Italian Left Sides with the Ayatollahs

A recent scathing op-ed in Italian conservative Il Giornale highlights the absurd reality of so-called progressive forces in Italy practically unanimously endorsing Iran in the ongoing conflict with Israel. 

As the author, Alberto Giannoni puts it, National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI) has again “not failed to let slip the opportunity to be on the wrong side.” ANPI has in fact declared that it condemns “the Israeli aggression against Iran.” Which means, he stresses, that the organisation supposed to be carrying on the legacy of the fight against fascism and Nazism, has now practically took a stance against the Jewish state (founded, by the way, after six million Jews were murdered in the Nazi-orchestrated Holocaust) that is “engaged in a fight for survival against the Iranian regime of the ayatollahs.”

The declaration released by ANPI displays the customary leftist dancing around, as it first states that “the hateful theocratic and obscurantist nature of the Tehran regime is not in question,” but then gets to the point and warns that “the foundations of world peace and coexistence between peoples and nations with different forms of government are in question.” An interesting observation, considering that the murderous theocracy of Iran that kills women for failing to dress ‘modestly’ is most probably building a nuclear weapon and would not hesitate to use it—so much about “world peace.” Not to mention dissenters, Christians and homosexuals, with whom the leaders of the religious autocracy definitely do not want to “coexist.” 

Gianfranco Pagliarulo, president of ANPI and a former deputy head of the now defunct Italian Communist party, did not deny his Stalinist/Soviet-loving heritage (for our younger readers: in the Soviet bloc, Israel was the villain and the terrorism-sponsoring Arab states the ‘allies’) when he stated that “Netanyahu is a threat to world peace” in a speech at the tellingly-titled ‘Save Gaza March’ on June 15th at Monte Sole. Monte Sole is the area south of Bologna in central Italy where almost 2,000 civilians were mercilessly murdered by the Nazis  in 1944. At the event that was supposed to pay tribute to the victims of the barbaric mass killings, the attenders chose to express solidarity with the Palestinians, with Pagliarulo declaring “Enough with the support for Israel.” A banner, held by the head of the largest Italian trade union CGIL together with the town’s PD mayor and a representative of the Union of Islamic Communities and Organisations in Italy (U.CO.II.), sent an unambiguous message: “Gaza is today’s Marzabotto.”

But it doesn’t end there. In ANPI’s newspaper called Patria Independente the article reporting on the “march at Marzabotto for Gaza” was headlined “Let’s Stop the Mass Murderer Netanyahu.” 

As Il Giornale aptly points out, all of this is paradoxical of an association that, at least in its rhetoric, uses as a reference point the Resistance of WWII and the war of liberation from Nazi-fascism, but then fails to see “totalitarianism where it manifests itself in its current forms, such as the fanatical regime in power in Tehran for 45 years.”

And this is certainly not an isolated position on the Italian left. The notorious Ilaria Salis, currently hiding behind her parliamentary immunity rather than facing justice in Hungary for the crimes she is believed to have committed before becoming an MEP of the Green and Left Alliance (AVS), said “The Israeli aggression against Iran must be condemned unambiguously, by the international community and by each of us … Israel must be stopped by removing all forms of military support and isolating it politically.”

And the list of leftist groups in Italy that have clearly lost their moral compass goes on. Extreme left-wing Potere al Popolo (Power to the People) has called for a sit-in in Rome for Saturday, and before that, for a demonstration in Florence for Friday, June 20th, under the slogan “Hands Off Of Iran.”

But make no mistake: it is not only the radical left that seems to be suffering of an Israel derangement syndrome. Elly Schlein, the secretary of the (allegedly centre)-left PD (Partito Democratico), the largest opposition party in Italy, has said “we follow the dramatic escalation in the Middle East with concern, following Israel’s unilateral attack on Iran.” Former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, a ‘quasi-friend’ of centrist opposition party M5S, stated “After the genocide against the Palestinians, now the attack on Iran: has anyone the intention of stopping the criminal Netanyahu?” 

This new moral low ground leaves one wondering: can the Left sink any lower?