Friday, April 15, 2011

An Italian Rachel Corrie?

Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian ISM volunteer in Gaza, has been murdered by local Islamists. The Israeli Y-net website has an interview with him, in which he explains that his arrival in Gaza in 2008 was the happiest day of his life, because he and his friends had broken a the blockade which began in 1967. (Their boat was allowed through by Israel). He goes on to explain that he's here because it's in his DNA: his grandfather fought the Italian Facists. The interview is only a few minutes long but has enough nonsense in it to fill a very long blog-post.

Rachel Corrie was accidentally killed by the IDF in 2001, yet her name has been widely commemorated, there's a play based on her letters, and she has become an icon of the non-Arab anti-Israeli forces. Arrigoni was purposefully abducted, beaten and hanged, so he should rightfully be canonized even more. I doubt this will happen, but who knows. We'll wait and see.

On another related matter: Salafi murderers are a small minority among Palestinians. But they're there, and if you assume the Palestinians are Arabs or Muslims, their power and popularity could yet grow, as has happened elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Salafists hate all sorts of people, including Italian fools who hate Israel, but they vehemently hate Jews. I think any reasonable person would agree that offering  such murderers uncontrolled access to large numbers of Israeli Jews would be a bad idea. Yet that precisely is what most of the world, from President Obama down, insists is the key to peace, since Jerusalem must be divided and also remain an open city. I apologize for droning on about this matter, but I admit I'm personally threatened by the imbecilic idea.

Finally, a nice little note: The Guardian reports on Arrigoni's murder:
Arrigoni arrived in the Gaza Strip on a boat bringing humanitarian supplies in 2008 that Israel, which enforces a blockade on the tiny coastal territory, allowed into Gaza port. [My emphasis]
Update: Just Journalism demonstrates the British media are being worse on this story than I'd said.

11 comments:

Y. Ben-David said...

Go ahead and keep mentioning the folly of dividing Jerusalem. It makes me happy when I see anyone criticize that foolish idea. It is simply incomprehensible to me how mainline Israelis (e.g. KADIMAH, LABOR, MERETZ and others) can keep claiming to support that suicidal policy. They all know perfectly well that the city would be destroyed if it were to be divided. How can they possibly want to see such a scenario?

Silke said...

MSM already indulge in "balancing"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42600154/

claims not only Rachel Corrie was victimized by you know who

via http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/04/guess-who-moonbats-blame-for-vittorios.html#comment-184882004

Y. Ben-David said...

It isn't always just the "extremists". There was the case of Amira Hass, the infamous Ha'aretz journalist who lived in Gaza and Ramallah for many years.
At first she loved HAMAS saying they were "clean, honest and idealistic" unlike the bad, corrupt FATAH people in the Palestinian Authority (odd, isn't it, because in the 1980's all these "progressives" who are badmouthing FATAH today dreamed of when Arafat and his FATAH gang would come in and take over the Palestinians!). After a while she became quite critical of them. Then, as I understand it, she was kidnapped by the HAMAS in Gaza (which she entered illegally). They freed her on the receipt of a large ransom (who put up the money for her?). Today, her writing is again, sympathetic to HAMAS.

Recently, there was a long article by David Remnick in IIRC The New Yorker about Ha'aretz. He wrote about Amira and she admitted it is very difficult to make friends among the Palestinians, even though she has lived with them for years (she also said she has few Israeli friends, almost all of whom are anti-Zionist extremists). So it seems the Palestinians are suspicious of various outsider do-gooders who want to help them. This is all a symptom of their decrepit society which will prevent them from ever having a real state.

AKUS said...

Yes, I also noted the clever little way in which the Reuters/Guardian article blames Israel for this ISMer's death:

Will the bell toll for Vittorio Arrigoni?

So, if Israel had not (a) blockaded Gaza (b) causing this idiot to bring unneeded "assistance" to Gaza and (c) Israel had not prevented his ship entering Gaza (d) he would be alive today.

The Islamic apologists and Israel bashers are in full swing.

NormanF said...

A virulent anti-Semite murdered by even more virulent anti-Semites!

I'm not exactly mourning Vittorio Arrigoni's demise.

If the terrorists would only eliminate the leftist imbeciles, it would be a more peaceful and secure world.

Those of us who are sane love Israel and we're not imbeciles and useful pawns of those who do evil.

Like I'm always fond of saying, hatred of the Jews and Israel leads to no good end.

The short life of an Italian hater of the Jews is proof how much that is true.

But his death will not bring an end to the virulent Jew-hatred that has gripped our world to the point of complete psychosis in this century.

May many more Jew-hating morons go the way of Arrigoni in this life.

AKUS said...

The commentary on this murder by various Palestinian supporters blaming Israel is completely in line with Mitnaged’s article on cifwatch from a few days ago pointing out the symbiosis between the need for Palestinians to portray themselves as victims and their supporters to see them as victims, even when they perpetrate murder:

How the Guardian perpetuates Palestinian misery

The Guardian has a clip now that shows this useful idiot, cross dangling from his neck, coming from the heart of the infidels’ country, Italy, telling how he loves palestinians, and then a Hamas spokesman stating flatly that he was killed by a Gazan group. But that will not deter those who wish to see Israel’s hand behind this:

Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni killed by militants in Gaza - video

Y. Ben-David said...

Friday,
April 15, 2011
5:42 am

These two recent murders reflect tensions within the “Red-Green-Brown” alliance against Israel (Marxist/Communists [the Reds], Purificationists-Radical Muslims [the Greens,-Neo-Fascist-Neo-Nazi[the Browns]). While it is true they may all agree on their anti-Israel program, there are great internal differences between them. Some of the Reds and Greens may view the ultimate goal of the struggle against Israel and Zionism as leading to the Palestinians, and indeed the whole Middle East becoming some version of Swedish Social Democrats, whereas the Muslim Greens may oppose Palestinian nationalism and view the ultimate goal of the struggle to be a pan-Islamic Salafist Caliphate, and the Browns hoping for the creation of a secular anti-American bloc in the Middle East opposing American capitalist-globalist tendencies.
Quite a complex situation and it is hard sometimes to tell the players without a scorecard. We can expect these tensions to continue and increase with the Middle East in turmoil and with the situation being unclear which tendies will come to dominate the region, which of course, will help define the nature of the ongoing struggle against Israel.

Sérgio said...

A perfect happy ending to a professional Jew-hater. No laments for that guy.

Derick Schilling said...

A factual correction: Rachel Corrie was accidentally killed on March 16, 2003, not in 2001.

prasad said...

I think Palestinian and Israel conflict is a never ending problem. Palestine people should not target Israeli people and Israeli government they should not give support Hamas like terrorist groups. Israel also leave the Palestinian territory and both side have a peace talk in a peaceful manner then only this conflict will end otherwise this problem will continue for a long time and this might be the reason third world war in the future. Only peace talks can change their lives.

Aristobulus said...

To Sergio and Norman F and so on...

How can you dare to wish someone be killed? You behave just like Hamas, crying "kill!"