TURIN (EJP)---Italian President Giorgio Napolitano opened Thursday the prestigious Turin's book fair amid Muslim and Italian left opposition over the choice of Israel as the event's guest of honour.
"No dialogue is possible if there is a refusal to recognize Israel," Napolitano said at Israel's special stand at the fair.
There can be no "rejection of the reasons for its birth (60 years ago) or of its right to exist in peace and security," he added.
Israel's stand was swamped by hundreds of people, many draped in the Israeli flag, with one group holding a banner that read: "I feel Jewish today."
"A special thanks with all my heart goes to President Napolitano for his strong position this year, after the calls over recent months to boycott the Book Fair because of Israel's presence," said Israel’s new ambassador to Italy Gideon Meir at the fair's opening.
Like its Parisian counterpart in March, the Turin fair is honouring Israel on the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state's creation, sparking fresh Muslim protests and boycott calls.
Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan said the fact that Napolitano will be the first head of state to open the fair, now in its 21st year, would make it "a political and not a cultural event."
Ramadan, who is backing the boycott calls, is the grandson of Hassan El-Banna, the Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But Yahya Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic religious community, expressed his “complete solidarity” with the Italian president’s decision to inaugurate the fair.
Napolitano arrived at 10:00 am by helicopter at the fair in the northern Italian city along with Israeli novelist Abraham B. Yehoshua to cut the inaugural ribbon.
David Grossman, Amos Oz, Aaron Appelfeld and Meir Shalev will be among the other featured Israeli authors.
In a statement released earlier this week, Napolitano’s office said: "Criticism of the policies adopted by the Israeli government is quite legitimate, especially within Israel. What is inadmissible is any position that tends to deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel, which was established by the will of the United Nations in 1948, and it's right to existence in peace and security".
Protest planned
Ahead of the five-day expo, several Muslim writers, intellectuals and artists as well as the Free Palestine association staged a two-day protest seminar at the University of Turin titled "Western Democracies and Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine."
And far-left activists burned Israeli and US flags after the traditional May Day march.
Meanwhile, Free Palestine is planning a protest on Saturday.
Turin's Chief Rabbi Alberto Moshe Somekh said Wednesday that the city had shown "great courage" in deciding to honour Israel.
At a special service in Turin's main synagogue, he said the tribute marked not only the state of Israel's 60 years but also "4,000 years of our presence on the world stage as 'People of the Book'."
Israel’s ambassador to Italy, Gideon Meir, said calls for a boycott of the Italy's prestigious Turin book fair were “an attempt to undermine the state of Israel.”
"The president's choice of inaugurating the book fair dedicated to Israel, represents a very important moral position to left and right wing extremists that come to Turin to boycott the fair and want to deligitimize Israel," he told Italian daily La Repubblica.
Organizers of the book fair say they expect some 300 people to take part in the Saturday protest, while activist Sergio Cararo of the Palestine Forum predicted there would be at least 10,000.
Security has been tightened for this year's event in Turin, coming two months after the Paris book fair which was inaugurated by Israeli President Shimon Peres and marred by boycotts and a bomb threat that forced an hour-long evacuation of the venue.
More than 300,000 people visited last year's book fair in Turin, to be attended this year by some 1,400 publishers, both Italian and foreign, which director Rolando Picchioni said was an "absolute record."