When Israel unleashed Operation Cast Lead in Gaza almost all Italian newspapers and tv showed a strong pro-Israel bias. When news show Annozero dared to dedicate an episode to the suffering of children caught in the war in Gaza, almost all political forces and journalists in the country wanted to crucify its host Santoro. Yet now there is a UN report that says clearly how things went.
The Israeli army is accused of war crimes for the way it conducted the operation. Israeli soldiers would have killed innocent civilians in Gaza on several occasions. Hamas is accused of war crimes for launching rockets at civilian settlements in Israel. But we have to put things in perspective for a moment. Hamas rockets killed 3 innocent Israeli civilians during the war. Israel with the operation Cast Lead killed nearly 1,000 innocent civilians in Gaza, a good half of them, if not more, women and children. The disproportion is rather obvious. The fact that Hamas is an organization that has frequently employed terrorist methods and has a program that still wants the destruction of the state of Israel does not deny the evidence that the Israeli reaction was much exaggerated in relation to the threat. Also from the military point of view the balance of power is clearly in favor of Israel, which lost only 10 soldiers in the operation against the nearly 500 Palestinian policemen or suspected Hamas militants killed. But the truth is that the real purpose of the operation was to create a dramatic situation in Gaza to topple the Hamas government. An attempt failed as expected, given that the radicalization of the clash can only encourage the extremist organization. Meanwhile, Gaza continues to be a huge concentration camp inhabited by 1,400,000 Palestinians, which survive thanks to the smuggling through the Egyptian border and some Humanitarian Aid, when can pass, plagued by massive poverty, unemployment, total international isolation.
But an interesting point to note concerning Italy is how italian politics and media have become all pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian. The news on Gaza and war crimes committed by the Israelis found space only on Annozero, in some RaiTre program, on Manifesto and a few other newspapers and websites. Even in these days when the pressures are intensified by the UN, but also by several European countries, on Israel to lead an internal investigation on the behavior of its soldiers, in Italy the news is reported by agencies, but almost none among newspapers and tv report it. And to think that before 1992 Italy had a reputation for being one of the most pro-Palestinian European states, so much that Craxi during the famous Sigonella incident likened the Palestinian leaders who were painted as terrorists to Mazzini, who was also regarded as a terrorist when he fought for the unification of Italy. The political landscape has now completely changed and the Italian media censor any news that may put Israel in a bad light, with the blessing of all parties currently in Parliament. The truth about the Palestinian tragedy so was almost completely erased in Italy, even more than in the United States where at least the news of the UN investigation have been reported.
And the pretty obvious truth is that in Gaza do not live 1,400,000 terrorists, but many innocent people who want only to live in peace, but peace at this time does not seem a priority of the Israeli government.
Francesco Defferrari
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