I can say nothing as to the reliability of the information provided here, but there are a lot of footnotes and links, and it certainly appears to be extremely well documented: very little comments or rants. Unfortunately I don't know Italian, which most of the site is in.

I am putting this article up in several instalments, as it is quite long - bear with me and skip if you find it boring.


Abdul Rahman T.

...................


( http://www.ifrance.com/amipalazzi/gb/palazzi05_gb.htm)


Palazzi, the Pope and Israel

Abdul Hadi Massimo Palazzi today presents himself as a pro-Israeli Muslim. "Pro" Israeli should be understood quite literally: not in the sense of somebody who believes in peaceful relations in the Holy Land, but a person who claims that the entire areas should be ruled by the Jews only; that the native inhabitants do not exist, and if they do, they should obey their rulers in silence or allow themselves to be driven out. Indeed, he actually issued a fatwa condemning the Intifada and "ordering" the Palestinians to accept their fate without complaining.

On a website of English-speaking admirers of Palazzi, we can read the following:

"Israel belongs to the Jews - because Allah gave that land to them - why, because the Philistines won't act like decent human beings - and only decent humans deserve their own country. If the Philistines don't like it, they should just find somewhere else to live. Except no other country on earth wants to have them because they are not acting like decent human beings. And Kashmir belongs to the Indians - for the same reasons."

This fantastically racist explanation of the Middle Eastern conflict was not penned by Palazzi personally. However, the authors of the website proudly quote Palazzi's words, which are virtually the same, but add the curious picture of impoverished Palestinians running the world advertising business.

Here is what Palazzi himself writes:

There is no such thing as a 'Palestinian.' There never was. It is a PR fiction, a Madison Avenue fantasy. There is no 'intifada,' El Aksa or otherwise. There is a Philistine Authority Pogrom, both against Jews and Arabs, by Arafat and his thugs. The main victims are the resident Arabs themselves. There is actually one reference in the Qur'an to the Palestinian People - and that is the Philistines".

Palazzi's pro-Zionism recently led him to call Kofi Annan a "neo-Nazi" for having criticized Israel's policies [1].

Indeed, Palazzi also issued a kind of "fatwa" against the Pope, guilty of having made an appeal for peace in the Holy Land. In fact, on December 13, Palazzi issued a proclamation on the "senile ravings of Karol Wojtyla":

"As far as we are concerned, unless the Pope withdraws his raving and obscene analysis of the Middle Eastern situation, unless he explicity condemns the terrorists and does not express in an equally explicit manner his solidarity with the victims of terrorism (instead of putting victims and assassins on the same level), we have no interest whatsoever in dialogue with a Pope like this."

Not exactly the words of a "moderate"; but this manifesto does give one an amusing picture of how important this small Roman religious entrepeneur feels himself to be.

Hatred for the Catholic Church is a constant element in Palazzi's writings. A recent post from his very prolific and grossly worded mailing list called some well-known pacifists "Neo-Nazi priests" [2]; the Franciscan friar, Father Jaeger, a convert from Judaism, was called an "anti-Semite"[3] and Catholic priest Jean-Marie Benjamin a "neo-Nazi sympathizer".

This makes it a little surprising to see Palazzi occasionally presenting himself as a promoter of "inter-religious dialogue".

His pro-Israel stance has made Palazzi popular on the right, in the USA and in Israel, though not in Italy. Nobody, they say, is a prophet in his own country; perhaps simply because people of the right and the Jewish community in Italy know Palazzi only too well. And also know how Palazzi became the favourite Muslim for many Israeli hardliners.



FOOTNOTES

[1] From: Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community Date: Mon Sep 3, 2001 3:35 pm
Subject: A Message for the Neo-Nazi Kofi Annan

[2] Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 12:06:03 +0200
To:  islamsunnita@domeus.it
From: Istituto Culturale della Comunità Islamica Italiana
Subject: Gino Strada a braccetto coi preti neonazisti!

[3] From: Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community
To:
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 11:26 AM
Subject: Un messaggio che per errore avevamo scritto ma non inviato

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