Calev Ben David writes an insightful editorial about the murder of Angelo Frammartino, the young Italian pacifist who was murdered by a young Palestinian in a stabbing attack in the Old City of Jerusalem. He points out that unlike Rachel Corrie, the international media did not pick up this story and certainly it is not being played up as an example of, well, of typical Palestinian attacks targeting civilians.

Like Rachel Corrie, Angelo Frammartino was an idealistic young foreign political activist who came to Israel to work on behalf of the Palestinians. And, like her, he met a violent end here.

In contrast to Corrie, though, who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza three years ago, it is unlikely that there will be any songs written, plays performed or documentary movies made about the 24-year-old Frammartino.

The Palestinian killer had no way of knowing Angelo wasn’t a Jew and therefore considered him a legitimate target. This is not, as most Israelis know, unusual at all. Palestinians involved in terrorism and other violence against Israel tend to attack civilians whom they believe to be Jewish. Unfortunately, there are many in the world who believe this is a legitimate form of fighting the Israelis. As Ben David and others, including some on our site have pointed out, Frammartino himself publicly spoke of his understanding of what he called “legitimate self-defense.”

“We must recognize that a situation with no violence is a luxury in many parts of the world, but we are not seeking to prevent legitimate self-defense operations. I would never dream of condemning the resistance, the blood of the Vietnamese, the blood of nations under colonial occupation, or the blood of Palestinian youths from the first intifada.”

I suspect that he had no idea that he would be a victim of such violence and doubt that his abstract ideas written in peaceful Italy would have stood fast had he remained alive and it had been one of his walking friends that fateful day in the Old City who had been murdered instead for these supposedly “legitimate self defense” purposes.

Ben David writes:

…[E]ven after Frammartino’s murder ARCI [an over-arching NGO European body that sponsored Frammartino’s visit] rushed to post a statement on its Web site, declaring: “We do not believe that this act can be interpreted as a terrorist act, or a manifestation of ethnic hatred. We do believe that it can be interpreted as a worrying symptom of the ever-worsening socioeconomic crisis in the marginalized areas of East Jerusalem.”

This is an unfortunate and willful blindness on the part of many on the Left and certainly many in Europe who are not on the Left, where they ignore the meaning and source of such attacks.

While it is well and good to blame everything on Israel or on “occupation” or on poverty or on whatever reason for the “legitimate self defense” that essentially targets civilians, in fact there are other reasons to consider in these attacks. Just as the EU covered up the original version of their report on antisemitism in Western Europe and its growth as a consequence of the hatred of young Muslims for Jews in general, the continued covering up for these misdeeds against Israel and Israelis, such as this murder of a young Italian, ends up encouraging more violence. It also lends legitimacy to groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas and their actions.

Ben David writes:

Angelo Frammartino, whatever his political views, came to Israel in a selfless act of charity to help Palestinian children, and he should be hailed for that. But perhaps he – and certainly those who sent him here – were reluctant to acknowledge that there are other forces at play in this region that go far beyond whatever legitimate grievances the Palestinians and other Arabs have against the Jewish state.

This is the blind, unjust and indiscriminate hatred and resentment that promotes and feeds terror acts and illegitimate expressions of force against Israel and Israelis, the twisted ideology of extremist radical political movements, of corrupt and cynical dictatorial Arab governments, and especially of fundamentalist Islamic groups opposed not only to any true expressions of coexistence with Israel, but equally to any real acceptance of genuine values of freedom, equality and democracy.

This is clear as day to many of us. While there are many out there who recognize these issues, it seems obvious that for years now we have been playing a game wherein others – including many in key media organizations – continually wish to equate Israel’s actions to those of terrorists. I would say much of the coverage we saw of the war against Hizbullah recently represents this sad truth.

Well, okay. Here is a chance to find balance and equality. Let’s see a play in London and New York about Angelo Frammartino’s murder by a Palestinian raised from childhood to consider the murder of Jews to be desirable.

About the author

themiddle

14 Comments

  • People killed by Israel, deliberately or otherwise, were MURDERED by MURDERING JEW MURDERERS. People deliberately and indiscriminately killed by Palestinian terrorists were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, a tragic accident really but nothing to get worked up about.

  • Let’s make a play about him and try to run it in London and Detroit! And let’s mourn him annually for a month!

  • Evariste, let me guess, you work for AP, Reuters, BBC, the UN or the Hizbullah public relations office, right? 😉

  • He who defends terrorism, implicitly accepts to be its next victim.

  • This may be a stretch but I think that uh… evariste was being somewhat sarcastic, kind of like some other commenters here but without the turgid prose and the smug self-righteousness.

  • You’re really grasping at straws here. I think the whole Rachel Corrie thing got blown out of proportions because her defenders and detractors got into this huge battle to see who could praise/denounce her the best. It got so bad that her supporters were making outrageous blanket accusations/slurs about the IDF/Israel while her detractors were coming up with stupid pancake jokes/songs.

    Personally, I’m glad that Angelo’s corpse is not being used the same way as Rachel’s. And while I agree with some of what Ben-David is saying, I think that using that naive statement he made supporting resistance/terror/whatever to somehow imply that he got what was coming to him is just plain wrong.

    Lastly, I do not understand how taking statements made by some people who are on the left somehow is proof that everyone on the left thinks the same way. It’s kinda like saying that anything the black-hatters say is representative of the views of the entire jewish community. The left has extremists just as jewish community has extremists. What can you do? I do know one thing, we on the left have better things to do then worry about what the extremists are babbling about. Which is why most of us on the left just ignore them. I would highly suggest you do the same.

  • Ah Nick, I pay attention to those on the Left and those on the Right carefully. As anybody who reads the history of the past century understands, extremists manage to become the mainstream if conditions are right. Take a look at DailyKos and its impact on the Democratic Party.

    The Internet, 9/11 and the Iraq War have managed to make the extremists crowd the center a bit and the tide is still going strong in that direction. Unfortunately, Jewish people and Israel seem to be a favored target and there is nothing wrong with both vigilance and the blowing up of some of these balloons.

    I agree with you that Corrie was blown out of proportion. What can you do, the pro-Palestinian propaganda machine with their supporters on the Left have made her death a cause around which they rally. They use the event to inaccurately depict Israeli brutality and callousness towards the Palestinians and their supporters. They take advantage of her being a young woman and an American at that to score points againt Israel and its supporters in the US.

    Well, in this case the gentleman in question seems to have spoken, written and acted in a similar fashion (although perhaps more peacefully and without the attacks reserved for Israel and the US by Corrie) but was killed by an uncaring Palestinian who thought he was killing a Jew and is most likely a representative of the Palestinians who use violence against Israel as part of their struggle. What’s wrong with asking where the attacks from the Left on those who perpetrated this crime might be? After all, this young Italian is a son of the Left. The Palestinians and their supporters are fond of saying their suicide bombers take the place of Israeli F-16s. Doesn’t that mean they believe this knife takes the place of a bulldozer? That’s not something I believe, but those on the Left who have screamed about Corrie as they have surely must see the symmetry if they follow their logic to the end. Where are their indignant articles, blogs and theories?

    Ah yes, I know, they are busy attacking Israeli “savagery” in Lebanon while paying mild lip service to Hizbullah’s tactics and minimizing or justifying the roles of Iran and Syria. Have you seen Hizbullah flags flying at ANSWER rallies? Have you seen them fly at rallies of the Left in Europe? “Forget about that poor young Italian man, who has time for something that contradicts our views when there is so much MEAT we can sink our teeth into out there.”

  • This guy was obviously murded by either the Shin Beit or Mossad and then blamed on a ‘palestenain’ patsy. Thery did this in order to a) defame the ‘palestenain’ people and b) discourage foreigners from aiding the ‘palestenains.’