(ANSA) – ROME, JAN 22 – Italian Jewish actor, musician and playwright Moni Ovadia sparked a row Tuesday night by saying at a Holocaust Remembrance Day at Massa Carrara that the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 were “fully legitimate”.
“The crimes, if there were any, will be judged, the truth about October 7 will come out but already today we know that 400 civilians were victims of friendly fire, Israeli, because the military had orders to shoot at anything that moved”, said the 78-year-old Bulgarian born poetic cantor of Eastern European Jewish culture, and especially its Yiddishkeit core.
Ovadia’s comments provoked immediate dismay and outrage and the mayor of nearby Pontremoli, Jacopo Maria Ferri of the centre-right post Berlusconi Forza Italia party removed his tricolour mayoral sash and stalked out of the ceremony before it ended, later denouncing “an obsessive, delirious and even foul-mouthed speech in front of schoolchildren, a violent speech, both in terms and in the construction of the reasoning”.
The President of the Massa Carrara Province Gianni Lorenzetti declared that “Ovadia will take responsibility for what he said”.
Ovadia, who spoke last after the institutional representatives, also said about Palestine and Israel that “it is the right and duty of an occupied people to rebel against the occupiers.
“If crimes against humanity were perpetrated within that legitimate action, they will be judged, “but the action as such was perfectly legitimate. “The taking of hostages is considered a crime against humanity and will be judged, there was the killing of civilians but we have not had any independent investigation”.
Furthermore, “there was talk of rapes, there is not a single proof!”, he said raising his voice.
“As a Jew I say that the extermination of my people cannot be used to justify the extermination of the Palestinian people. It will be a catastrophe for Israel”, while it is “our duty today to bow before the great majesty of the Palestinian people”.
Ovadia praised “the great capacity for resistance of the Palestinian people, who have suffered every form of violence”.
Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in their attacks, widely condemned as horrific.
Israel has killed, according to Hamas, over 47,000 in Gaza in a retaliation that has been widely condemned as being disproportionate and indiscriminate.
Tel Aviv says it takes all care to avert collateral damage but stresses it is very hard to do that given how strongly the Islamist militants are bedded down into the civilian fabric of Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. (ANSA).
Read article…
“The crimes, if there were any, will be judged, the truth about October 7 will come out but already today we know that 400 civilians were victims of friendly fire, Israeli, because the military had orders to shoot at anything that moved”, said the 78-year-old Bulgarian born poetic cantor of Eastern European Jewish culture, and especially its Yiddishkeit core.
Ovadia’s comments provoked immediate dismay and outrage and the mayor of nearby Pontremoli, Jacopo Maria Ferri of the centre-right post Berlusconi Forza Italia party removed his tricolour mayoral sash and stalked out of the ceremony before it ended, later denouncing “an obsessive, delirious and even foul-mouthed speech in front of schoolchildren, a violent speech, both in terms and in the construction of the reasoning”.
The President of the Massa Carrara Province Gianni Lorenzetti declared that “Ovadia will take responsibility for what he said”.
Ovadia, who spoke last after the institutional representatives, also said about Palestine and Israel that “it is the right and duty of an occupied people to rebel against the occupiers.
“If crimes against humanity were perpetrated within that legitimate action, they will be judged, “but the action as such was perfectly legitimate. “The taking of hostages is considered a crime against humanity and will be judged, there was the killing of civilians but we have not had any independent investigation”.
Furthermore, “there was talk of rapes, there is not a single proof!”, he said raising his voice.
“As a Jew I say that the extermination of my people cannot be used to justify the extermination of the Palestinian people. It will be a catastrophe for Israel”, while it is “our duty today to bow before the great majesty of the Palestinian people”.
Ovadia praised “the great capacity for resistance of the Palestinian people, who have suffered every form of violence”.
Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in their attacks, widely condemned as horrific.
Israel has killed, according to Hamas, over 47,000 in Gaza in a retaliation that has been widely condemned as being disproportionate and indiscriminate.
Tel Aviv says it takes all care to avert collateral damage but stresses it is very hard to do that given how strongly the Islamist militants are bedded down into the civilian fabric of Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. (ANSA).
Read article…
