In the Squares for Jerusalem

Gardjola:

The Iranian invective and the suicide attacks.

There is a link between the Islamist terrorist atrocities in Iraq and the sentence of death passed on Israel by the Iranian Islamic theocrats.

But there is also a link to the threats against “all the Italian Zionists” who tomorrow will demonstrate in Rome against President Ahmadinejad. It is the ideology of confrontation, of violence, of death. Yesterday, at Kirkuk, according to witnesses, we should have seen the debut of the “baby kamikaze”, the incarnation of the most abject and despicable depths of a monstrous terrorist strategy which had no compunction to use the innocence of a child to turn him into a death dealing robot.

Some may have the gall to exalt him as “the youngest martyr for Islam”, to celebrate the ascent of the tattered, mutilated body into Allah’s paradise. But for the Iraqi victims of a brutal massacre, for all those who hold dear the sacredness of life, it will be seen as a most severe warning of an obscurantist nihilism which does not see any value in its own life, or in the life of others.

“The mentality behind the terrorist attack which uses children to exterminate Iraqi civilization runs along the same rails as that which wants to destroy Israel. It is a Nazi ideology which tries to suffocate the right to life of all”, says Italo-Iraqi writer Younis Tawfik, author of “The Iraq of Saddam”, who is about to publish the novel “The Refugee”. Even Wadih Said, President of the Iraqi Association in Italy, is convinced of Israel’s right to exist and who is certain that “the majority of Iraqis in Italy believe this too”. The comparison with Nazism also crops up in the condemnation of a group of Italo-Iranians which considers Ahmadinejad’s invective against Israel “entirely foreign to the traditions and history of a country which boasts centuries of living alongside its Jewish population”. “Suppoting the right of the Palestinians to their own independent state” they stress, “cannot, and must not create any discussion over the right of the State of Israel to its existence. The road to dialogue and peace does not pass through Auschwitz”. Among those who signed the condemnation, we find Ahmed Rafat (journalist), Babak Payami (Film Director), Ghahreman Divanbeighi (President of the Iran-Italy Cultural centre) and Farian Sabahi (journalist).

Another group the “Iranian democratic students and Graduates of Italy”, announced that it would take part in tomorrow’s demonstration. “Iran is not the Iran of Ahmadinejad”, spokesperson Ali Karbalai (agronomist), insisted. “We are peaceful; Israel has every right to exist. Problems can be solved around a table with the Palestinians. Let’s say “no” to this new Hitler”.

A sharp and clear condemnation also comes from Afifi Dessouki, the Italo-Egyptian local Counselor of San Mauro Torinese. “These Iranian leaders are hysterical. They are madmen who harm everybody, including Palestinians and Muslims. I support the demonstration for the right of Israel to exist because I think it is pragmatic and sensible”. Another Italo-Egyptian, Abdel Aziz Tork, owner of a Milanese restaurant sees things in the same way, “many of my clients are Jewish and to me people like any other. ‘m against fanaticism. As Arabs and Muslims we must show a civil face and respect the right to life of all”.

Good. New voices are being heard from among the silent majority of Italy’s Muslims. Not just to say no to fanaticism and terrorism, but to substantiate their words with visible proof, which, especially today, comes from denouncing all those who deny the State of Israel the right to exist. Finally, some are beginning to understand that the respect of the right to life is the only guarantee that one’s life, in turn, shall also be respected. It is because of this that the Muslims who tomorrow will demonstrate in Rome will be doing it for Israel, for themselves, for us all.

By the condemnation of such acts (of Ahmadinejad) we can expose their similarity to Nazism.

Magdi Allam