Photo: Fiamma Nirenstein
Dear friends,
We didn’t expect what you see now in the picture. This is the square of the Italian Parliament in Rome, Piazza Montecitorio: you can see the Palace on top of the square, and in front a lot of Israeli flags.That was yesterday night from 6:30 to 9:30 P.M. What you cannot see here, is the extraordinary number and variety of members of the Parliament, about 100 from all political sides, that took the stage during our marathon: for about three hours we have been speaking about the role of Israel, its right to self defense, its moral height, its fight in name of all of us, of our civilization and values, against the wild hate of the Islamic jihad represented by Hamas. It seems to me that for the first time in the too-long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, apart from a minority of crazy leftists and fascists that took the street on anti-Semitic slogans, we have obtained a huge consensus about one critical point: this is not an episode of a local conflict, there is nothing in it that reminds the land for peace theme that has characterized the Palestinian issue. This is an episode of the attack against the Western world, and Iran has a lot to do with it.
The change of attitude is great: the dictatorial religious nature of Hamas and the democratic, civilized nature of Israel are seen face to face for what they are at least by the European elite at large, dead and wounded notwithstanding, and there rises an identification with Israel against a regime that uses human shields and promises slaughters of Jews in its chart
What happens today, at least in Italy, is the defeat and fall of the leftist ideologies: ideology has been the fig leaf that has allowed to justify all the most violent crimes and most disgusting verbal attacks. If Arafat launched the terrorist Intifada, if he promoted the martyrdom of children in public speeches, the ideologists were ready to justify him with the issues of occupation, the Palestinian misery and loss of any hope. Not the same with Hamas. History, in Italy, has brought to a profound crisis the ideology of revolution and the justification of any cruel attack against a pretended unjust imperialist order. That time is in good part over, nobody will see Hamas as the resolution of the problem and not as the problem itself. I also think that the word “peace” has lost that healing meaning that it had until yesterday. The new non-ideological point of view sees that there is no peace when one of the contenders doesn’t want it, and that even if the world in the short run asks for a truce, in the long run requests a defeat of Hamas.
Well, yesterday night many people, Ministers and Members of Parliament, composed a very new, interesting puzzle of opinions. I think that when you are not overwhelmed by exotic thirdworldism, the images of children educated as hate machines, the speeches of jihad leaders, from Ahmadinejad to Nasrallah, to Haniyyeh, that deny the Holocaust and promise death to Jewish and Christians too, have on us a result of great disgust. Westerners, thanks God, can still be disgusted by an uncivilized level of political speech.
But most of all, in the Parliament square, many of the Parliament Members said: “I love Israel”. You can’t imagine how many.
(Note: The above letter has been edited for spelling only. No content changes were made.)
protests against Israel actions http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7834863.stm
from your long speech, it seems to me or to any body who looks indepth into your letter (litter), it is clear that as your fellow people, you have no confedence in yourself, you don’t believe that you have all that support from your fellow zionisms.
we know that you hate islam and you know that we are fair enough that we respect all religons including jewish religion, but you and those people that support israel in its murders in Gaza we call them zionisims who do not belong to the good jewish people.
let me tell you one bad fact and very bitter to you and to anybody who supports your bloody acts against women and children and elderly people that your coward army (could not) daerly face the (men) of Gaza, otherwise you and me know that resistance would have cut your soldiers into small pieces and your coward leaders anticipated that they could not digest the resistanse.
[Moderation Note: Inappropriate section removed.]
As for our soldiers facing the ‘men’ of Gaza, you probably mean the ‘men’ of Hamas. Most of those ‘men’ deliberately hid behind children, and their leaders hid in hospitals, dressed as patients and personnel. In most cases Israel chose not to go in and take care of them, because that would have meant many more civilian casualties. And Israel knew very well which side would be blamed for those casualties. Whereas several Israeli commanders were hurt or killed while leading their men into battle, Israel killed most of the Hamas hotshots who did not survive this ‘victory’ while they were hidden ( among and behind women and children, in most cases ) or moving from one hiding place to another ( often while holding children close to their chest ). Much of the ‘brave resistance’ by Hamas consisted of the bluff of cowards who force others to become martyrs.