Vittorio Arrigoni: A Death In Gaza

It’s very hard for ideologically committed people to see that the objects of their affection and support don’t respond in kind.
Michael Ledeen

Writing about The Death of Vittorio Arrigoni, Michael Ledeen notes:

He is not the first Italian radical leftist to fall into hostile Arab hands. A correspondent for the very same Manifesto, Giuliana Sgrena, was kidnapped in Baghdad in 2005. Her father also fought in the Resistance. The next year, she was ransomed by the Italian government, only to be shot by American soldiers while in a car en route to the Baghdad airport.


Then there is the story of Angelo Frammartino. Son of a Communist, member of Rifondazione Comunista (the heir of the old Communist Party), Angelo went to Israel in the summer of 2006 to work with Israeli Arabs, one of whom stabbed him to death at the gates of the Old City. Like Arrigoni, Frammartino declared himself a pacifist. Like Sgrena and Arrigoni, he was firmly convinced of the unsullied virtue of the Arab cause, and of the evils of Israeli and American actions. Like them, he was the victim of those he had come to help. Like their families, his was proud of his actions, even as they mourned him.

So there’s a pattern of pro-Arab Italian lefties falling into the hands of men who don’t see much of anything to like. For their captors or killers, the Italians were simply targets of opportunity. The notion that they were allies or supporters, let alone friends, was totally alien to them. That’s a Western notion, and these killers and kidnappers reject such happy thoughts. They’re in a war against the West and Westerners, pure and simple.

This aspect of dealing with Muslim terrorists is, of course, hidden--much as the rape of female activists by the Arabs they come to help is hidden as well.

The irony, as Ledeen points out, is that true reciprocal friendship--the kind that Arrigoni thought he would find among the terrorists, is actually found among the democracies he condemns.

Technorati Tag: Vittorio Arrigoni and Gaza.