Staying human: The legacy of Vittorio Arrigoni
By Ramzy Baroud
"Dear Mary," wrote Italian justice activist Vittorio Arrigoni to a friend. "Do
you [know who] will be on the boats?... I'm still in Gaza, waiting for you. I
will be at the boat to greet you. Stay human. Vik."
"Mary" is Mary Hughes Thompson, a dedicated activist who braved the high seas
to break the Israeli siege on Gaza in 2008.
Vittorio Arrigoni, or Vik, was reportedly murdered by a fundamentalist group in
Gaza a few hours after he was kidnapped on Thursday, April 14. The killing was
supposedly in retaliation for
Hamas' crackdown on this group's members. All who knew Vik will attest to the
fact that he was an extraordinary person, a model of compassion, solidarity and
humanity.
Arrigoni's body was discovered in an abandoned house hours after he was
kidnapped. His murderers didn't honor their own deadline of 30 hours. The
group, known as the Tawhid and Jihad, is one of the fringe groups known in Gaza
as the Salafis. They resurface under different names and manifestations, for
specific - and often bloody - purposes.
"The killing prompted grief in Gaza, but also despair," read an op-ed in the UK
Independent on April 16. "Not only was Arrigoni well known and well liked
there, but it escaped no one that this kidnapping was the first since that of
the BBC journalist Alan Johnson in 2007."
However, Johnson's kidnappers, the so-called Army of Islam (a small group of
fanatics affiliated with a large Gaza clan) held their hostage for 114 days.
There was plenty of time to organize and pressure the criminals to release him.
In Arrigoni's case, merely a few hours stood between the release of a
horrifying video showing a blindfolded and bruised activist and the finding of
his motionless body. The forensic report said that he was strangled. His
friends said that he was tortured.
Vittorio Arrigoni's murder was an opportunity for Israel's supporters. Daniel
Pipes wrote, in a brief entry in the National Review Online: "Note the pattern
of Palestinians who murder the groupies and apologists who join them to aid in
their dream of eliminating Israel." Pipes named three individuals, including
the Palestinian-Israeli filmmaker, Juliano Mer-Khamis, and Arrigoni himself,
and then proceeded to invite readers to "send in further examples that I may
have missed".
Pipes' list, however, will have no space for such names as Rachel Corrie, Tom
Hurndall and James Miller, for these individuals were all murdered by Israeli
forces. Pipes will also fail to mention the nine Turkish activists murdered
aboard the Mavi Marmara ship on its way to break the siege on Gaza in
May 2010, and the nine activists abroad Irene (the Jewish Boat to Gaza)
who were intercepted, kidnapped and humiliated by Israeli troops before being
deported outside the country in September 2010. The 82-year-old Reuben
Moscowitz, a Holocaust survivor, was one of the activists aboard the Irene,
as was Lillian Rosengarten, an American "who fled the Nazis as a child in
Frankfurt," according to a New York Times blog.
The people Pipes failed to mention truly represent a rainbow of humanity. Men
and women of all ages, races and nationalities have stood and will continue to
stand on the side of the Palestinians. But this story has selectively ignored
pseudo-intellectuals intent on dismissing humanity to uphold Israel. They
refuse to see the patterns in front of them, as they are too busy concocting
their own.
Writing in the UK Guardian from Rome, on April 15, John Hooper said,
"Arrigoni's life was anything but safe. In September 2008 he was injured (by
Israeli troops) accompanying Palestinian fishermen at sea. Two years ago he
received a death threat from a US far-right website that provided any would-be
killers with a photo and details of distinguishing physical traits, such as a
tattoo on his shoulder."
The group that murdered Arrigoni, like others of its kind, existed for one
specific, violent episode before disappearing altogether. The mission in this
case was to kill an International Solidarity Mission (ISM) activist who
dedicated years of his life to Palestine. Shortly before he was kidnapped, he
wrote in this website of the "criminal" Israeli siege on Gaza. He also mourned
the four impoverished Palestinians who died in a tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt
boarder while hauling food and other goods.
Before his murder, Arrigoni was anticipating the arrival of another flotilla -
carrying activists from 25 countries boarding 15 ships - that is scheduled to
sail to Gaza in May. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adamantly called
on European Union countries to prevent their nationals from jointing the boats.
"I think it's in your and our common interest… that this flotilla must be
stopped," he told European representatives in Jerusalem, according to an AFP
report on April 11.
Israeli officials are angry at the internationals who are "de-legitimizing" the
state of Israel by standing in solidarity with the Palestinians. Arrigoni has
done so much to harm the carefully fabricated image of Israel as an island of
democracy and progress. Along with other activists, he has shattered this myth
through simple means of communication.
Vik signed his messages with "Stay human". His book, detailing his experiences
in Gaza, was entitled Restiamo Umani (Let Us Remain Human). Mary Hughes
Thompson shared with me some the emails Arrigoni sent her. "I can hardly bear
to read them again," she wrote. This is an extract from one of them:
"No matter how (we) will finish the mission… it will be a victory. For human
rights, for freedom. If the siege will not (be) physically broken, it will
break the siege of the indifference, the abandonment. And you know very well
what this gesture is important for the people of Gaza. That said, obviously we
are waiting at the port! With hundreds of Palestinians and ISM comrades we will
come to meet you sailing, as was the first time, remember? All available boats
will sail to Gaza to greet you. Sorry for my bad English… big hug… Stay Human.
Yours, Vik"
Vik's killers failed to see his humanity. But many of us will always remember,
and we will continue trying to "stay human".
Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated
columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My
Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London),
available on Amazon.com.
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