Vittorio Arrigoni_01
© megachip
A Criminal website incites the killing of volunteers in Gaza. Vittorio Arrigoni is also in their sights. There should be investigation against Lee Kaplan.

The criminal website stoptheism invites people to kill the few volunteers who are providing health treatment in Gaza under Israeli bombs.

They are Americans, Spaniards, Australians, Italians and other volunteers who report us what news they can about the real impact of the Israeli aggression in Gaza. Amongst them there is Vittorio Arrigoni, human rights activist.

What we have here is pure incitement to killing, furnished also with the photos of those "wanted". It's really inconceivable that the site is still online. We demand that the Italian Government and Foreign Office take steps right now to call for it to be immediately closed and to bring those responsible to court.

The call is clear: to kill a group of people, with their first and last name, habits and ideas, political affiliations and pictures easily identifiable. They also demand informers' cooperation so as to complete the list with addresses. The dossiers are openly addressed to the Israeli military so as to help them eliminate "dangerous" targets physically, unless others see to it first: the foes to be hit are western activists - health assistants and other volunteers - who work and are witnesses to what is unfolding in the Occupied Territories.

You may read all this on a website, run by a group of extremists, a sort of American-Jewish Ku Klux Klan: Stop the ISM. It may be worth noting that an Italian, Vittorio Arrigoni, whose touching reports from Gaza we have read, is amongst those targeted.

The person who runs the site is Lee Kaplan. He's one of the many quasi-fascist instigators of the American far right underbelly, a medley that has recently taken root both amongst the Christian movements and the fringes of Jewish fundamentalism, now joined by an unusual anti-Islamic extremism. In the US, this linking between these two milieus has strengthened to the extent that Kaplan often hangs around the wannabe high society circles of the TV talk shows famous for their foaming at the mouth, on Fox News channel.

But, above all, this phenomenon is getting stronger in the Holy Land. The Jewish fundamentalists control the most extremist settlements in the territories (as it was already possible to learn by reading Israel Shahak's and Norton Mezvinsky's Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, London, Pluto Press 1999). The Christian fundamentalists help them hasten the coming of Armageddon, the final battle between Good and Evil, that is supposed to take place precisely there. Maybe in order to get ahead with his work, Mr Kaplan gives free rein to the site in order to call for Arrigoni and others to be eliminated. Moreover, without expecting any concern from the Italian government, in case someone should see to our fellow countryman's wished-for "permanent removal". We shall repeat: these criminal hopes haven't turned up on a semi-underground web forum, but on a site open to everyone and run by a public figure.

Now, since also the Israeli armed forces don't want witnesses to Gaza's havoc, and our mainstream media has immediately and sycophantically complied with this ban, and since the only voice from there comes from Arrigoni, then "two and two makes four" and we get wind of a huge danger. We have seen that a heavy hand is being used there, if even hospitals, ambulances, schools are bombed and any aid is targeted.

While the body count in Gaza is now reaching one thousand, an oddity is taking place.

Neither can the heap of corpses be swept any longer under the rug of a leading article by Bernard Henry Levy, nor the use of horrible weapons - that in future you will see prohibited. Our papers are shyly starting to talk about it. Yes, not in the front page, like we did some days ago here, but at page ten, with low profile articles.

Concealing is no longer possible. Yet, it's possible to water things down. And our great media knows well how to do it. Awaiting who knows what, a political military success, a chimera, the end of Hamas. At what price?

The most subtle censorship is ongoing, but this subtlety doesn't save it from being associated to more violent and threatening censorship, the kind that intends to hit those who want to rescue the Palestinian people from their own destruction.
You know, when the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger. Similarly, many Italian intellectuals are horrified while pointing out to us the blood-stained finger of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) but they fail to look at the gloomy moon where the other fundamentalisms are increasingly holding sway over the Israeli leadership.

The idea according to which the IAF are defending the Enlightenment against the uncivilized is an ideology heralding tragedies, and we had better get rid of it by operating an honest historical and political review of the Middle-eastern record. The account of what is happening is now at a crucial point, with all the witnesses to be respected.

Source: Quelli che vogliono ammazzare i testimoni della strage

Original article published on 13 January, 2009. Diego Traversa and Mary Rizzo are members of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity.

This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and reviser are cited.

URL of this article on Tlaxcala.