EJP | News | Communists’ anti-Zionist comments draw Jewish protests

	Thursday, November 20, 2008 22 Cheshvan, 5769

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Communists’ anti-Zionist comments draw Jewish protests

Updated: 26/Feb/2006 17:20

The demonstration was organised by Paolo Berselli of the Association for the Italian-Israeli friendship and a senator of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.

Photo: EJP

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An anti-Zionist rally held by the Italian Communist party this month, which saw participants burning Israeli flags, drew harsh protests from the Jewish community this weekend.

On Saturday some 300 people gathered in front of Rome’s headquarters of the Party of the Italian Communists (PdCI), one of the two Marxist parties in the Italian parliament.

The February 18 pro-Palestinian demonstration had been condemned as ‘idiotic’ by PdCI secretary and former Chief Justice MP Oliviero Diliberto, but it still provoked a strong political debate in the already lively Italian electoral campaign.

General elections in Italy are due for April 9 and 10.

A few days earlier, Marco Ferrando, a member of the Italian Refounded Communist Party (RFC), had also set off a political discussion by saying that “Israel is an artificial state”.

Soon after, RFC secretary Fausto Bertinotti reassured the party’s policy in favour of a two-state solution in the Middle East and cancelled Ferrando from the party electoral slate.

Following to the ‘Ferrando case’, RFC had dropped the PdCI invitation to join the pro-Palestinian rally of February 20.

Italian-Jewish friendship

The pro-Israeli demonstration was organised by Paolo Berselli of the Association for the Italian-Israeli friendship and a senator of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.

Commenting on the declarations of a PdCI mayor, who had said that the desire to burn Israeli flags was “highly understandable and shareable” and that “Israel is a fist in the humanity’s stomach”, Senator Berselli told EJP that “fundamentalism and terrorism are incompatible with public functions and offices”.

The Jewish community of the eternal city also supported the rally.

"RFC secretary Fausto Bertinotti embraces Hizbullah’s leader Nasrallah"

Photo: EJP

Asked why it joined a political demonstration, the community’s spokesperson and vice-chairman Riccardo Pacifici told EJP: “This is not a political event but we are here to defend both Israel’s right to exist and the memory of the 19 Italian soldiers that were killed in Iraq, whose memory was also insulted during the PdCI rally.”

He recalled how the Jewish community dedicated a forest in Israel to the memory of the 19 victims of the suicide bombing of the Italian compound in Nasiriyah, in November 2003.

Pacifici went on saying that, although Diliberto claims not to be anti-Semitic, his anti-Zionism and his closeness to political movements such as Hizbullah – Diliberto met with Hizbullah’s leader Nasrallah in Beirut on January 2004 - endanger the safety of the Jews and of the whole world.

“We feel betrayed by the PdCI,” he also added. “In the past, we fought side by side for the liberation from Nazi-Fascism and agreed on the same Republican values”. He then concluded:

“How can you claim to be an anti-Fascist if you do not condemn Hamas and Hizbullah’s negationism today?”

Libel launched

Victor Magiar, a member of the “Martin Buber Group– Jews for Peace”: “All political positions are acceptable, but they need to be expressed in the frame of shared democratic values.”

Photo: EJP

Meanwhile, Diliberto brought an action for libel against Yasha Reibman, spokespersons of the Jewish community in Milan, who had declared to the national daily La Repubblica that “Diliberto policy’s foments ant-Semitism”.

“We’ll ask for a million euro of compensation for damages” said Diliberto to the press “50 percent of which will go in support of a campaign against anti-Semitism in the Italian schools and 50 percent towards Palestinian children from Sabra and Shatila”.

Also the progressive Jewish cultural organisation “Martin Buber Group– Jews for Peace” decided to protest against PdCI.

Victor Magiar, a member of the group as well as Rome’s Jewish community cultural councillor said: “All political positions are acceptable, but they need to be expressed in the frame of shared democratic values.”

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