This article is reprinted from Fiammanirenstein.com.
The cruelty of the public execution of a young man, as was the case with Vittorio Arrigoni, is always awful. This much is clear. What isn’t clear to the European public is that it is patently evident that the killers were Arrigoni’s old Islamic Jihadists friends from Gaza. But they could have been Afghanis, or Iraqis. In 2002, Daniel Pearl was killed in Karachi by similar methods because he was a Jew; in 2004, the decapitation of American Nick Berg in Iraq was filmed, the Jihadists said, “to send a clear message to the West;” the Italian Fabrizio Quattrocchi was executed because he was “an enemy of God, an enemy of Allah,” and Vittorio Arrigoni, as his butchers say in the video in the words that scrolled across the screen, because “he was spreading Western immorality in Gaza” and because “Italy fights against Islamic countries.” It has been repeated again and again that Hamas, with whom Arrigoni was on friendly terms, has condemned the crime. But in actual fact, it doesn’t matter if the assassins were members of Hamas or not. They have been, they will be, they are all controlled by Hamas. Hamas is always top dog in Gaza.
Hamas is responsible for the captivity of Gilad Shalit. It was responsible for the armed destruction of the UN recreational camp for children, which did not abide by Islamic dictates. It was responsible for arresting 150 women under the accusation of witchcraft and the execution of several of them. It is Hamas that has introduced laws on the death penalty, whipping, cutting off hands and crucifixion, according to Sharia. Hamas killed the 32-year old Christian book salesman Rami Khader Ayyad, guilty of selling Bibles. Not all those who carry out Hamas’s operations, or those who fire Qassam missiles into Israel, are “members” of the terrorist organization that rules Gaza. Indeed, at times Hamas pretends to fight them.
Hamas is a movement, a party, a fundamentalist affiliation. Its charter stipulates that it wants to destroy the Jewish State, to exterminate Jews, and impose an Islamic caliphate on the entire world. Salafite fringes and those aligned more with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – influenced to a greater or lesser extent by Iran or Al Qaeda and based in the Gaza Strip – join up and leave Hamas routinely. The fact that Hamas has now disowned the killers of Arrigoni is not of the slightest importance. In any case, they were still employed by Hamas as members of the Al Qassam Brigades.
To understand the death of this Italian activist, a few important facts must be grasped: his death was triggered by the spurious way he mixed his humanitarian ideals with the cause of fundamentalism in Gaza, and by the fact that he mixed his life with that of his potential enemies, whom he considered to be his best friends. But fundamentalists do not have stable affinities. Only their interpretation of the Quran counts. Hamas in Gaza, where Arrigoni was killed, is a land ruled by awful, alien laws. Arrigoni loved the Palestinians, but he remained a total foreigner to them. It is for us inconceivable, even if you are a militant like Arrigoni, to live alongside those who fire missiles at civilians, wear belts packed with explosives, and hand out sweets when an Israeli family is killed in Itamar, including a three month-old baby, a four year-old child, and another of nine.
This is the crucial issue: when you go to Gaza, or Afghanistan, you have to realise that our conception of life is completely different from any Islamic political conception of life. You could be killed because you are Jewish, because you are Italian, or Christian, because you are an apostate, or a corrupt Westerner. The extremist mentality make no bones about it, and cancels out friends and allies. No matter how much you have worked against the “Zionist power” or how often you have called Zionists “rats” (and Arrigoni did this), nothing is of any worth if you break their law, a law which will remain unclear until the knife blade comes. Arrigoni was a fan of political Islamism because he was an enemy of the Jews, but this did not save him from a cruel execution in front of the camera, just like many other friends and enemies of Hamas, or the “Islamic Jihad,” never mind the name.
So, it is intellectually disheartening and even dangerous that a demonstration in front of the Italian Parliament blamed Israel and Italy for Arrigoni’s death, or that the ISM, the pro-Palestinian NGO Arrigoni belonged to, attributed “moral responsibility to the State of Israel.” These reactions seem to be triggered only by ideological hatred. But what was more striking still, with sincerest respect for the president of the republic, was the statement of condolences which Giorgio Napolitano delivered. Instead of laying the blame on Islamic fundamentalism, he asked that “a negotiated solution be found to the conflict which sees bloodshed in the region.” With the same coherence, he could have invoked any good cause: the fight against world hunger, or child prostitution. Yet instead, Israel is being summoned to face some mysterious responsibility. However, the fault is only with Islamic fundamentalism – what is the point of dragging the pained witness and victim of Hamas terrorism into the equation?
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