This in an incredible article. It was the cover of Panorama, one of Itlay's largest weeklies. She's never been one to mince words and this certainly proves. With all the lil' debates around AO about Israel/Palestine it seemed necessary to bring this article up and the reaction in press to it. Keep in mind this woman has been all pro-palestinian.
Enjoy. Powerful words.
>MidEast -- a provocative alternative view
>
> Oriana Fallaci, one of Europe's best known journalists and authors
> published an article this week in the Italian magazine
> Panorama (also picked up by the daily Corriere della Sera) which is
> starting to make lots of waves. Fallaci, now aged 71,
> broke onto the scene in the late '60s when she covered Vietnam, the
> Greek colonels' coup, the Middle East, etc. She
> was then ultra-trendy and a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause.
>
> Oriana Fallaci on Anti-Semitism 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 swastika, 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 (we're back in Italy) that state-run television
> stations contribute to the resurgent anti-Semitism, 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 exhorts 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.
>
> 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's 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 t he 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 ****. He takes them out of the **** only to send them
> to die, to kill l 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 anti-Semitism 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.
>
>
> The following link is for an article about worldwide reaction to the
> Fallaci article.
>
>
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.a...tcategoryid=2#
So does she shed some light on the situation? Any comments?
