Mussolini: Entire world should `beg forgiveness of Israel'

[Gimel]

"Not only Fini, but the entire world, including the
Vatican and the pope, should beg forgiveness of
Israel," Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of
Italy's World War II dictator and a member of
parliament for the National Alliance party,
declared in an interview with Haaretz yesterday.

The interview coincided with the arrival of Gianfranco
Fini, her party's leader and Italy's deputy prime
minister, for his first official visit to Israel,
during which he has said he intends to apologize to the
Jewish people for Italy's Holocaust-era crimes.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=364232&contrassID=1
_______________________

That's more like it!

[BlackFrancis]

1. glad you like your new friends

[Gimel]

2. Apologies are never

rejected. This post-war generation has to come to terms with the past. At least they are turning in the right direction.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[edzontar]

8. I have alerted them...

nt

[brainshrub]

11. I don't think that was the implication.

Fascism is wrong. Period.

I don't think BlackFrancis saying what you are implying.

[brainshrub]

10. Great answer!

I'm going to remember that one.

[Muddleoftheroad]

30. Apologies

Israel can accept apologies from Germans, why not Italians?

[Violet_Crumble]

26. BlackFrancis?!

If yr named Black Francis for the reason I think you are, let me commend you on having the coolest name (except for mine) in this forum!


got me a movie
i want you to know
slicing up eyeballs
i want you to know
girlie so groovy
i want you to know
don't know about you
but i am un chien andalusia
wanna grow
up to be
be a debaser, debaser

got me a movie
ha ha ha ho
slicing up eyeballs
ha ha ha ho
girlie so groovie
ha ha ha ho
don't know about you
but i am un chien andalusia

debaser

[sushi]

31. Is your name coolest because

you're edible? I'm edible too!

[Lurking Dem]

33. She doesn't know it but her handle

actually pisses me off.

You can't buy Violet Crumble in the US. You have to special order it. Which I don't do because I have diabetes and special ordering candy is pretty much a no-no. So every time I'm pre-menstrual and see her damn handle on the board all I can do is drool because it's one of my favorite candybars.

It's really unseemly.

[Violet_Crumble]

35. You've got my sympathy, Lurking Dem...

The idea of not being able to eat Violet Crumbles would be too much for me to cope with. I'm just glad that right now there's no-one posting here who's called themselves Peter Jackson Super Mild. I gave up smoking at the end of last week mainly because if I keep on smoking I'll have another stroke, and even wearing a big, itchy patch, that'd get me crawling up the walls every time I saw it. Anyway, it's great to see we've both got exquisite taste in lollies...

Mental note to self: get Lurking Dem a drool-resistant keyboard cover for her next birthday :)

Violet...

[bluesoul]

34. Violet!

The Pixies, one of my favorite all time bands! :toast: :bounce: :yourock:

[Violet_Crumble]

36. bluesoul!

Do you know what a rare thing Pixies fans are in my neck of the woods? My friends wouldn't have even heard of them if it wasn't for me...


Violet...

[BlackFrancis]

38. get the Frank Black solo stuff..

I love the Pixies to but Teenager of the Year is the most underrated pop album in history :)

[bluesoul]

39. Or Frank Black

and the Catholics. But the Pixies still rule them all as far as I am concerned.. ;)

[Violet_Crumble]

47. I've got it...

and Teenager of the Year is a really underrated album, but the award for the most underrated pop album in history goes hands down to anything from Guided By Voices...

Violet...

[bluesoul]

48. Another band I like

Bee Thousand being their ultimate record in my mind. And they'r on the fabolous Matador Records, which has tons of greats bands and artists signed. Violet you continue to surprise me ;)

[Violet_Crumble]

49. Matador Records...

I loved most of the bands that were with Matador a few years back, especially Pavement. Did you ever see the Matador Bulletin Board? I used to hang out there using the name of Tanya Zanetti, and then I moved over to the Fake Matador Bulletin Board when Matador pulled their board off the air. Boy, if people think things get nasty at DU, they've never seen a bunch of college aged, virginal indie-geeks flame each other ;)

Violet...

[bluesoul]

52. No I never did visit their Bulletin Board

Was more interested in the music then the chit chat ;)

And I can believe you that when it goes for music, things can get nastier then anything here. There you have everything from A to Z, not just the I and P :)

[edzontar]

6. I question the judgment of the Israeli officials

Who are embracing these creeps.

Ugh!

[Aidoneus]

9. you're kidding, right?!

"That's more like it!" to the fascist grand-daughter of that bastard just because she backs Israel?! Certain blocs of DU routinely appall me, but this is a first that won't be topped. What is worse, her breasts are uglier than the company she keeps.

A report a few days ago of increasing Jewish support of the Flemish Vlaams Blok fascist movement took me with some surprise, but it is starting to make more sense..

The phrase "sleep with dogs, wake with fleas" comes to mind, but this is skipping the dogs and just going spread-eagle for the fleas.

[Gimel]

16. Whow

I'm not embracing her or any other European politician. Yet, her apology and of course the future of political awareness on her part, are important to note. I wish others would follow her example.

[Classical_Liberal]

17. And what if she is just switching scapegoats

? That is in fact learning nothing from the holocaust! A fascist doesn't stop being a fascist just because they switch targets. The lesson to be learned from this awful event wasn't just to attack weaker victims.

[BlackFrancis]

19. to be honest..

I don't think they are really switching. Anti-semitism is beyond the pale but anti-Muslim sentiment isn't. They are just sugar-coating things until they have absolute power. I don't believe for a second Berlosconi has any intention of ever leaving power by way of a ballot box.

[BlackFrancis]

18. wtf?

Vlaams Blok's ultimate goal is to deport anyone not ethnically Belgian. Why in hell would Belgian Jews support them? It can't just be Israel, that's crazy!

[Aidoneus]

23. the enemy of my enemy is my..somethingorother

The Flemish racist nazis think the Muslims are scum, and that has some appeal. Apparently the Belgian Jewish community ranks up slightly higher on the Blok's racial pyramid than the Muslims (starting with Flemish as the perfect race, Dutch/South Africans below that, French Belgians below there, then everybody else can fuck off for not being Flemish.. funny guys, as of late the Blok particularly hates the Muslims and have been reaching out to the Jewish community), thus some opportunism before a common pet-hate is apparently allowed.

The report was in Haaretz a few days ago, let me see if I can find it again, there shouldn't be too many responses in their archives for "Flemish". The figures were reported to be something like 5-20% of the Belgian Jewish community, IIRR. The author tries to justify the bizarre findings by suggesting that it's a reaction to the Muslim relations to the Jewish community there and the mainstream establishment's typical support for Palestinians. Those members of the Belgian Jewish community who do support the party--which, like Fini & Mussolini are trumpeted as "reformed fascists", who are still fascists but do the rah-rah cheer for Israel--seem to do so out of feelings of revenge, holding their noses while hoping the Flemish nazis stick it to the Muslims hard.

[Aidoneus]

24. here it is

that wasn't hard to re-find.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=363479&sw=Flemish

[Paschall]

20. About making more sense, Aidoneus

See Sharon's remarks here about Europe, Italy, and the wall.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=237566#237605

[bemildred]

56. It does seem a shame that she did not get

a brain implant while she was at it. But, given
her need for attention, perhaps she made the better
choice.

[SOS]

12. More on Fini and Alessandra Mussolini

From the Guardian (2002):

"It has taken him eight years to do so, but Gianfranco Fini, the leader of the far right National Alliance, has finally repudiated his controversial view that Benito Mussolini was the greatest politician of the 20th century.

His sense of timing has not deserted him - Mr Fini's new, politically correct opinion was expressed just a day before the Italian government announced that he would be representing the country on the EU's constitutional convention.
Now the deputy prime minister, he was still dogged by the memory of his notorious 1994 interview with the Turin daily La Stampa, in which he praised Italy's wartime dictator as "the greatest statesman of the century".

Members of his own party were none too happy with the new line.
The dictator's granddaughter, Alessandra Mussolini, was so indignant that she abandoned Mr Fini's party and went to seek refuge on the parliamentary benches of Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.

"I don't like politicians who root around in history, picking up what suits them here and there," she said. "I understand that politics is cynicism, but people's feelings are involved here and we have really reached the limit."

[Classical_Liberal]

13. That is only because they hate Arabs more than Jews

and because Likudniks are fellow fascists, and at the very least neoconfederates. Please see the 3/5 compromise they offered the Palestinians yesterday. Anyway the apology should be to the Jewish people, not to Israel.

[aneerkoinos]

14. The apology

should not be only to the Jewish people, but all victims of racism and fascism, especially also to Gypsies, homosexuals etc. And words are easy, how about action, fighting against contemporary racism and other forms of prejudice and xenophobia and scape-goat mentality.

[bluesoul]

15. And all the Slavs

second largest victim of their policy...

[Aidoneus]

25. Slavs were the largest victim by far

as numbers go, anyway.

some 30mil in the USSR regions alone, to say nothing of the Poles, Serbs, Bosnians, etc.. in the southern slavic areas.

[Paschall]

21. "The entire world should beg forgiveness of Israel?"

Well, Alessandra, honey, you might be good enough to leave the Palestinians out of this. Among others. Because they had no hand in the Holocaust. How could you possibly have forgotten?

And how could you have forgotten no Holocaust crimes were committed against Israel because it didn't exist then? Which brings to mind the millions of Jews in the Diaspora--including Italian Jews--who might also appreciate an apology while you're at it...

This is one of the worst kinds of historical revisionism: "The entire world is guilty. We're no more guilty than the rest." NOT EXACTLY, Alessandra!

And let me say, Alessandra, you seem to have understood the meaning of tolerance and forgiveness:

"In January 2002, when Fini retracted his famous statement that Mussolini was the greatest man of the 20th century, Alessandra was so angry that she demonstratively crossed parliamentary lines to sit with members of the Forza Italia party instead of her own. 'In the end, he will circumcise you all,' she taunted other members of her party, 'so that Fini will finally be able to make his pilgrimage to Israel.'"

Quite a "lady"!

[edzontar]

22. Touché, Mr. Paschal...

I'd say the book on this incident is closed.

Sharon is pandering to Fini, and is feeding lines to Fini's own anti-Muslim, anti-Immigrant constituency.

Fini is pandering, not so much to Israel, but to the American Neocons, the USSA Fun-Dementalists--and the Bush administration.

He wants to win their support, or at least their silence, when he makes his bid to be PM.

Europe will shudder with horror at this event--whose equivlant would be LePen's election in France.

But Fini hopes that Bush will give him some cover, with help of his Neocon and Likudnik firends.

The nausea, the nausea....

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Aidoneus]

28. um.. some dubious claims of your own

The title of "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem/al-Quds" was a position invented by the British authorities, intended to act as an arm serving the colonial occupation. In general, a Mufti is basically a lawyer, a position consulted on the legal side of affairs rather than any sort of political/religious authority. At any rate, far removed from being "the spiritual leader of the Muslim world in Jerusalem and the ME"--rather, that would be the Khilafah, which was destroyed at various periods by the Mongols, Spanish, and British/Turk nationalists (or the position of Marja'iyya--"Object of Emulation"--for the Shias; living examples of a potential figure of this would be the Iraqi Ali Sistani or Lebanese Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, perhaps Iran's Ali Khamanei though he is not so much achieved as a religious or legal scholar or authority as much as he is a political leader; past examples being Khomeini, the Lebanese Mussa al-Sadr, or Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr & Abul Qasim al-Khoei from Iraq, etc).
Another of the more generally highly elevated religious/legal side of authority would be a mujtahid, who achieves this elevated position through years of studies, exceptional knowledge of the laws and a just record of applying them, and in this position is considered suitable to make independent legal/religious rulings (not universally--in the Shia legal schools the rulings of a respected mujtahid would be considered binding, but in other legal traditions, the more conservative/rigidly traditionalist Hanbali schools for example, some would probably be considered "innovators" and shunned).

Amin al-Husayni's family was (and remains, to a lesser extent) one of the more dominant extended families in Palestinian politics. As their rivals, the Nashashibis, advanced their interests by generally collaborating with the British & Zionists, it was natural that the Husaynis would advance their interests by aligning themselves in opposition to these forces (and the feelings were mutual) in the course of their political rivalry and conflict. After the British systematically attacked the efforts of independent Arab and Palestinian nationalists in the course of their colonial regime over Palestine and criminally deported Husayni out of his homeland, that he would then take his "I hate the British (and the Zionists aren't so great either)" sign over to Britain's enemy is also only something predictable.

At the same period, Yitzak Shamir's buddies had the very same idea for the very same reasons--and rather than being demonized by history for being the only surving world leader to have offered his services to Hitler, he was rewarded with a comfortably steady political career. I think the British colonial occupation authorities first starting hassling al-Husayni and his peers after they supported Feysal in Damascus, and in the years after that it just became steadily worse (with the British colonial occupation authorities generally flattering the Nashashibis while acting against the Husaynis and other independent Nationalist & Islamic movements--Izzuddeen al-Qassam's resistance movement, for example of the latter).

The history of this period is really a lot more interesting than the bullshit pablum spit out by propaganda factories.

If it is the page I'm thinking of and without looking at it, IHR is about as trashy as a page can get. Their idea of "objective historians" is somebody like David Irving. I'd drown them in spit before using it as a debate crutch. And while I'm thinking of it, "Christian Action for Israel" isn't a whole lot better..

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gimel]

37. The links

My apologies for posting the IHR link. It came up as a reference on Google, and I didn't check it out completely. A well known holocaust denier like David Irving should not be used in debate, except perhaps as an example of the view he espouses.

My knowledge of the link between Hitler and the Grand Mufti (who may indeed by a position created by the British, as you note) predates the Internet, however. It is a rather established fact, and that alone, regardless of the Grand Mufti's actual function, being political or "legal" in the Islamic sense of the word, does not lessen the importance of the collaboration.

As for Yitzhak Shamier's "buddies" whom you refer to, the pre-state condition was horrendous for Jews. Now that there is a Jewish state, the problem of emigration can be solved. The sites which make the charges that Jewish leaders were complicit in the Holocaust for this reason, are also highly questionable in their philosophical orientation.

[BlackFrancis]

40. the problem is..

your knowledge is usually sourced back to one obscure newspaper column by an obscure zionist idealogue and no secondary sources ever back up the sexy claims about Haj Amin al-Husseini's nazi links.

[pistoff democrat]

41. If that is indeed the problem,

I was unaware, so would you please provide links?

Accusing another DU member of what was just posted is quite a leap and so I really want back-up, please.

Please forgive me, but I just put "Haj Amin al-Husseini Nazis" into Google and am up to the 47th page of separate confirmations of who and what he was, the Grand Mufti. I found sources in English, French, German and other languages. Some of the sources were scholarly, some were in articles, some were from left-wing sites, most from right-wing sites, even a peace site.

Excuse me, but I have reached my limit for the day.

At least, the DU member you accused above deserves an apology!

[bluesoul]

42. Isn't it strange

that most of them are RW sites as you yourself admit? Why is it so?

[pistoff democrat]

43. Okay, so I'm a glutton for punishment! I came back and

I'm glad I did.

Good grief, blue soul, what difference does it make? The fact is there are sites of various stripes going beyond 50 pages all of which agree the man is the Grand Mufti.

:wow:

[Aidoneus]

44. Amin al-Husayni was indeed a "Grand Mufti" in his time..

and he was appointed to such by the British colonial authorities. The first occupant of the position after the British created the title was Kamil al-Husayni in, I think, 1919. The general idea that the kafir had in mind when creating the position was to rival the dying Ottoman khilafah and for use as a tool of serving the colonial occupation of the region (which the British had obviously no intention of relinquishing). Within a couple years Kamil had died, his half-brother Amin was appointed to the position by the British occupation authorities. The relationship between the Husaynis and the British would sour greatly over the years, and Amin would be particularly targeted by the colonial occupation forces and their lackeys. He and his family were indeed very active in Palestinian politics going back to the 1800s and previous to this; he received the title of Haj after making the pilgrimate to Mecca in his late teens.

There is far more to this matter than what the pieacemeal scraps that some propaganda pages will offer up.

PASSIA's profile on his political career:--

HUSSEINI, HAJ AMIN (1895-1974)

Born in Jerusalem in 1895; studied religious law at al-Azhar University, Cairo, and at the Istanbul School of Administration; went to Mecca on a pilgrimage in 1913; joined the Ottoman Turkish army in World War I and returned to Jerusalem in 1917; member and president of Nadi al-Arabi; sentenced in abstencia to ten years imprisonment on charges of fomenting the riots of early 1920; was pardoned by the High Commissioner and returned in August 1920 to Jerusalem, calling for the incorporation of Palestine into Syria; appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on May 8, 1921 (until 1948); head of the First Palestinian Delegation to London in 1921; appointed president of the first Supreme Muslim Council in March 1922 (until 1937). Remained at the top of a secret 'political black list, as the Public Security Department regarded as extreme opponent of the government; led a campaign (1928-29) rousing the Arabs of Palestine to stand against the threat to the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem; head of the Palestinian Delegation to London, 1930; elected president of the Arab Higher Committee on April 25, 1936; as such, chief organiser of the 1936 Great Revolt and the internal Arab conflicts in 1937; ordered to be deported October 1, 1937, but escaped to Lebanon, Iraq, Italy and Germany; ran the National Leadership in exile in the late 1930s; conducted after the war the Palestinian struggle against the Partition Plan from exile (Egypt); elected President in absencia of the Arab Higher Executive (Fourth Higher Committee of the Arab League); named a local leader of the Muslim Brotherhood after its establishment in Jerusalem in the mid-1940s by followers of Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928; president of the National Assembly (known as All-Palestine government), set up by the Arab Higher Committee Congress on October 1, 1948, in Gaza; died on July 5, 1974 in Beirut.

The source is available here, and the profiles of some of the other notable members of the Husayni clan are also available from the same link (or any number of other Palestinian political figures from the other links off of there).

[BlackFrancis]

45. I'm not saying he wasn't grand mufti..

I'm saying that most of the sensationalistic propaganda surrounding his supposed collaboration and ideological ties to the German National Socialists were fabricated by one newspaper column forty or so years ago that has been picked up on by various "pro-Israeli" historians who have cribbed each other so often that they often have no idea what the original source is.

[The Magistrate]

50. That Is A Bit Much, Mr. Francis

Any reasonable history of Nazi activity in the Near East in World War Two, and any specialized discussion of, say, foreign S.S. formations, will contain abundant material on Haj Amin: his material collaboration is no fabrication, but well established fact. Its relevance to the situation boils down to this: the active collaboration of Arab Nationalist figures with the Axis before and during World War Two greatly weakened their political position during the United Nations deliberations on the Palestine Mandate.

[BlackFrancis]

53. What was said originally?

It was deleted before I even read it, but the standard propaganda narrative doesn't have him as just a collaborator but as a personal friend of Eichmann who toured Auschwitz and had designs to build his own extermination camp near Nablus, etc, ad nauseum.

[Gimel]

54. The websites

were the problem, not what was said. Nothing like what you describe was even hinted at.

[BlackFrancis]

55. I guessed wrong..

sorry :(

[The Magistrate]

57. Best Not To Guess, Mr. Francis

Around here, there is always someone able to hand your head, and perhaps your underwear as well, should you do so wrongly....

[Gimel]

51. Usually not

I have no information about what you are refering to, the result of an over active imagination. An attorney activist was the source. The year 1980.

[tinnypriv]

46. Nice

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[sushi]

32. Maybe we should

go all the way, and crown Israel's PM King of the World! He already likes to tell everybody what to do but doesn't want anyone to tell him what to do. What do you think?

[IndianaGreen]

58. Do you realize how stupid that Ha'aretz headline sounds?

How come I am not surprised that the neo-Fascists are friendly with the Sharon regime?

Alessandra does look like Il Duce in drag, doesn't she?