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Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor:

I find it shameful that in Italy demonstrations are held in which individuals dressed as kamikazes shout disgraceful insults to Israel, hold high images of Israeli leaders on whose foreheads they have drawn the swastika, incite people to hate the Jews. And that for seeing the Jews back into extermination camps, into gas chambers, in the ovens of Dachau and Mathausen and Buchenwald and of Bergen-Belson, etc., would sell their own mother to a harem.

I find it shameful that the Catholic Church allows a bishop, living in the Vatican, an ineffable figure that was found in Jerusalem with an arsenal of weapons and explosives hidden in special compartments of his holy Mercedes, to take part to that demonstration, hold a microphone and thank, in the name of God, the kamikaze who massacre Jews in restaurants and supermarkets. To call them "martyrs who go to their deaths as [they would go] to a party."

I find it shameful that in France, the France of Libert�-Egalit�-Fraternit�, synagogues are burned, Jews are terrorized and graveyards violated. I find it shameful that in Holland and in Germany and in Denmark, young people flaunt their kaffiah in the same way as the avant-guard supporters of Mussolini were showing off their sticks and fascist badges. I find it shameful that in nearly all European universities Palestinian students dominate and seed anti-Semitism. That in Sweden some people asked to withdraw the Nobel prize awarded to Peres and concentrate it on the dove holding an olive branch in its beak, that is Arafat. I find it shameful that the eminent members of the [Nobel Prize] committee are considering this request. The hell with the Nobel Prize and honours to those to whom it is not awarded.

I find it shameful (we are now back in Italy) that state TV channels contribute to the resurrected anti-Semitism by crying only over the Palestinian casualties and skip over the Israeli casualties, talking about them quickly and hurriedly. I find it shameful that they deferentially invite to their talk shows those turban or kaffiah-wearing rascals that yesterday were exalting the New York massacre and exalt today the massacres in Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya and Tel Aviv. I find it shameful that the press expresses indignation at the Israeli tanks surrounding the Nativity Church in Bethlehem and does not express the same indignation at the two hundred Palestinian terrorists well supplied with weapons and ammunitions (among whom are various leaders of Hamas and Al-Asqa), not entirely unwelcome guests of the friars who also graciously accept bottles of spring water and baskets of apples from the Israeli soldiers. I find it shameful that, giving the number of Israeli casualties from the beginning of the second Intifada (four hundred and twelve), a well-known [Italian] daily underlined the fact that more people are killed in Israel in road accidents (six hundred per year).

I find it shameful that the Osservatore Romano, the Pope's daily, a Pope who not so long ago left in the Wailing Wall his letter of apologies to the Jews, accuses of genocide a people exterminated in millions by Christians, by Europeans. I find it shameful that to the survivors of those people who still have tattoos on their forearm, that same paper denies the right to react, to defend themselves, to avoid being 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 and social centers flirt with the assassins of those who in Jerusalem cannot go out to eat a pizza or buy eggs without being blown up. I find it shameful that they take the side of the same individuals who started terrorism killing us on board airplanes, in airports, at the Olympic Games, and today find amusement in killing Western reporters. In shooting them, in kidnapping them, in beheading them. After the publication of [Fallaci's article] "Rage and Pride" someone in Italy wants to do it to me too. Citing verses from the Koran, he incites his "brothers" in the mosques and Islamic communities to punish me in the name of Allah. To kill me. Better still, to die with me. Since this character knows English well, in English I reply to him "F_ _ k you!"

MAURIZIO BUZZI
Milan, Italy