italy 2006
The Second Lebanon War appeared to be the trigger for a
number of serious antisemitic incidents. Anti-Israel demonstrations held during
the year were marked by anti-Jewish manifestations. Italy’s interior minister
ordered the suspension of soccer games at which fascist and/or antisemitic
symbols are displayed.
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), and smaller ones exist 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 1930, 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 two
communities. The Jews of Rome publish a monthly journal, Shalom, and the
Milan community puts out the monthly Bollettino della Comunità
ebraica di Milano.
In March, Chief
Rabbi of Rome Riccardo Di Segni became the first Jewish spiritual leader to
visit the city’s principal mosque, the largest in Western Europe. The chief
rabbi and his delegation were received by Abdellah Redouane, secretary-general
of the Islamic Cultural Center of Italy, and Mario Scialoja, president of the
Muslim World League in Italy. Alluding to the tensions over the publication of
newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Di Segni stated that the fight
against Islamophobia and antisemitism should “go hand-in-hand.”
political organizations and groups
The Forza Nuova (New Force), led by Roberto Fiore, is a
traditionalist, Catholic, nationalist movement, tied to myths of fascism and the
Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic, RSI, Nazi allied state in
the north of Italy from 1943 to 1945). It campaigns against immigrants,
especially Muslims, as well as homosexuals, and opposes abortion and
euthanasia. It is also strongly anti-Zionist and anti–Israel. The movement is
active throughout Italy, organizing propaganda rallies and demonstrations, and sit-ins
over social issues. At these events in 2006 Forza Nuova militants – including
skinheads − played a central role in inciting against Jews. For example,
in November, during a demonstration in Rome, attended by more than 500
activists, participants shouted Nazi and antisemitic slogans such as “Juden
Raus” and “Sieg Heil.” Identification with Forza Nuova is increasing,
especially among “ultra” supporters (a radical subculture of football fans;
see, for example, “Discovering Italy’s History through Football,”
Socialist Worker Online, 15 April 2006) of some football teams and among
high school students.
For the April 2006 general elections, Forza
Nuova joined the Alternativa Sociale (Social Alternative) list, together with
Libertà d’Azione (Freedom of Action, founded by Alessandra Mussolini,
granddaughter of el Duce) and Fronte Sociale Nazionale (National Social Front,
led by Adriano Tilgher). The list failed to win any seats (0.7 percent of the
vote for the Chamber of Deputies and 0.6 percent for the Senate).
Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore (MS-FT
Social Movement – Tri-colored Flame), is led by Luca Romagnoli (secretary
general), Maurizio Boccacci (secretary for Rome, and former leader of Movimento
Politico Occidentale) and Piero Puschiavo (regional coordinator for Veneto and former leader of Veneto Fronte Skinhead). Since Pino Rauti left the secretariat
in 2004 (see ASW 2003/4; also 1997/8), the movement has reorganized
radical right militants whose associations were disbanded in 1993 under the
Mancino law against ethnic and religious discrimination. In February 2006,
during a TV broadcast, Romagnoli questioned the existence of the Nazi gas
chambers.
For the 2006 elections, MS-FT joined the
Center-Right Coalition (Casa delle Libertà – House of Freedom), but won
no seats (0.6 percent of the vote for both the Chamber of Deputies and the
Senate).
The ethno-regionalist, populist Lega
Nord (Northern League – LN), led by Umberto Bossi (who was minister for
institutional reform and devolution in the Berlusconi government until July
2004), has apparently abandoned its claim for a politically autonomous Padania
(the northern region of Italy), after obtaining a promise from its coalition
allies to enact a series of measures increasing sovereignty. The party espouses
ethnic and populist regionalism, strongly tainted by xenophobia. With its
aggressive style, sometimes peppered with direct insults, LN kindles social
alarm regarding illegal immigration and “the Muslim invasion,” and assumes a
direct link between immigration from non-European countries and crime and
prostitution.
The party newspaper La Padania is close to traditionalist Catholicism and also, to a lesser
degree, to Lefebvrist (followers of Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre who refuse to accept
the 1965 Second Vatican Council reforms) fringes of the Church, and deals with
many issues central to that culture, such as denouncing “Freemason” plots and
defense of Catholicism as the state religion.
While, officially, the party platform is
pro-Israel and pro-Jews, a few articles in La Padania, however, seem to contradict this position. For example, the newspaper
published readers’ letters mentioning the “influential Jewish lobby,” which was
pressing for the maintenance of “cruel kosher slaughter” in Italy. Further, during the Easter period, it referred to temple priests who ”collected
lavish profits from merchants and stuffed them in their greedy, ravenous pockets,”
as well as to ”David’s kingdom… thirsty for power.” Moreover, while unreservedly
condemning the Holocaust, Padania defends freedom of expression of
Holocaust deniers. Anti-Jewish subjects are also raised on some episodes of
“Roots of Faith,” the Sunday radio broadcast of Radio Padania, hosted by a
clerical follower of Lefebvre.
The Muslim Community
Approximately 800,000 Muslims live in the country,
accounting for about 1.2 percent of the population. Unione delle
comunità ed organizzazioni islamiche in Italia (UCOII; www.islam-ucoii.it)
represents ‘organized Islamism’ in Italy, and is a member of the FIOE
(Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe), a roof organization for groups
associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. According to unofficial
estimates, some 700,000 of the Muslim faithful and over 80 percent of Italy’s mosques and Islamic cultural centers identify with the UCOII.
UCOII does not hide its marked
anti-Zionism and rejection of Israel’s right to exist − with Israel almost always referred to as the ‘Zionist entity’ (see, for example, the UCOII
websites).
On 19 August, UCOII published a full
page advertisement in newspapers of the moderate Monrif Group (Il Giorno,
La Nazione, Il Resto del Carlino) comparing Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis. In an interview published in the leading Torina-based newspaper
La Stampa (21 Aug.), UCOII spokesman Hamza Roberto Piccardo said
that by publishing the advertisement in the newspapers of this group, “We [the
UCOII] fell into the cultural trap of Nazi Judaism,” adding, “The Jewish state
carries the germs of aberrance; it was born out of ethnic cleansing.”
In
September, the PdCI (Partito dei Comunisti Italiani − Italian Communist
Party) and the Islamic Anti-Defamation League (IADL, which is close to UCOII)
organized an anti-Zionist conference, on the theme, “Peace is the Imperative –
Victims of a Victim People,” in a meeting room of the Chamber of Deputies. Dacia
Valent, spokeswoman of IADL, has a blog with virulently anti-Jewish content.
The Far Left and
the Anti-globalization Movement
Italy’s far left rarely makes use of traditional anti-Jewish
stereotypes but follows a strongly anti-Israel line that extends to demonization
and even delegitimation of the State of Israel. Therefore, while it does not
attack the Jews directly, in keeping with its generally hostile approach to
Zionism it attributes to Israel part of the negative symbolism that classic
antisemitism ascribes to Jews and Judaism. Several times, in 2006, in his column on the website SottoVoce, for example, former RAI State TV journalist Fulvio
Grimaldi harshly attacked Israel (“an illegitimate Zionist racist entity”), as
well as representatives of Italian Jewry and “Jewish-Freemason finance.” In
addition, University of Turin leftist professor Gianni Vattimo, a columnist with
La Stampa, argued that “the most serious damage inflicted upon us by
the Nazi extermination of Jews was the birth of Israel.”
The communist newspaper Il Manifesto is
noteworthy for its blatantly anti-Zionist approach. Israel is often accused of
practicing apartheid against Palestinians and Nazi-like behavior and of being a
racist and terrorist state. Moreover, while Holocaust denial is virtually absent,
the Shoah is frequently banalized by comparisons between the modern Jewish
state and Hitler’s Germany (see below).
Parliamentary
parties closely associated with the extreme left include: Partito della
Rifondazione Comunista (PRC), Partito dei Comunisti Italiani (PdCI) and
Federazione dei Verdi (Greens) (see ASW 2003/4). These
political forces have often organized events directed against the Jewish state
(see below).
Representatives of the two Communist
parties (PdCI and PRC) often accused Israel of conducting terrorist and Nazi
policies. A PdCI regional councilman argued that “Israel government is acting
like the Nazis.” A PdCI mayor of a village in Campania said during a Radio 24
broadcast that “Israel is a blow to the stomach of the world.” To the
journalist’s question “Could you do without it?” he answered, “With great
pleasure.” PRC Senator Fosco Giannini referred to the Israeli people as
“a subversive subject,” while PRC MEP Luisa Morgantini frequently demanded the
suspension of diplomatic and economic ties with Israel.
The multi-faceted anti-globalization
front is united through a fusion of pacifism, terzomondismo (third-world
liberation movements) and virulent hostility toward the liberal economy,
globalization, the US, Israel and the West in general. Fiercely pro-Islam
sentiment characterizes part of the movement, sometimes translating into
support for jihadist terrorism in the centri sociali (social centers
frequented by radical left-wing youth).
Thanks in part to the active support
they get from much of the culture and entertainment scene, anti-globalization
groups enjoy enormous popularity, especially among young people. They draw their
inspiration from many sources but have no acknowledged leader. They have no
precise point of reference in parliament, although the PRC and the Greens pay
close attention to them.
antisemitic activity
About 50 antisemitic incidents were recorded in Italy in 2006 (15 in the July-August period). Half of these incidents were graffiti, mainly
referring to Israel’s intervention in Lebanon.
Second Lebanon War
Several serious incidents were recorded during the Second
Lebanon War. For example, 15 Jewish
shops were attacked in Rome in early August, their locks filled with glue,
shutters nailed and swastikas painted on the walls.
The perpetrators left flyers signed by the “Armed Revolutionary Fascists”
and a pro-Hizballah flyer “against
the Zionist economy.”
The satirical magazine Il Vernacoliere
(Livorno), published a cartoon in August, with the caption, “Israeli is not
stingy with bombs. The world stares in amazement. Are they not Jews?” The
cartoon shows a Jewish soldier saying to a Muslim: “You killed one of my
civilians, I killed ten of yours. We will see who is stingy.”
During Italy’s World Cup victory festivities
held in July, swastikas were painted on the walls of the old Jewish Ghetto.
Minister of Interior Giuliano Amato declared that he felt ashamed as an Italian
and alarmed as interior minister.
Italian Jewish organizations and
websites were flooded with e-mails during this period, blaming the Jews for the
violence in the Middle East.
Other Antisemitic Manifestations
In
February, a Jewish Chilean citizen traveling on a bus in Verona was insulted
and threatened by six Maghrebis who noticed his Magen David earring. In July,
a taxi driver in Rome insulted and refused to carry a 75 year-old customer
after discerning that he was a Jew.
Forty tombstones were overturned in the
Jewish section of the Musocco cemetery in Milan on 15 May. Police were
investigating. In addition, “Thanks, Hitler,” four swastikas and other
antisemitic slogans were painted on a wall near a synagogue in Naples, in October.
Anti-Jewish symbols were reported at several
demonstrations that took place during the year. Some 20,000 people, organized
by the Italian Communist Party, the Forum for Palestine and the extreme left Socialist
youth movement, rallied in November in Rome against Israel and the US. Effigies draped in Israeli and US flags were set alight. The head of the Israeli figure
was marked “Nazi-Zionist.” Many anti-Zionist slogans were heard, among them: “Israel must be destroyed.” Further, during a march in Milan on 25 April to mark the 61st
anniversary of Italy’s liberation, organized among others by the Coordinamento
di lotta per la Palestina (Coordinated Fight for Palestine), participants
burned an Israeli flag symbolizing “apartheid and violence.” The Vatican newspaper ‘Osservatore Romano condemned this act labeling it “a disgusting
offense to all Jews.” After the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Milan initiated
an inquiry into the crime of incitement against the Coordinamento di lotta per la Palestina, its spokesman, an Italian of Palestinian origin, stated: “The Zionist lobby is
acting to put our opinions on trial.”
On 12 May 2006 Liberazione, the
party organ of the Italian Communist Party, published a cartoon in which the
security barrier between Israel and the Palestinian Authority bears a sign
reading “Hunger Liberates,” paraphrasing the sign at the entrance to Auschwitz, “Work Liberates.” Yasha Reibman, spokesman of the Milan Jewish community,
demanded the dismissal of the editor. Ehud Gol, Israeli ambassador to Italy, called the comparison shameful and humiliating. On 15 May Fausto Bertinotti, leader
of the Communist Party in the Lower Chamber, apologized for the cartoon.
responses to racism and antisemitism
Two days after fascist and antisemitic symbols were
displayed at a football match played on 29 January between Rome and Livorno, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu ordered the suspension of all matches where such
demonstrations take place (see, for example, ASW
2005). Rome was ordered by the Italian Football League
Disciplinary Committee to play the game on 8 February behind closed gates and
at a different venue. The perpetrators are suspected of belonging to the
extreme right-wing Tradizione e Distinzione, linked to Forza Nuova. On 1
February UEFA held its second Unite Against Racism conference at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona. They urged a campaign against racists throughout Europe using the popularity of soccer as an educational tool.
On 3 May, the prosecutor’s office in Rome ordered the suspension of the radical left Indymedia Italia website for offending the
Roman Catholic Church, after it published a photomontage of Pope Benedict XVI
wearing Nazi uniform. If convicted, the website’s operators may face up to one
year imprisonment.
