Many of you have 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 (weâ?Tre 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' 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.

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