite this has never
participated in a battle. War is something he sends, has always sent,
others to do for him. That is, the poor souls who believe in him. This
pompous incompetent who playing the part of Head of State caused the
failure of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton's mediation.
No-no-I-want-Jerusalem-all-to-myself. This eternal liar who has a flash of
sincerity only when (in private) he denies Israel's right to exist, and
who as I say in my book contradicts himself every five minutes. He always
plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is, so that
you can never trust him. Never! With him you will always wind up
systematically betrayed. This eternal terrorist who knows only how to be a
terrorist (while keeping himself safe) and who during the Seventies, that
is when I interviewed him, even trained the terrorists of Baader-Meinhof.
With them, children ten years of age. Poor children. (Now he trains them
to become suicide bombers. A hundred baby suicide bombers are in the
works: a hundred!). This weathercock who keeps his wife at Paris, served
and revered like a queen, and keeps his people down in the shit. He takes
them out of the shit only to send them to die, to kill and to die, like
the eighteen year old girls who in order to earn equality with men have to
strap on explosives and disintegrate with their victims. And yet many
Italians love him, yes. Just like they loved Mussolini. And many other
Europeans do the same.
I find it shameful and see in all this the rise of a new fascism, a
new nazism. A fascism, a nazism, that much more grim and revolting because
it is conducted and nourished by those who hypocritically pose as
do-gooders, progressives, communists, pacifists, Catholics or rather
Christians, and who have the gall to label a warmonger anyone like me who
screams the truth.
I see it, yes, and I say the following. I have never been tender
with the tragic and Shakespearean figure Sharon. ("I know you've come to
add another scalp to your necklace," he murmured almost with sadness when
I went to interview him in 1982.) I have often had disagreements with the
Israelis, ugly ones, and in the past I have defended the Palestinians a
great deal. Maybe more than they deserved. But I stand with Israel, I
stand with the Jews. I stand just as I stood as a young girl during the
time when I fought with them, and when the Anna Marias were shot. I defend
their right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be
exterminated a second time. And disgusted by the antisemitism of many
Italians, of many Europeans, I am ashamed of this shame that dishonors my
Country and Europe. At best, it is not a community of States, but a pit of
Pontius Pilates. And even if all the inhabitants of this planet were to
think otherwise, I would continue to think so. |
