On Jew-Hatred in Europe

(This is a translation of the full version of an article previously posted in a shorter form.)

Originally published in Corriere della Sera. Translation by Chris and Paola Newman.

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 swastika, 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: “F*** 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 Palestinans 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 sh**. He takes them out of the sh** 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.

I find it shameful that in part through the fault of the left--or rather, primarily through the fault of the left

This can't be emphasized too much. So many Jews just can't find it in their hearts to repudiate the left, even though today almost all the most dangerous manifestations of antisemitism come from the left. Hitler died more than forty years ago. The KKK have very few supporters. The ADL and the rest should wake up and understand where the real danger lies.

I don't know who she refers to here. Never heard of this bishop before.

I find it shameful that some of us, including myself, are so slow to wake-up to the Jewish hegemony in the US and the world. I find it shameful that Jewish leftists and neo-cons reign supreme with their Anti-American concepts and policies. I find it shameful that Sharon can bomb the crap out of Palestinians and then get the American media to focus on the few (by comparison) women and children killed by the "homocide-bombers."

Another Jew-baiting anti-capitalist speaks out. The tyrannical socialist and theocratic pigs need a boogyman to point their mobs. For thousands of years Jews made a living as merchants and money lenderers (capitalists) contributing to the rise of needed goods. Their payback is death at the hands of socialists and anti capitalist religions.

When the apathetic mobs rise in protest of these tyrants, I'll be out selling tar and feathers. My tar will be good and hot.

I was with most of this article, until I read this nonsense:

...accuses of extermination a people who were exterminated in the millions by Christians.

This is typical anti-Christian bigotry. The past and present day plight of the Jews is well known and Jews and Israel have no bigger supporters than conservative Christians. For the author to claim "Christians" were the ones who exterminated the Jews in WWII is a lie. Such exagerations to the point of a lie is dishonest, and does nothing to further sympathy for the Jews, it actually elicits the opposite.

The claim that Hitler and his Nazi cronies were "Christians" belies anyone who has bothered to read the life of Christ to see what a real Christian must be. It also in the case of Hitler is false, he was not a bonafide practicing "Christian" when he committed his attrocities. Their WERE Christians who looked the other way, who walked away from Christ, and supported Nazi Germany, both internally and externally. And guess what, as a nation, both Christians and Jews have watched geonicidal massacres in many other countries....and done little to nothing.

And finally, it was the United States of America who fought with our allies to DEFEAT Hitler and Nazi Germany, and release the Jews from the camps. And MOST of these soldiers were - Christians.

This is typical anti-Christian bigotry.

I don't think Oriana Falachi is trying to be anti-Christian just for the sake of it. She's from a heavily Catholic country, and isn't saying "Christian" to mean "Protestant", but rather anyone believing in Christ, any Christian faith. And, while I heartily agree that Hitler and his henchmen weren't in any sense Christian, they came from a Christian country/background/part of the world.

Do not forget this famous quote:

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller

So I think it is in this sense that Oriana lays some of the blame for the Holocaust on European Christiandom, for not standing up and stopping the monster Hitler and his friends.

I've been Googling trying to find the Fallaci article mentioned below. I thought this was interesting enough to post.

Nov. 6, 2001 – Isabella writes a letter to the NY Times in defense of Italian writer Oriana Fallaci:

November 6, 2001
In Defense of Fallaci

To the Editor:

In "Provocateur Is Back to 'Spit on' Detractors of U.S." (Rome Journal, Oct. 30), you call Oriana Fallaci a "professional provocateur." Ms. Fallaci is one of the most respected writers in Italy and one who has achieved world fame. Her articles and books have nourished our souls and stimulated our brains, not to mention the examples she has set with her courageous life, which has been an inspiration to women of my generation.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, my brain froze, incapable of coming to grips with the horrors we had just experienced. Oriana Fallaci's powerful article, printed in Corriere della Sera, shook me up out of my stupor. Her informed, witty, warm, bold, intelligent writings have often had that effect on her readers.

Instead of thanking Ms. Fallaci for defending and praising America, you chose to insult her. As an Italian who has become an American citizen, I felt profoundly embarrassed and ashamed by it.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI
New York, Nov. 5, 2001

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