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Michael Ross: Gazaâ€™s death sentence for a well-meaning naif

19 April 2011 00:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Itâ€™s hard to see anything but irony in the murder of Vittorio Arrigoni, the naÃ¯ve Italian â€œactivistâ€ who had the misfortune of not keeping up to date with which terrorist entities in Gaza suffer western sympathizers as propagandists, and which ones do not, APA reports quoting â€œNational Postâ€.
Arrigoniâ€™s initial step on his long trail of misfortune was hooking up with the â€œInternational Solidarity Movementâ€ (ISM). The ISM is a dubious organization essentially populated by better-fed versions of John Walker Lindh, the â€œAmerican Talibanâ€ captured in Afghanistan after the attacks of 9/11. Like John Walker Lindh, Arrigoni demonstrated at the cost of his life, that ISM members are hypocritical tourists in a conflict they donâ€™t really understand. As with many left-wing organizations dedicated to the industry of grievance politics, the ISM uses the slogans of peace, human rights, anti-racism, and nonviolence to support a cause that uses terrorism and advocates genocide. Despite Hamasâ€™ cynical attempt to use the Arrigoni murder as a means to portray themselves as â€œmoderatesâ€, at its core, Hamas is hyper-violent, racist, sexist and homophobic. ISM makes much of its â€œnonviolent methodsâ€ but what they really mean is â€œnon-violence in support of terrorismâ€.
When it comes to hating Israel, the ISM is apparently ready to make a lot of compromises. It must have seemed very disconcerting for Arrigoni to be kidnapped, beaten, blind-folded, video-taped and given the Daniel Pearl treatment (minus the beheading) by the very people he had devoted much of his short-lived adult life to while engaged in â€œPalestinian solidarityâ€.
Thereâ€™s irony heaped upon irony here as the ISM, like Hamas, fully supports a one-state solution with the effective replacement of Israel with an Arab state ostensibly populated by returning Palestinians. That this state should be run by an Iranian-sponsored terrorist movement that has no compunction about suicide bombing buses, restaurants, and shopping malls and indiscriminately lobbing rockets and missiles on civilian targets is also lost on the hapless ISM leadership. Unfortunately, ISM indoctrination classes donâ€™t include explaining that Israel is a microcosm of the civilized worldâ€™s struggle against a murderous ideology be it Palestinian nationalist Islamism or al-Qaedaâ€™s transnational nihilism. What ISM indoctrination classes do entail however, is cooking up all kinds of schemes that will enable ISM â€œactivistsâ€ to illicitly gain entry to Israel so they can hook up with their Hamas sponsors in Gaza.
The biggest irony of this whole incident (and I mean aside from the fact that Hamas has to contend with Islamist terror in its own jurisdiction), is that various news organizations are falling all over themselves to explain that it wasnâ€™t Hamas that killed Arrigoni but a Salafist al Qaeda splinter group as if the two have no Palestinian connection at all. The subtext of not blaming Palestinians implies that Israel is to blame for Arrigoniâ€™s death and this has been part of the news spin since the story broke.
The ideologues over at the ISM (and more than a few news editors) might be interested to know that the origins of the Salafi offshoot that murdered Vittorio Arrigoni and his friends in Hamas can both trace their roots to the Muslim Brotherhood â€“ the progenitor for modern Islamic terrorism.
The only difference between the two is that Hamas realizes that it needs westerners to fill the role of what Lenin termed, â€œuseful idiotsâ€ while al Qaeda could care less about propaganda and whether a bunch of misguided 20-somethings support their cause or not.
I donâ€™t buy into Arrigoni being called a â€œpeace activistâ€. When he chose to pal around with Hamas, he chose to be a single-state solution supporter of terrorism and radical Islam. Like many of the ISM tourists in Gaza, he could have chosen to stay in his own country and work for human rights, anti-racism, and poverty relief which are all readily available on his own doorstep.
I suppose there is one more irony to be considered in this whole bizarre incident; members of the ISM wonâ€™t have time to worry about the Palestinians. Theyâ€™ll be too busy watching out for their own misguided backsides. It must be no fun to be the target of Islamist terror. Maybe theyâ€™ll wind up asking Israel to protect them?