ITALIAN MUSLIM LEADER URGES DEBATE ON ANTI-SEMITISM VS. ANTI-ISRAELI VIEWS

Corriere della Sera website, Milan
25 Aug 06

Text of interview with Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations
in Italy (UCOII) spokesman Roberto Hamza Piccardo by ‘V. Pic.’, in
Rome, date not given, entitled "Spokesman Piccardo: ‘I am not signing:
It is not an unrepeatable event, ask the Armenians’", published by
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera website on 25 August; first
paragraph is the newspaper’s own introduction:

Rome: But will the UCOII [Union of Islamic Communities and
Organizations in Italy] sign [Interior] Minister [Giuliano] Amato’s
Charter of Values that specifies the uniqueness and non-repeatability
of the Holocaust? Roberto Hamza Piccardo, spokesman of the UCOII,
is uncertain. And he gives a hint of a bitter smile: "You would have
to ask the Armenians that. Maybe they think differently."

[Corriere della Sera] So?

[Piccardo] So one cannot take Nazism as a watershed.

[Corriere della Sera] Why?

[Piccardo] Because the Holocaust is not unique or non-repeatable. I
wish it were. Mankind, unfortunately, has stained itself with appalling
tragedies throughout its history. Ever since Cain killed his brother
Abel. There was the extermination of the Apaches, that of the American
Indian populations, of the black people. "Of the 20 million who died
in Russia during World War II, 18 million died of hunger, because the
Germans were requisitioning food to send to the labour camps. What does
it mean to sign that this never happened and will never happen again?

[Corriere della Sera] You would not sign?

[Piccardo] I, Hamza Piccardo, no. Unless… [ellipsis as published]

[Corriere della Sera] Unless what?

[Piccardo] Unless it were not just a hope. But it would mean thinking
that mankind has understood. Instead, that is not the case.

[Corriere della Sera] Would you sign a charter against anti-Semitism?

[Piccardo] Yes, but then we would have to debate.

[Corriere della Sera] About what?

[Piccardo] Whether those who criticize the state of Israel, as we
have done, albeit in a wrong way, are also anti-Semitic. We are not
angry with the Jews, unless one wants to say that the state of Israel
represents all the Jews.

And that is not the case.

[Corriere della Sera] They say you are among those who want to erase
it from the map.

[Piccardo] I would like it to be a democratic state. Where
Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, atheists can live. Without religious
characteristics. Instead, it is in the hands of a military lobby that
draws its strength from war.

[Corriere della Sera] The Jewish Community Union did not propose your
expulsion. Do you appreciate that?

[Piccardo] We are touched.

[Corriere della Sera] The mayor of Colle Val d’Elsa declared yesterday
that if you are expelled from the Council, the construction of the
biggest Islamic centre in Italy is at risk.

[Piccardo] They caught him by surprise.

[Corriere della Sera] The Shi’is are also asking to join the Council.

[Piccardo] Of course, why not? Given that among the members there are
also those who, up until a short time ago, busied themselves only
with bridge. But why is the Muslim community not allowed to elect
its own representatives? Even those who are not from our association
would vote for UCOII. For that reason we make people afraid. And for
that reason they attack us.