The Trump peace plan, a white coffin and the Exodus from Egypt
By: Rabbi Dr Andrea Zanardo
Tags: Left Wing Violence, Palestine, Israel, Italy, Anti Semitism

There is one reason why I am sceptical towards the attempts by the European Left to bring an end to the conflict between Israel and the Arab world.

Not because the same people who believe that they know how to bring peace in the Middle East, so far have not been able to end conflicts in their own home, in Europe, such as in Ireland or in the Balkans. I mean: if you are not able to keep your own house in order, why do you think you are entitled to sort other people’s houses. It’s just common sense.

But this is not the specific reason why I do not trust the European Left’s intervention in the conflict in the Middle East. The reason why I don’t trust them is actually very small, and white. It is a baby size white coffin that was left on the stairs of the Great Synagogue in Rome in 1982, during a Trade Union’s rally.

A small coffin. White. Empty.

A few weeks after that hateful rally, a Palestinian commando assaulted the Great Synagogue in Rome. It was Shabbat. It was Shemini Atzeret, the day when children receive a special blessing, according to the Rome custom. The synagogue was packed with 300 worshippers and among them 50 children. The terrorists threw bombs and opened fire with machine guns. 37 people were seriously wounded. A child, two years old, was murdered. Stefano Taché, z’’l. That white coffin, left empty by the Trade Unions a few weeks before, was now full.

The terrorists escaped: five Middle Eastern men managed to escape after an attack, in the centre of Rome, with police literally at every corner, in full light, actually at noon (because of terrorist threats, remember? This was the 80s, in Italy). Not to mention the police surveillance car, that was in front of the Great Synagogue every day but, for some strange reason not on that day, 9 October 1982, Shabbat, Shemini Atzeret, when the synagogue is always full of children.

Another strange coincidence: a few weeks before the attack, Yasser Arafat visited Italy. He was welcomed as a head of State (which he was not). He gave a speech in Parliament, with the gun in full view under his belt. A gun in Parliament, yes. And then he went on to the Vatican, to receive the same kind of hospitality.

This is precisely the reason why I cannot trust the European Left. That small white coffin.

I do not want to judge the Palestinian terrorists. It’s not my job. I am not Palestinian. I was not born in a refugee camp. I don’t want to judge; that is the job of the justice system (hopefully of the Israeli judges. My gut tells they are more reliable than the Italian police). My judgement, more: my condemnation is for those trade unionists, who left that white empty coffin in front of the Synagogue. For those militants who shielded their comrades while they were delivering their gift to the Jewish community And I judge in the same way, in the harshest way possible, those Leftist militants who went on TV, after the terror attack, and the murder of a 2-year-old Jewish child, and declared that they were regretting having protected persecuted Jews during WWII, “because now I see what they do in Palestine”.

I cannot judge the terrorists. I do not know why they have chosen this way. I can judge their actions, not their personality. Perhaps they did not have a choice. But those Leftist anti-Semites who supported the terrorists, who justified them, who offered the Palestinian terrorists their understanding, and the empathy that they denied to their fellow Italian citizens, they, to me, are unforgivable. I don’t forgive. I don’t forget.

They did not grow up in the misery of a Palestinian camp. They had access to the same source of information as I had. They could read the same books I read. Nonetheless. their ideology had blinded them to the point that they consider morally justifiable shooting Jews in a Synagogue, and murdering a child, “because of what the Jews do now in Palestine”.

Rome, 9 October 1982. My generation of Italian Jews has grown up in the shadows of that terror attack. That was, and is, on our minds whenever we see the police stationed outside the Synagogue. The first thought is always: Thank God they are here, today.

The bitterness and the disappointment, that many British Jews feel today towards the Labour Party, is what we experienced 40 years ago, and the peak was exactly at that time: Rome, 9 October 1982. And so, if you ask me whether we should trust an orange-haired American President, who seems to be able to persuade the main sponsors of Palestinian terrorism to spend their money elsewhere; or the leaders of that European Left who, some decades ago were more on the side of Palestinian murderers than on the side of the Jews and of the Israelis, I have no doubt: whatever comes from the American president seems more reasonable and doable than whatever comes from the friends of Hezbollah, Hamas or Yasser Arafat, may his name be forgotten.

The Torah portions we read during these weeks narrate the foundational event of the history of the Jewish people: the exodus from Egypt. As everybody knows, the Israelites had to go through the desert before reaching the Land of Israel and becoming free. Why is the desert needed to conquer freedom? I mean: God is Omnipotent, why didn’t He choose to liberate the Jews in any other way? Like overthrowing Pharaoh, and putting Moses in his place? Why did the Israelites have to wander through the desert?

The reason is that they had to get rid of Egyptian culture, of Egyptian ideology and of Egyptian mentality. In the contemporary world, this is equivalent to shutting up the media, the news report, the Internet… all the sources of information that want us to believe that the Jewish State cannot live in peace with its neighbours unless all the requests of the Palestinians are met.

Unfortunately, this is the message from the media. Israel must give up, the Palestinians must receive, however, whatever Israel gives up, it will never be enough. But we do not have to listen to the media and to the monotonous, eternal blaming of Israel. In my own personal desert, walking towards the Land of Israel, this time I choose to trust the American President. And hope for the best.

Brighton & Hove Reform Synagogue, 1 February 2020