italy 2003-4
The number of antisemitic
incidents reported in Italy fell from about 150 in 2002 to about
80 in 2003; most were verbal or written expressions of antisemitism. There was
a continuation of the anti-Zionist rhetoric of the far left, which radicalized after
Ariel Sharon was elected Israel’s prime minister and George W. Bush became
president of the US, with Bush portrayed as the puppet of the ‘Likudnik lobby’
which allegedly runs American policy from behind the scenes.
the jewish community
Some 30,000 Jews
live in Italy out of a total population of 57 million. The largest communities
are in Rome (15,000) and Milan (10,000), with smaller communities in Turin, Florence,
Livorno, Trieste, Genoa and several other cities. Jews have been present in Italy
for over two thousand years and have developed unique customs and traditions.
The Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche
Italiane (UCEI), founded in 1955, is the roof organization of Italian Jewry. It
represents the community in official matters and provides religious, cultural
and educational services. There are Jewish schools in the main communities. The
Jews of Rome publish a monthly journal, Shalom, and the Milan community
puts out the monthly Bollettino.
political organizations and groups
Right-Wing and Far Right Parties
Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance
– AN) is led by Gianfranco Fini, deputy prime minister in the Berlusconi
government. In the May 2001 national elections AN obtained 96 seats (out of
630) in the Chamber of Deputies and 46 seats (out of 324) in the Senate. The
party lost a few key seats in the 2003 local elections (25 May–8 June), such as
the Province of Rome, but its position remained firm. The party obtained 11.5
percent of the vote and 9 seats in the June 2004 European Parliamentary elections.
AN’s political program emphasizes Catholicism close to the
official Church position, as well as law and order, especially laws aimed at
controlling immigration and national cohesion. It competes for votes with Lega Nord
(LN, see below), its ally in the ruling right center coalition Casa delle Libertà
(CdL), but is less strident on the immigration issue and its stress on national
unity contrasts with the League’s regionalism.
Since its foundation in 1995, Fini has tried to gloss over AN’s
origins in the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), portraying it as a
democratic conservative party which rejects antisemitism and racism, supports
Israel and is devoid of nostalgia for the fascist era (Repubblica Sociale Italiana
– RSI, 1943–45). Nevertheless, some party members continue to demonstrate their
fascist inclinations.
The AN club in Fiumicino (close to Rome), for example,
called for a square to be named after fascist leader Ettore Muti, while the
president of the region of Lazio, Francesco Storace, asked that each city
dedicate a street to Giorgio Almirante, leader of the defunct neo-fascist party
MSI, from which AN emerged.
In November 2003, AN deputy Antonio Serena (who switched
from LN to AN in 2001) distributed to other parliamentary deputies a tape
extolling ex-SS man Erich Priebke, who is serving a life sentence for the Ardeatine
caves massacres (see ASW 1997/8).
He was condemned by most senior AN executives and expelled from the party.
The party daily Il Secolo d’Italia tends to paint a
rosy picture of the fascist regime, praising its values and RSI leaders. It
refers to events in which young men “fought to the last” (on the side of the
RSI) for Italy’s honor, without mentioning the persecutions against political
opponents and Jews. For the sake of national unity, the party advocates
overcoming the differences between pro-fascists and anti-fascists, since they
were all fighting for an ideal.
During a visit to Israel in late November 2003, Fini labeled the racial laws
issued by the fascist regime in 1938 as “infamous.” He also referred to the RSI
as belonging to the most shameful pages of the past and considered fascism part
of an era of “absolute evil.” Fini’s condemnation of the RSI aroused anger
among party activists and supporters, some of whom were rumored to have
threatened to quit. Thirty-four AN clubs out of 43 signed a document expressing
their discontent. Alessandra Mussolini, the niece of deceased fascist
dictator Benito Mussolini, was the only well-known person to leave the party.
She went on to found the Libertà d’Azione
(Freedom of Action – LdA) which later joined a coalition, Alternativa Sociale,
together with Adriano Tilgher’s (marginal) Fronte Sociale Nazionale and
Roberto Fiore’s Forza Nuova (see below) for the European elections. The
coalition won 1.2 percent of the vote and Mussolini became a Euro-MP.
Lega Nord
(Northern League – LN) is led by Umberto Bossi, who was minister for
institutional reform and devolution in the Berlusconi government until July
2004. In the May 2001 elections the LN obtained 30 seats in the Chamber of
Deputies and 17 seats in the Senate. LN ran on a separate ticket in the regions
of Lombardy and Venetia in the 2003 local elections in order to try to stop the
plunge in votes that had reduced their share from 10 percent to 3.9 percent in
the 2001 national elections. It received 5 percent of the vote and 5 seats in
the European Parliamentary elections.
The LN tactic of differentiating their image from that of
the other parties in the government coalition (CdL) and disputes with coalition
partners during the electoral campaign succeeded in stopping and even reversing
the erosion of support for the party almost everywhere.
LN has apparently abandoned the claim for a politically
autonomous Padania (the northern region of Italy) in exchange for a promise by
its coalition allies to enact a series of measures increasing regional
sovereignty. The party espouses ethnic and populist regionalism, strongly
tainted by racism. Using an aggressive style, sometimes peppered with direct
insults, LN kindles social alarm regarding illegal immigration and “the Muslim
invasion” and perceives a direct association between immigration from
non-European countries and crime and prostitution.
The party newspaper La Padania is close to the
traditionalist – Lefebvrist (followers of Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre refuse to
accept the 1965 Second Vatican Council reforms) – fringes of the Church and
deals with many issues central to that culture such as denunciation of
Freemason plots or defense of Catholicism as the religion of the masses.
Through former extreme right-wing militants such as LN Deputy Mario Borghezio,
it also finds a certain community of views with the Forza Nuova movement.
Probably as a way to attract votes of AN sympathizers who
opposed Fini’s trip to Israel, La Padania is involved in a campaign to
discredit Fini, describing him as a turncoat because of his words about fascism
and the RSI.
Since January 2003 LN has been fighting for the repeal of
some laws that they deem prejudicial to freedom of opinion, such as the 1993 Mancino
law against racial, ethnic and religious discrimination.
While, officially, the party platform is pro-Israel and
pro-Judaism, some articles in La Padania, the party newspaper, seem to
contradict this position. For example, in July 2003, La Padania published
an article by the movie director Pasquale Squitieri (as well as other articles
supporting him), defending the claim he had made earlier in the month that the
1938 racial laws were not antisemitic (see also ASW 2002/3).
The nationalist populist Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore (Social
Movement–Tricolor Flame – MS-FT), founded in 1995, was led until the February
2004 convention by Pino Rauti. Rauti was replaced by Luca Romagnoli as party
secretary. MS-FT returned only one senator, Lino Caruso, in the May 2001
political elections and has 14 town councilors. In the 2003 local elections
they slated candidates for town and provincial administrations, especially in
the south of Italy, but obtained less than 1 percent of the vote almost
everywhere. MS-FT got 0.7 percent of the vote and one seat in the European
Parliamentary elections.
The party has traditional links to the old fascist regime
and strongly supports the Palestinian cause. During a party event in Rome in May 2003, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
and other antisemitic books were displayed.
On the extreme right, only Forza Nuova, founded and
led by Roberto Fiore, continues to expand throughout the country. It slated
several candidates in the 2003 local elections but obtained poor results. Its
political platform, which is close to fundamentalist (Lefebvrist) Catholicism,
is pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist, anti-globalization and anti-immigration from
non-European countries, and it continually advocates abolition of the Mancino
law.
Far Left/Anti-Globalization Front
The ‘far left’ is used as an
umbrella term for so-called anti-globalization groups and anti-parliamentary
parties such as the Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, Partito della Rifondazione Comunista
and Federazione dei Verdi [The Greens], as well as newspapers such as the
communist Manifesto and websites such as Indymedia).
Italy’s anti-globalization front is a complex, multi-faceted
movement, made up of heterogeneous and seemingly irreconcilable political
cultures. For example, the non-violence of dissenting Catholics coexists with
the violence of the centri sociali (social centers frequented by extreme
left-wing youth). What brings the various groups associated with the
anti-globalization movement together is a fusion of pacifism, terzomondismo
(anti-capitalism/anti-colonialism) and fierce hostility (occasionally verging
on subversion) toward the liberal economy, globalization, the US, Israel and
the West in general. In addition, very definite pro-Arab leanings are evident;
in the centri sociali, these sometimes take the form of support for the
objectives of Islamic terrorism.
The Arabs and the Muslim masses in the Middle East as well
as in Europe are perceived by the anti-globalization movement as symbolizing
the ‘damned of the earth’. Thanks in part to the active support they get from
much of the world of culture and entertainment (such as Punkreas, one of the
most famous European punk bands whose song “Intifada” was a kind of hymn to the
Palestinian shahid martyrs), anti-globalization groups enjoy enormous
popularity, especially among young people. They draw their inspiration from
many sources but have no acknowledged leader, and have no precise point of
reference in parliament; however, the political parties most sympathetic to
them are the PRC and the Greens.
On the far left there is rarely evidence of explicit use of
traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes; however, an image of an unshakable
rejection of the right of the Jewish people to a state very definitely emerges.
Moreover, while it does not attack the Jews outright, the far left attributes
to Israel part of the negative symbolism that classic antisemitism ascribed to
Jews and Judaism, as part of its general anti-Zionist rhetoric.
Holocaust denial, too is practically absent from the
cultural framework of the extreme left. Nevertheless, in its demonization of Israel,
it continues to compare the modern Jewish state with Hitler’s Germany, thereby relativizing
the genocide of the Jews. With the dimming of historical memory, the far left
freely equates the Star of David with the swastika, Sharon with Hitler and the
Jewish state with fascist regimes. An example of this process may be seen in
the satirical cartoons in the communist daily il Manifesto and in Liberazione,
the official organ of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, which depict
Israelis with para-Nazi features killing or torturing Palestinians who are
sometimes characterized by symbols recalling the deported Jews.
Over the years (since the end of the Six Day War) Italy’s
radical left has gradually adopted an increasingly anti-Zionist attitude towards the
Arab-Israeli conflict and, because of this prejudice, the State of Israel has –
in its eyes – increasingly assumed the attributes of an ‘evil state’.
Anti-Zionist sentiment radicalized after Ariel Sharon was elected Israel’s
prime minister and George W. Bush became president of the US. In particular,
Bush is portrayed as the puppet of the ‘Likudnik lobby’ which allegedly runs
American policy from behind the scenes. Across-the-board anti-Americanism and the
close relationship between Washington and Jerusalem have served to further fan
the flames of anti-Zionism (see below).
Certain sectors of the extreme left even see the existence
of the Jewish state as the source of all the world’s problems: “... there’s a
widespread perception that Zionism is currently one of the most serious threats
to peace and security worldwide; [there is] a feeling that Zionism is one of
the most powerful incitements to global terrorism” (Danilo Zolo, L'asimmetria
di un paradigma [The asymmetry of a Paradigm], il Manifesto, 26 Jan.
2004).
The anti-globalization and anti-imperialist rhetoric of this
movement has thus acquired many points of contact with the invective of the
extreme right. This shared approach is much in evidence on websites such as: Disinformazione
– Oltre la Verità Ufficiale (Disinformation – Beyond the Official
Truth – www.disinformazione.it), Nuovo Ordine
Mondiale (New World Order – www.nwo.it), Come Don Chisciotte (Like Don
Quixote – www.comedonchisciotte.net), and 11
settembre (www.11settembre.net),
in which anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism, terzomondismo and
anti-imperialist rhetoric are mixed with outlandish conspiracy theories.
Political parties with parliamentary representation that can
be classified as belonging to the extreme left and which are close to the
anti-globalization front are the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista
(PRC; 11 deputies and 4 senators from the May 2001 elections), Partito dei Comunisti
Italiani (PCI; 9 deputies and 3 senators) and Federazione dei Verdi
(The Greens; as part of Gruppo Verdi l’Ulivo, 7 deputies and 10
senators).
These political forces have often organized events directed
against the Jewish state, and promoted media campaigns aimed at a boycott of
Israeli-made products, termination of politico-economic relations between
Israel and Europe and introduction of sanctions against the Israeli government.
A number of deputies have even demanded that Italian-Israeli diplomatic
relations be severed. Many politicians belonging to these three political
groupings frequently incite against ‘Zionist racism’ and against Ariel Sharon,
whom they brand ‘genocidal’, or a ‘killer’.
In October 2003, il Manifesto, the Greens and the
Communists (PCI), as well as members of the more mainstream left Democrazia di Sinistra
party (along with Arab/Islamic associations including Comunità palestinese
del Lazio – Palestinian Community of
the Lazio region, Forum Palestina, Comitato di solidarietà con l’Intifada
and Amici della Mezzaluna Rossa –
Friends of the Red Crescent) decided to organize a protest march against the
‘Apartheid Wall’. Following declarations of support and justification of terrorism
by suicide bombers made by one of the organizers of the ‘Stop the Wall’
movement the PRC decided party not to join the
march, although some members did participate.
The Islamic Community
Approximately 800,000 Muslims
currently live in the country, accounting for about 1.2 percent of the
population. This number includes about 100,000 illegal immigrants, 50,000
non-Italians with authorized permanent residence and 15,000 native-born Italian
converts. Half of the legal Muslim immigrants originate from North Africa (Algeria,
Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia); the second largest group of Muslims
comprises eastern Europeans (from Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia). In absolute
terms Islam is the second religion in Italy after Catholicism.
While there is no shortage of fierce pro-terrorist and
anti-Zionist polemics, criticism of the Jews as a group is seldom heard in
mosques or in cultural centers close to the Islamist movement. Nevertheless,
individual Jews (Italian Jewish journalist Fiamma Nirenstein, for example),
Jewish capital and the ‘Jewish/Zionist lobby” (particularly in the US) are
frequently targeted. In addition, bugging devices installed by Italian security
forces inside certain Islamic cultural centers or in the homes of Islamists,
have recorded a number of violently anti-Jewish remarks, as well as openly
terrorist threats.
The group that has the greatest nationwide coverage and is
most representative of Italian ‘organized Islam’ is the Unione delle comunità
ed organizzazioni islamiche in Italia (Union of Islamic Communities and
Organizations in Italy – UCOII).
About 700,000 Muslim faithful and over 80 percent of Italy’s mosques and
Islamic cultural centers identify with this organization, which tends toward
Islamism and is regarded as the Italian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood,
although it has no formal ties with the movement. Its chairman is Mohammad Nur Dachan,
a Syrian heart surgeon with Italian citizenship, and its secretary-general is Hamza
Roberto Piccardo, an Italian convert to Islam and former activist of a militant
far left group in the 1970s. Piccardo supervised a 1994 Italian translation of
the Qur’an (Il Sacro Corano Inimitabile) for the UCOII, annotated with
Islamist and anti-Jewish connotations. Moreover, in 2002 Piccardo – described
by one of the foremost experts in Italian Islam as “the best known and most
vigorous defender of Hamas’ ideology and strategy in Italy” – put his signature
to an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood document, published on the www.aljazira.it website, in which jihad
against “the colonialist and racist Zionist entity” was invoked.
The UCOII has never taken a clear stand against
Islamist-inspired subversion, merely condemning “all terrorism and all
warfare.” Its strong anti-Zionist leanings are manifested, inter alia,
in open support for Palestinian suicide bombers and their ideology, and in its
outright rejection of the State of Israel’s right to exist (almost always
referred to as the ‘Zionist entity’).
A distinctly antisemitic approach prevails in the UCOII’s
online bookshop (www.libreriaislamica.it)
which offers a small number of anti-Jewish publications for sale.
Antisemitic activities
The two acts of violence against Jewish
individuals in 2003/4 followed antisemitic insults suffered by a 13-year-old
Jewish schoolboy at the hands of a classmate (Voghera, Nov. 2003) and by a
Jewish boy hit on the head by a skinhead in a bar (Vicenza, Jan. 2004); in the
latter case the perpetrator was charged with racially motivated violence, but
not remanded in custody.
Again, in 2003, commemoration
stones and plaques recalling deportees were vandalized and a threatening letter
(containing a white powder) was sent to the municipal authorities in Padua. In
April 2004 vandals desecrated tombs in the Jewish cemetery at Scandiano (Reggio
Emilia).
The issues underlying anti-Jewish
polemics were similar to those of the previous year. The usual traditional
prejudices about the dominating role played by Jews in the economy, culture and
international politics were mixed with accusations against Israeli
‘persecution’ of the Palestinians, as well as with American Jewish instigation
of the war in Iraq (“America paese ebreo” –
America, a Jewish nation) through their control of Pentagon policy. The
Jewish/Israeli/Nazi link was also commonplace. On the far right, these motifs
were combined with Holocaust denial and allegations of Jewish exploitation of
the Holocaust.
Antisemitism of a religious
nature was observed in a number of articles and in some readers’ letters to
newspapers, as well as in certain low-circulation but extremely ‘committed’
periodicals published by Catholic integralist groups (see below). In Italy as
elsewhere, Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of Christ was not well received
by critics but it attracted huge audiences and provided traditionalist Catholic
circles – and above all, Catholic integralist organizations – with an
opportunity to rekindle their accusations of deicide.
In the world of sports
supporters, and particularly among soccer fans and far right groups, the word
‘Jew’ continues to be used to insult opponents during matches. Racist or
antisemitic banners, on the other hand, have become a rarity now that the
police have intervened repeatedly. Nonetheless, in February 2004 during a
Roma-Lazio match, a banner was displayed referring to the player Aaron Winter
(not a Jew but, according to his own admission, of Israeli origin): “Per una
vittoria hai permesso a un ebreo di arrivare alla gloria” (In
order to win you’ve let a Jew become the glory boy).
Far Right and Christian Fundamentalist Propaganda
A number of
periodicals, most of which appear online and which appeal mainly to like-minded
groups, consistently address issues from the anti-Jewish discourse, sometimes
presented under the guise of ‘anti-Zionism’. They include Avanguardia (Trapani),
a monthly with neo-Nazi leanings published by the Comunità Politica di Avanguardia;
the half-yearly New Right-inspired Uomo libero (Milan); the monthly Orion
(Milan), which declares itself not to be “influenced by orthodox thinking of
either the right or the left” but which, in fact, has close ties to the
traditional far right. Among the integralist Catholic periodicals is the annual
or bi-annual Sodalitium, published by the Centro Librario Sodalitium of
the Istituto Mater Boni Consilii in Verrua Savoia, which took a strong stand
against reforms in the Catholic Church after the 1965 Vatican Council II. The
catalog of the Centro Librario presents 14 booklets of which half have
anti-Jewish content. The monthly Tradizione Cattolica, which pursues the
same line, used to address Jewish issues extensively, but has done so to a lesser
extent in the last year or two.
In 2003 two books by Maurizio Blondet
were published (Edizioni Effedieffe). The first, 11 settembre colpo di stato
in USA (9/11, Coup d’état in the USA), underscores the Jewishness
of certain figures he regards as ‘conspirators’. The second, Osama Bin Mossad,
attributes a series of international political events that occurred after 9/11
to a conspiracy hatched by the ‘Jewish international’. Former SS man Erich Priebke
and his attorney Paolo Giachini authored the book Vae Victis, an all-out
defense of Hitler’s political ideal which contains classic anti-Jewish
stereotypes. Palestina su carta (Palestine on Paper) is a collection of
noteworthy examples from the work of satirical cartoonist Vauro (see above).
The cartoons depict Israeli society as barbarous and sadistic, and the
Palestinians are often compared with the Jews under Nazism.
Effepi, a small Genoa-based firm
specializing in extreme right material, published a series of booklets in 2003,
under the titles: Dagoberto Bellucci, I-Tal-Ya. Ebrei e Lobbies ebraiche
in Italia (Italy: Jews and Jewish Lobbies in Italy] and Iraq 2003. La seconda
guerra giudaica contro Saddam Hussein” (Iraq 2003: The Second Judaic War
against Saddam Husayn); George Montandon, Come riconoscere e spiegare l’Ebreo
(How to Recognize and Explain Jews); Claudio Mutti, Minima Holocaustica Minimilization
of the Holocaust). In 2002 the same firm published titles such as L’omicidio
rituale ebraico (Jewish Ritual Killing] and Le vittime del
delirio sionista (Victims of Zionist Frenzy).
The most violently anti-Jewish
Internet site is the Italian section of Holywar. The deicide issue is
introduced immediately, on the home page. The site hosts satirical cartoons and
texts that range from the homilies of Giovanni Crisostomo to The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion and Holocaust denial texts. The site draws its
inspiration from the anti-modernist philosophy of the Church in the early 20th
century and is violently opposed to modernization of the Church. Similar topics
but of a less violent nature may be found on the Sodalitium site, which
posts articles from the journal of the same name. More anti-Judaic material
appears on the Centro Orientamenti e Tradizione site, http://libreopinion.com/members/orientamenti/,
which in an article on the crucifixion of Jesus as portrayed in Mel Gibson’s The
Passion of Christ, accuses the Jews of deicide and having had the film
censored.
On the radical right front, too,
some sites are simply the online version of printed periodicals. The same goes
for the sites of publishing houses, which host catalogs of their publications.
The most violent radical right site is Crimini, Terrore e Repressione dei Regimi
totalitari comunisti, http://crimini.web-gratis.net/nuova1.htm,
which includes titles such as “Comunisti. Ebrei e Massoneria” (Communists. Jews
and Freemasonry) and “Vampiri, assassini o semplicemente antiche ‘usanze’?” (Vampires,
Assassins or Simply Age-Old “Customs”? –
which addresses the accusations of ritual killing), and enables downloading of The
Protocols.
Numerous texts of an anti-Jewish
nature appear on Edoardo Longo’s website http://xoomer.virgilio.it/edoardolongo/.
Longo, a well-known figure on the far right, is also the attorney of don Nitoglia,
author of many antisemitic texts and a contributor to Sodalitium. The
Protocols and Mein Kampf may be downloaded from the Società
Thule Italia site www.geocities.com/societathule/index.htm,
which has neo-Nazi leanings. Associazione Culturale Limes (www.asslimes.com) aligns itself “with Iraqi
and Palestinian resistance to Yankee and Zionist imperialism” and against the
“powerful American Jewish lobby” and the “Zionists on both sides of the Atlantic”
who influence US policy.
Far Left/Anti-globalization Propaganda
At the end of October 2003, a group
of Disobbedienti (anti-authoritarians) tried to prevent a meeting of the
Italy-Israel Friendship Association at the Hotel Hermitage in Capua, claiming
that this gathering was an attempt to put a more acceptable face on ‘Zionist
racism’. In his statements to the press, the leader of Disobbedienti
justified the violent means they employed by maintaining that Israel is
an ‘illegitimate’, ‘genocidal’ and ‘terrorist’ state.
The anti-globalization front’s rejection of the Jewish state
sometimes encourages antisemitic expressions. For instance, the discussion
forums on the Indymedia-Italy website, perhaps the best known online
forum of the Italian far left, often post messages containing classic examples
of anti-Jewish prejudice. These range from suggestions to read The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion to get a better understanding of Zionists, to
publication of long excerpts from the antisemitic paper by Emmanuel Ratier, “I guerrieri
di Israele. Inchiesta sulle milizie sioniste” (Warriors of Israel. Investigations
into the Zionist militias – Centro Librario
Sodalitium, Verrua di Savoia, 1998). One also find extensive support for the
terrorism of al-Qa‘ida and suicide
bombers, and denunciation of ‘Nazi-Zionists’.
In January 2004, the Italian PeaceLink website
published a report from Israel entitled Una settimana in Palestina – Avvocati
e registi in Medio Oriente (A Week in Palestine – Lawyers and Film
Directors in the Middle East), which infers that the nastiness, arrogance and
violence typical of Jews are fostered by “some element of the Jewish religion
that helps make all this happen,” and that “some underlying defect” makes
Judaism, unlike the other great religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Islam),
incapable of “fulfilling man’s spiritual needs.”
In January 2004, the website of the Holocaust denial
association AAARGH (Association des Anciens Amateurs de Récits de
Guerres et d’Holocaustes) launched an online monthly magazine, Il Resto del Siclo
(The Change from a Shekel), much of which is devoted to minimizing the
Holocaust, exalting Arab/Islamic radicalism and fostering anti-Zionism.
Among the wide range of columnists (rightist, leftist,
Islamist) writing for Il Resto del Siclo is the spokesman for the Campo
Antiimperialista pro-terrorism association (www.antiimperialista.org) and a
prominent figure in the anti-globalization movement. Campo Antiimperialista
proposes a universal jihad against the United States and Israel through an
alliance of all types of terrorist movements, irrespective of their leanings,
provided they are anti-American and anti-Zionist. In April 2004, Pasquinelli
was arrested by the Italian police in connection with an investigation into
Italian cells of Turkish terrorism.
Dailies and periodicals
While, in general, Italy’s radical
left political press appears to avoid anti-Jewish or antisemitic sentiments, it
exhibits widespread hostility toward the Jewish state, which is sometimes
perceived as the source of the world’s direst problems. Extreme left newspapers
tend to describe Israel as an ‘evil state’ committing actions that bring to
mind those of the fascist regimes. Underlying this is the notion that
yesterday’s victims have turned into today’s persecutors: as a result, the
Palestinian Arabs now occupy the role of victims of the former victims and
their suffering is tantamount to what the Jews suffered at the time of the
Holocaust. Anti-Israeli terrorist attacks are consequently depicted as
legitimate actions by partisan resistance.
This preconceived rejection of Israel goes hand-in-hand with
pro-Islamic policies, which may be attributed to the fact that the Muslim/Arab
masses are identified as the archetypal new proletariat exploited by
capitalism, and therefore considered the natural ally in the struggle against
globalization. On occasions this closeness to Islam goes so far as support for
the activities of organizations such as Hamas and Hizballah.
The periodical Che Fare, published by the Organizzazione
Comunista Internazionale, has on a number of occasions demonstrated its support
for jihad, considering it the most effective means of destroying Israel.
According to il Manifesto, Hamas and Hizballah are charitable
associations with a resistance-orientated element.
Both Liberazione (of the PRC) and il Manifesto
welcomed the results of the 2003 Eurobarometer poll, according to which EU
citizens regarded Israel as the most serious threat to world peace (see General
Analysis).
Sectors of the extreme left press deny the existence of the
‘new antisemitism’: “The campaign against today’s so-called new antisemitism in
Europe is basically a cynical expedient on the part of the Israeli government
to save the Zionist state from all criticism of its constant and systematic
brutality against the Palestinians” (Tariq Alì, Uno stato contro un popolo
[A state against a people], il Manifesto, 26 Feb. 2004). At the same
time, acts of anti-Jewish violence of the sort that take place in the suburbs
of Paris are regarded as mere vandalism that have nothing to do with
anti-Jewish prejudice.
Not only do the radical left and anti-globalization groups
totally refute the fact that, since September 2000, a wave of anti-Jewish
violence has swept across Europe; they also reject the idea that the Islamic
world is gripped by virulent antisemitic sentiments. According to the extreme
left, anti-Jewish feeling among Muslims, as well as among Europeans, is
used by Israel in order to point a finger at (and threaten) those
governments hostile to it. In an article about the series “The Diaspora” and
“Horseman without a Horse,” televised by Arab networks during Ramadan (see ASW 2002/3 and
Arab
Countries, in this volume), a journalist writing in the communist
newspaper Il Manifesto (31 Oct. 2003), supports the defense offered by
the al-Manar TV network (“This TV series is not against Jews. It’s against
Zionism”) and minimizes the antisemitic nature of both series.
Conspiracy Theories
The election of George W. Bush as US
president and the events that followed the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers
and the Pentagon, have led to the emergence of an important theory in radical
circles, and hence among the extreme left too, according to which the ongoing
international crises are being manipulated by a Zionist lobby, embodied in a
neo-conservative cabal running the American administration. This opinion has
begun to gain credence in non-extremist circles, too. Even a US correspondent
of the ‘liberal’ daily La Repubblica has endorsed it. According to a Liberazione journalist, 9/11 marks the date on
which the neo-conservative shadow men effectively gained power. They have “used
the 9/11 attacks exactly as Hitler did the Reichstag fire.”
The media close to the radical left (and particularly il
Manifesto) have also given ample coverage to the theory claiming that the
neo-con Zionist lobby instigated the second war against Saddam Husayn in order please
Israel. Commenting on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
and alluding to alleged Zionist influence behind the war, il Manifesto
writes: “Behind this glaring mass of lies there was a special Pentagon
intelligence unit called the Office of Special Plans. And behind this office
was Douglas Feith, under-secretary of defense, one of the perverted neo-con
minds who had set up this office after 9/11 (and behind Feith, ready to supply
every single little bit of ‘evidence’ was the Israeli government).”
In 2003 an article on the neo-cons, published by Datanews,
underscored the Jewish and Zionist background of Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz. Il Manifesto has published numerous articles on the
‘neo-conservative cabal’, all alluding to the Jewish origins of these ‘Likudniks’
and their shadowy influence on the White House. According to this paper, the
Zionist lobby organized the war in Iraq in order to be able to colonize Mesopotamia
and create a ‘Greater Israel’ stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
Islamist Activities and Publications
On 29 March 2003, during a peace rally held in Turin, Moroccan imams Abdelaziz Khonati and Bouriqui
Bouchta (close to the UCOII) voiced the cries: “O beloved Saddam, strike Tel
Aviv… With our blood we sacrifice ourselves for Saddam and for Iraq.” Both imams
are known for their fiery statements criticizing the Jews and supporting jihad.
The ‘Zionist conspiracy’ theory is fairly common among
representatives of Turin’s Muslims, and references were also made to it after
the terrorist attacks in Casablanca, in May 2003.
The only periodical of any real
significance is Il Puro Islam, published by the Ahl-al-Bait Shi‘i Islamist association, based in Naples.
The founder and chairman of Ahl-al-Bait, as well as editor of the magazine, is Ammar
De Martino, an Italian convert to Islam who was once an activist with Pino Rauti’s
MS-FT. The journal is characterized by emphatic anti-Zionism mixed with calls
for jihad against infidels, and support for the Lebanese Hizballah.
Long excerpts from the anti-Jewish essay “Chi comanda in America?”
(Who’s in Charge in America?; Effedieffe, Milan, 2002/2003), by Maurizio Blondet,
a well-known antisemitic intellectual with Catholic fundamentalist leanings,
appeared in Il Puro Islam in March/April/May
2003 (no. 8).
The cover of the book Iddio maledica l’America. Ultimatum
dell’Islam all’America (May God Curse America: Islam’s Ultimatum to America
– Edizioni Alethes, Carchitti [RM],
2003), by Adel Smith, depicts an American flag with skulls in place of the
stars and overlaid by a Star of David, which the author defines as the ‘Israeli
swastika. Smith, an Italian of Scottish origin and a convert to Islam known for
his antisemitism, is chairman of the Unione musulmani d’Italia, the
first organization to present itself as a proper Italian Islamic political
party; its following, however, is minimal – a few tens of supporters. Smith’s
text, which rehashes many ideas taken from Maurizio Blondet’s antisemitic
essays, portrays the Jews as an omnipotent, bloodthirsty lobby controlling the
destiny of the whole world.
There are a great many Italian Islam-inspired websites, the
majority of them directly associated with Islamic fundamentalism. While radical
anti-Zionism is a constant of these sites, antisemitic stereotypes are few and
far between, and are generally cloaked in anti-imperialist rhetoric, with
frequent comparisons between the State of Israel and Nazi Germany, and use of
terms such as ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Websites such as Informazione di cultura araba ed islamica
in Italia (www.arabcomint.com), Associazione
Islamica Ahl al Bait (www.shia-islam.org),
Arab.it (www.arab.it) and Aljazira.it
la stampa araba in un clic! (www.aljazira.it)
are almost entirely given over to documents (articles, photos, satirical
cartoons, etc.) that demonize the Jewish state.
Attitudes toward the Holocaust and the fascist Era
The history of the fascist regime is
marked currently by two trends: on the one hand, it is interpreted less
ideologically and more historiographically; on the other hand, there is a
tendency to banalize the events that took place, especially in speeches and actions
of certain members of the AN.
Holocaust Commemoration
Participation in events marking the
fourth annual remembrance day (Giorno della Memoria), 27 January 2004, was unprecedented. Whereas the 2003 events were marked by the absence of some leading
political figures, almost all of them, including the presidents of the republic
and the ministers of interior and education, attended in 2004. Activities included
marches, educational exhibitions, concerts, plays, films, conventions and
workshops on various aspects of the Holocaust and on its ethical and symbolic
significance. Visits to the various memorial sites in Italy and to
concentration camps were also organized for students and others. Vice-president
of the Cabinet Gianfranco Fini, as well as other leading parliamentary members,
took part in the “Dies Memoriae 2004” event, organized by the Spiritual Convivium
parliamentary committee, at the seat of the Province of Rome. In his speech he
recalled that “anti-Zionism masks antisemitism” and that “it is essential to…
admit as well the responsibilities of those who collaborated, as has been done,
and as I did.” President of the Chamber of Deputies Pier Ferdinando Casini
urged an audience in Nettuno not to underestimate signs of antisemitism and not
to forget that “we were also accomplices in racial persecutions.”
A minute’s silence was observed by the Interior Ministry in offices
of the prefecture and in police headquarters, as well as in schools. The
Ministry of Education announced, inter alia, a contest on a theme
concerning the Shoah for students of all grades from elementary through
secondary school. and organized special courses for teachers.
The Italian football federation ordered that on the Sunday preceding
Remembrance Day all the players were to enter the field wearing a T-shirt
inscribed with the words “Remembrance Day.” Further, a football match in memory
of the Jews deported from Italy was organized at the Olympic Stadium in Rome,
together with the Jewish community.
As in previous years the focus was also on citizens who
saved Jews. The beatification of Giovanni Palatucci, police superintendent in Fiume
who helped numerous Jews escape from Nazi Europe, is under way. Gardens of the
Righteous were inaugurated in Milan and Catania. In the small town of Bellaria
(Rimini), a garden was dedicated to Ezio Giorgetti, a hotel-keeper who saved 38
Jews and who was designated a Righteous among the Nations.
In 2004 Italy took over the presidency of the Task Force for
International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research.
The extensive participation in remembrance events in 2004
appears to contrast with the phenomena of widespread antisemitism (albeit less
than in 2003) and anti-Israel sentiment. Explanations are varied and
contradictory: complying with the obligation of remembering the dead in order
to be able to condemn Israeli Jews with an easier conscience; using Remembrance
Day to declare one’s solidarity with ‘the Jews’ at a time when prejudice
against them is stronger and more visible (see Opinion Polls below). On the other
hand, perhaps the two behaviors have no connection and the mass participation
in Remembrance Day is simply the result of didactic and educational efforts
in recent years to publicize the history of the persecutions.
For several years representatives of the right and the
center right, especially the AN, have demanded, in addition to the Holocaust,
recognition of other massacres that occurred in the 20th century, such as
victims of the Soviet gulags and of the foibe – Italians from the
eastern provinces thrown into ravines by Tito’s Communist partisans. Hence, the
government instituted another remembrance day (Giorno del Ricordo), to be
marked on 10 February. (On 10 February 1947 the Italian republic signed the
Paris treaty with Yugoslavia and the other Allies.)
Holocaust Denial
Propaganda of Holocaust denial
persists, although it seems to have weakened over the years. There is only one
Italian site left on the Internet that is entirely devoted to Holocaust denial
– the Association for Historic Revision. Some international sites, such as Aaargh,
Codoh, and Russgranata, have Italian sections. The Italian
neo-fascist site brigatenere88 also has a Holocaust denial section.
Holocaust denial texts can also be found at some anti-Jewish sites such as Holywar
or RadioIslam, or at extreme right ones.
Holocaust denial books that came out in 2003 were all issued
by the same small neo-fascist publisher, Effepi of Genoa, the only one that
still deals with denial texts. Effepi has dedicated two series of books to the
Jews: Judaica and Revisionism, in addition to various monographs.
The titles published in 2003 were: Carlo Mattogno and Jürgen Graf, KL.Stutthof.
The Stutthof Camp and Its Function in Nazi Policy toward the Jews; Claudio Mutti,
Minima Holocaustica; and Robert Faurisson, Auschwitz: The Facts and
the Legend.
It should be noted that parents of students in a
Venetian secondary school refused to send their children on a school trip to Auschwitz
in 2003, because they claimed the extermination camps were “pure fancy.”
opinion Polls
A survey on
racism in Italy commissioned by the Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche Italiane
in 2003, reveals, inter alia, the penetration of certain stereotypes
regarding Jews among Italian 14–18
year-olds: 34.6 percent of respondents said they agreed with the statement that
global financial power is in the hands of Jews: 17.5 percent agreed that the
Jews should all go back to Israel; and 17.4 percent concurred with the
statement claiming that descriptions of the extermination of the Jews are
exaggerated.
In the Eurobarometer poll
conducted in October 2003 on “Iraq and World Peace,” 48 percent of interviewees
indicated Israel as the greatest danger to peace. As in the rest of Europe,
protests were made by the Italian Jewish community about the ambiguous way in
which the questions was formulated, and the poor scientific approach adopted in
the poll. The outcome of these protests was a wide-ranging debate on
antisemitism connected with radically anti-Israeli opinions. The need to
understand public opinion with respect to the Jews triggered several surveys in
the space of just a few months.
In November 2003 the findings of
a poll conducted by ISPO (Istituto per gli Studi sulla Pubblica Opinione)
pointed to a close correlation in Italy between a high level of antisemitism,
‘dislike’ of Israel and poor knowledge of the history of Israel and of the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict and vice versa.
Among the stereotypes or negative attitudes toward Jews in
general that obtained the highest percentages were: “Jews have a special
relationship with money” (39 percent); “they should stop acting the victim over
the Holocaust” (38 percent); “they are not real Italians” (22 percent); “they
lie about the Holocaust” (11 percent); “I neither like nor trust them” (11
percent); “they should leave Italy” (8 percent). (For further details, see Corriere
della Sera, 11 Nov. 2003; www.corriere.it.)
In January 2004 ISPO repeated the
same poll, this time extending it to nine European countries. In the overall
rating for antisemitism, the result obtained for Italy was 17 percent versus a
European average of 15 percent. As in the previous survey, there was a close
link between little or no knowledge of the history of Israel and the conflict,
and antisemitism. The percentages of concurrence with ‘negative’ statements
tended to be similar, if not lower, than those gathered two months earlier.
(For further details, see Corriere della Sera, 26 Jan. 2004; www.corriere.it.)
In addition, in January 2004
EURISPES (Istituto di studi politici economici e sociali) conducted a poll to
gather Italians’ opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as
on the Jews in general, as follows: In regard to the statement, “Jews
determine American political choices,” 7.5 percent very much agreed while 22.9
percent tended to agree; for “Behind the scenes they control economic and
financial power, as well as the media,” 9.2 percent very much agreed and 24.9
percent tended to agreed; for “The Holocaust did not produce as many victims as
is claimed,” 4.1 percent very much agreed, 7.0 percent tended to agreed (but
16.6 percent tended to disagree and 64 percent totally disagreed); for “The
Holocaust never happened” 1.4 percent very much agreed and 1.3 percent tended
to agree (but 8.8 percent tended to disagree and 83.5 percent totally
disagreed. (For further data, see www.eurispes.it/visualizzaComunicato.asp?val=7.)
According to the results of a
poll conducted by the Anti-Defamation League in April 2004 on “Attitudes toward
Jews, Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in ten European countries,”
the classic stereotype “Jews have too much power in the world of business” met
with affirmative answers from 29 percent of Italians consulted; “Jews have too
much power in the international financial market,” 31 percent; “Jews stick
together more than others,” 73 percent; “Nowadays they have too much power in
our country,” 14 percent; “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own
kind,” 24 percent; “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the
Holocaust,” 43 percent.
RESPONSES TO Antisemitism
In recent years,
parallel to the increase in antisemitic manifestations, there has been a
simultaneous growth of interest in Judaism among Italians. For example, for the
annual Judaism Day (17 Jan.), held by the Council of Churches, over 1,000
people queued to visit the Milan synagogue. On many occasions persons
representing the very highest governmental offices have attended or supported
events and congresses organized by Jewish communities, and specific
declarations of commitment to the struggle against antisemitism have been made
repeatedly by President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, by Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi, and by the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the
Senate (Casini and Pera), as well as by the mayors of Rome (Veltroni) and of
Milan (Albertini), and by presidents of various regional authorities.
On 21 January 2004 both the Chamber and Senate approved two separate motions against antisemitism. The one
adopted by the Chamber (with five AN deputies voting against and five
abstaining) committed the government, among other things, to “intensify the
struggle against antisemitism by introducing effective measures to prevent this
loathsome phenomenon” and to encourage schools – on Remembrance Day – to
explore and study contemporary antisemitism and the Jews’ contribution to
national history. The motion passed by the Senate, with the support of all
political groups except the Lega Nord and PRC, mandates the government to ask
the European Union to have a ‘dictionary of antisemitism' drawn up by the Vidal
Sassoon Institute in Jerusalem, and to engage in a struggle against the
Hizballah and Hamas terrorist organizations.
On 2 February 2004 Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu, on the instructions of Prime Minister Berlusconi, began
work on forming an inter-ministerial committee to fight discrimination and
antisemitism. Its mandate is to combat all forms of intolerance, racism and
xenophobia, using cultural and educational means as well as disciplinary
action. The committee began work in July.
