Oriana Fallaci on Anti-Semitism,
Panorama, April 18, 2002
Oriana Fallaci, one of Italy's most prominent journalists, has written a powerful
polemic on anti- Semitism. It was the cover story in the current issue of Panorama, one of
Italy's leading weekly news magazines. The issue came out this past Friday and by Saturday
it was virtually sold out. There is much discussion about her article throughout Italy and
a great deal of controversy surrounding it. As you will see, she minces no words and takes
no prisoners. Some will undoubtedly ask if she is a Jew. She is not.
(Unofficial) Translation from Italian by David A. Harris, Executive Director, American
Jewish Committee
"I find it shameful that in Italy there was a procession of individuals who, dressed
as kamikazes, uttered vile insults at Israel, held up photos of Israeli leaders on whose
foreheads they had drawn a swastika, inciting the populace to hate the Jews. And in order
to see the Jews again in the extermination camps, in the gas chambers, in the crematoria
of Dachau, Mauthausen, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, etc., they would sell their own mothers
to a harem.
I find it shameful that the Catholic Church permits a bishop, moreover one housed in the
Vatican, a 'saintly' bishop, who, in Jerusalem was found with an arsenal of weapons and
explosives hidden in special compartments of his sacred Mercedes, to participate in that
procession and to place himself in front of a microphone to thank, in the name of God, the
kamikazes who massacre the Jews in the pizzerias And supermarkets. He called them 'martyrs
who go to death as to a party.'
I find it shameful that in France, the France of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,
synagogues are torched, Jews are terrorized, and their cemeteries profaned. I find it
shameful that in Holland and Germany and Denmark youngsters show off the kafiyeh like the
vanguard of Mussolini displayed the stick and the Fascist emblem. I find it shameful that
in almost every European university Palestinian students take over and nurture
anti-Semitism; that in Sweden they asked that the Nobel Peace Prize given to Shimon Peres
in 1994 be withdrawn, and left solely in the hands of the dove with the olive branch in
his mouth? that is, Arafat. I find it shameful that the esteemed members of the (Nobel)
Committee, a committee that it seems makes choice based on politics and not merit, are
taking the request into consideration and thinking of fulfilling it. To hell with the
Nobel Prize and hooray to those who don't receive it.
I find it shameful (we are back in Italy) that
the government-controlled television stations contribute to the revival of anti-Semitism
by crying over Palestinian deaths only, minimizing the importance of Israeli deaths,
speaking in a brisk and dismissive tone about them. I find it shameful that in television
discussions the scoundrels with the turban or kafiyeh, who yesterday extolled the
slaughter in New York and today praise the massacres in Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya, and Tel
Aviv, are received with such deference. I find it shameful that the press does the same,
gets indignant because in Bethlehem Israeli tanks surround the Church of the Nativity, but
doesn't get upset that in the same church 200 Palestinian terrorists (among them various
leaders of Hamas and Al-Aksa), well-armed with machine guns and explosives, are not
unwelcome guests of the monks (and then accept from the tank soldiers bottles of mineral
water and baskets of apples.) I find it shameful that, given the number of Israeli
casualties since the onset of the second intifada (412), one well-known daily felt it
appropriate to emphasize in bold headlines that more Israelis die in road accidents (600
per year).
I find it shameful that l'Observatore Romano, that is, the newspaper of the pope, a pope
who not too long ago left a note in the Wailing Wall apologizing to the Jews, accused a
people exterminated by the millions by Christians, by Europeans, of extermination. I find
it shameful that the survivors of this (Jewish) people, people who still carry a number on
their arm, are denied the right to react, defend themselves, avoid being exterminated
again, by that same newspaper.
I find it shameful that, in the name of Jesus
Christ (a Jew without whom they would all be unemployed), priests from our parishes or
social centers or wherever flirt with the murderers of those who in Jerusalem cannot go to
eat a pizza or buy an egg without being blown up. I find it shameful that they choose the
side of the very people who launched terrorism by killing us on planes, in airports, at
the Olympics; and today these same people make sport of killing Western journalists?
shooting them, kidnapping them, slitting their throats, beheading them. (After the
publication of my piece "The Anger and the Pride," someone in Italy wanted to do
the same to me. Citing Koranic verses, he exhorted his 'brothers?' in the name of Allah to
kill me. Actually, to die with me. Since he is someone who speaks English well, I respond
to him in English: "F-k you.")
I find it shameful that virtually the entire Left, that Left which 20 years ago permitted
a trade-union procession to place a coffin (a Mafia-like warning) in front of the
synagogue in Rome, has forgotten the contribution of the Jews to the anti-fascist
struggle: of Carlo and Nello Rosselli, for example; of Leone Ginzburg, Umberto Terracini,
Leo Valiani, Emilio Serani; of women such as my friend Anna Maria Enriques Agnoletti, shot
in Florence on June 12, 1944; of 74 of the 335 victims of Fosse Ardeatine; of the infinite
other deaths under torture or in combat or in front of the firing squads; the friends, the
teachers of my childhood and of my early youth. I find it shameful that, in part because
of the fault of the Left--no, especially because of the fault of the Left (think of the
Left that begins its congresses applauding the PLO representative in Italy, who represents
here the Palestinians who seek Israel's destruction)-- the Jews in Italian cities once
again are frightened. And in French and Dutch and Danish and German cities, it is the
same. I find it shameful that when the scoundrels dressed as kamikazes march, (Jews)
shudder as they trembled in Berlin during Kristallnacht, that is, the night on which
Hitler began the hunt of the Jews.
I find it shameful that, obeying the stupid, vile, dishonest, and, for them, the extremely
opportunistic fashion of political correctness, the usual opportunists--no, the usual
parasites--exploit the word "peace". In the name of the word "peace,"
now more devalued than the words "love" and "humanity," they absolve
just one side of hate and bestiality. In the name of pacifism (read conformity) from the
mouths of shrill voices, the same voices that earlier genuflected to Pol Pot, they now
incite people who are confused, nave, or intimidated. They cheat them, corrupt them, take
them back half a century, that is, to the yellow star on the coat. These charlatans care
as much about the Palestinians as I care about them (the charlatans), i.e., not at all.
I find it shameful that so many Italians and so many Europeans have chosen as a role model
Mister--and I use the word advisedly--Arafat, this nonentity who, thanks to the money of
the Saudi royal family, acts like Mussolini in perpetuity and in his megalomania believes
he will go down in history as the George Washington of Palestine. This uneducated man who,
when I interviewed him, could not even put together a complete sentence, an articulate
thought. Therefore, to put a piece together, to write it, to publish it, is such a hard
ordeal that one concludes that, compared to Arafat, even (Libyan leader) Gadhafi becomes
Leonardo da Vinci. This fake warrior who always goes around in uniform like Pinochet, who
never wears civilian clothes, and yet who has never participated in a single battle. He
leaves war, and has always left war, to others, in other words, to those unfortunate ones
who believe in him. This pompous incompetent who, playing the role of head of state,
caused the failure of the Camp David negotiations and the mediation efforts of Clinton.
"No, no, I want all of Jerusalem 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 wrote
in my book, lies every five seconds.
He always plays a game of duplicity; he lies
even if you ask him what time it is, and, therefore, you can never trust him. Never! One
is systematically betrayed by him. This eternal terrorist who only knows how to be a
terrorist (from a safe distance), and who in the 1970s--that is, when I interviewed
him--also trained the Baader-Meinhof terrorists. And now with them, he trains
(Palestinian) children who were ten years old. Poor kids. (Now they are trained to become
kamikazes. One hundred baby kamikazes are ready for action: 100!) This opportunist who
keeps his wife in Paris, cared for and revered as a queen, while he keeps his people in
the shit. From the shit he removes them only to send them to die, to kill and to die, like
the 18-year-old girls who, to achieve equality with men, have to kill themselves with
explosives and blow themselves up together with their victims. And yet so many Italians
love him? yes, just as they loved Mussolini. And so many other Europeans do as well.
I find it shameful, and I see in all of this the growth of a new fascism, of a new
nazism--a fascism, a nazism, so much more malevolent and repulsive because it is conducted
and nourished by those who hypocritically play the part of the good guys, the
progressives, the communists, pacifists, Catholics and even more, the Christians, who have
the gall to call those like me who shout truth at them a warmonger. I see it, yes, and
therefore I will state the following: to the tragic and Shakespearean Sharon, I never gave
him a break. ("I know that you came to add a scalp to your necklace," he
murmured almost with sadness when I went to interview him in 1982.) With the Israelis,
I've argued often and bitterly, and in the past I defended the Palestinians quite a bit,
maybe more than they deserved. But I am with Israel, I am with the Jews. I am with them
now, as I was with them as a young girl--in other words, from the time when I was in the
trenches with them and the Anne Maries were shot to death. I defend their right to exist,
to defend themselves, to avoid a second extermination. And disgusted by the anti-Semitism
of many Italians, of many Europeans, I am ashamed by this shame that dishonors my country
and Europe, in the best of cases, not a community of nations (e.g., Europe) but a well of
Pontius Pilates. And even if all the inhabitants of this planet think differently, I will
continue to think this way."
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