YNETNEWS reports that an Italian law student and peace activist was stabbed and killed in Jerusalem:
Angelo Frammartino, a 24 year-old [law] student from Italy who arrived in Israel as a human rights organization activist, was stabbed to death Thursday by an Arab knifeman.
"He believed in what he did and was always ready to help others," a friend described him.
The website of Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported that Frammartino was working for the setting up of a children's supper camp for Palestinians in Jerusalem's Old City, and was supposed to return to Italy on Friday.
The youth was stabbed in the back while walking with four friends in the Sultan Suleiman street in the capital, near the Prahim Gate.
The attacker left the knife at the scene of the crime and fled. Police set up checkpoints in the area and arrested three suspects for suspected involvement.
It is believed that the attack was . . . not an attempted robbery. . . .
Frammartino was a law student. "He was very interested in politics and in the issues of society, like his father," said [his hometown] Mayor, Anonino Lopi. "Something so beautiful ended in such a tragic way," he added.
In a letter sent a few months ago to a local newspaper, Angelo expressed his world view:
"We must recognize that in a situation with no violence is a luxury in many parts of the world, but we are not seeking to prevent legitimate self defense operations. I never dreamt of condemning the resistance, the blood of the Vietnamese, the blood of nations under colonial occupation, or the blood of Palestinian youths from the first intifada."
Poignant--and like so many deaths in the Middle East today--very sad.
The term "peace activist" usually denotes anti-Western, and anti-Israeli sympathies. They only seem to get involved when Israel or the U.S. is involved. Why is that? Where were they during the Iran-Iraq war? Where are they in the various African conflicts right now?
As George Orwell said during WWII, "Pascificsm is objectively pro-fascist."
That's pretty sick. There's certainly nothing in the article to imply that he deserved to be stabbed to death, even if you disagree with his politics. Do you also think that US army personnel who either allowed or engaged in torture in Iraq and elsewhere should be forcibly sodomized? Of maybe Rumsfeld should be put though a human shredder for his support of Saddam in the 80's?
And Anon252, the guy who gotten eaten by bears, Treadwell, was not an "environmental activist" in any meaningful sense of the term. He was a failed actor and wacko who thought that could leave in harmony with bears. Clearly a deluded idiot but not an environmental activist. Or is you point supposed to be that all Arabs in Israel are brutal unpredictable killing machines?
You'd have to know more about him to know whether his death was sad?
I think there might be a typo there.
1. Would Justin et alia be more sympathetic to the victim if he had been organizing summer camps for Israeli kids?
2. Would they be more sympathetic if he were an Israeli citizen and a member of Likud?
3. Would they be more sympathetic if he were an Israeli citizen and a member of Labor?
4. Would they be more sympathetic if he were a Christian pilgrim visiting the holy sites?
And lastly, why should there be any difference in the answers to all these questions?
Kevin, he was stabbed to death for being a non-muslim in a muslim neighborhood. It was a hate crime. That's the only motivation for the islamic fascists.
And we still have to search the shoes of 85 year old women at airports lest we offend the delicate sensibilities of these haters.
Says the "Dog"
On a base level, searching an 85 year old woman at the airport is ridiculous, but a random search policy is a good thing. While there are wasteful searches, such as children and the elderly, if TSA failed to search everyone, terrorist organizations would soon try to target those populations. While it is unlikely, that muslim groups like Al Qaeda will gain a following among the WASP population, they only need one, see John Walker Lindh.
The random search policy has the same general logic as to why the U.S. should not adopt strict deadlings for troop withdrawls from Iraq. If we leave Iraq asap, the terroists will conserve their resources and bide their time until we leave. Similarly, if terrorist organizations know that only people of arabic decent will be searched, they will shift
their recruiting resources elsewhere Such goes the market of terrorism.
Additionally, not all terrorists are Arabs. If we fail to screen all non arab participants, other white, asian, hispanic groups will have an incentive to strike.
Your comment is pretty irresponsible, since it plays on human emotion and not on logic. Most people, including myself, agree with your very specific statement, but people need to understand good policies are not perfect and sometimes have negative externalities. By playing on "stupid people's" emotions, policies such as these will always be misunderstood.
Its a matter of allocating scarce resources. Yes there should be some random searches for some of the reasons you state. However, there should be extensive heightened scrutiny of every middle eastern muslim male between the ages of 16 and 30. Since right now all resources are being split over purely randomized searches and scrutiny we are wasting far too much on segments of the population that are not likely to yield positive results.
Put it in statistical terms. Right now 100% of the terror attacks on airlines have been perpetrated by muslim males between the ages of 16 and 30. 0% have been committed by white women over 40. 0% have been committed by white males over 40. Therefore a rational allocation of limited resources for searches and inspections would deliberately concentrate a majority of these resources on middle eastern muslim males between the ages of 16 and 30. The next largest percent of resources should be spent on middle eastern muslim males and women over the ages of 30 and only what is left over from that should be spent on purely random searches and scrutiny of the remainder of the population.
The allocation of these scarce resources for searching can be adjusted over time if intelligence operations indicate the islamic fascists have been successful at recruiting 80 year old white grandmothers for suicide missions.
The only irresponsibility is in your comment and attitude supporting political correctness over effective law enforcement and effective self defense. I can think of nothing more stupid and nothing advocated more strongly by stupid people than those who advocate the best application of limited resources is 100% to random scrutiny of the entire air traveling public, when it is a plain rational fact that 100% of all airline terrorist attacks going back at least to 1993 have been planed and executed by middle eastern muslim males or muslim males with direct lineage from the middle east.
Good policies may not be perfect and may have negative externalities, but insane and irrational policies maintained for the sake of political correctness have far greater negative externalities and are promoted by a group of people far more stupid than those promoting a rational statistics based approach to targeting limited investigative resources at airports.
Says the "Dog"
What support it was an irrational hate crime by an islamic fascist with a 7th century 5th grade education??
Lets see if we can reason this out together. A pro palestinian anti-Israeli italian white male is in a muslim neighborhood to provide volunteer relief work to aid and comfort the poor down trodden palestinian Jew haters. He obviously wasn't targeted by this muslim fascist because of his political beliefs and support of the zionist oppression of the palestinian people. Then the article said robbery was ruled out as a motive, and the knife was left at the seen. Probably still in the victim's chest reminiscent of the Van Gogh murder in the Netherlands. Then combine all this knowledge with the fact that this guy is a white Italian foreigner sticking out like a sore thumb in the neighborhoods frequented by the fascist islamic haters, and bingo only a [epithet deleted by Moderator] wouldn't be able to deduce the exact nature and motivation of this criminal act.
That's the support. Its called having a mind and actually using it for something more than brownie points from your local NEA union anti-american anti-israeli teacher.
Says the "Dog"
Justin,
I don't know. Did I say you should trust the belief?
Did you notice that I edited out that belief from the sentence I quoted from the original story? I offered it only because people were speculating in the comments about motive, instead of viewing it as a tragedy in any event.
Did you notice that when the question of motive was raised (and to be helpful I reported the interpretation provided by the reporter who covered the story), I added my own qualifier not in the original story, calling the belief "speculative"?
Will you try to be just the least bit fair in your comments to me?
Jim Lindgren
Less talking, more thinking. Yedioth Ahronoth is not "right wing," let alone "hard core right-winged," except compared to the standards of the Grauniad, perhaps. It's a centrist paper.
It appears that no evidence short of a signed confession would be enough for these people.
This is a remarkably strange and gratuitous comment. Anal rape is completely off-topic. What is your purpose in suggesting such an attack on our military?
Now explain to me why I have a right to return to a place I've never been; more right than those who lived on that land for generations. Explain to me your defense of this parody of affirmative action as a need for Lebensraum.
"As George Orwell said during WWII, "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist."
I'd say that's Hezbollah's argument, yes.
No memory accept your own. No history except what your parents told you. "We are our only context": a complete lack of intellectual seriousness.
Israel has almost succeeded in doing what the Germans and the rest of Europe failed to do: destroy Jewish culture [in the name of racial purity]
Well, because it's one of the acts that there is unfortunately footage of our soldiers forcing prisoners in Iraq to perform on each other. And "sodomy" covers a wider range of acts than those involving the anus, by the way.
More importantly, I of course DON'T think that our soldiers should be subjected to this (and I have many family members who have proudly served in the military). That would be absurd. Just as absurd as suggesting that a person who has sympathetic feelings towards Palestinians deserves to be stabbed to death by them, i.e. the claim I was responding to.
But seriously folks. If you follow the news from Jerusalem closely, you'll know that attempted and occaisionally successful knife attacks by Arabs around the Old City are common.
"Dog," you should change your tagline to "Says the Troll." Even the semi-coherent points you make are diluted by the stupid chest-thumping efforts at Limbaughesque humor. Shouldn't you be practicing onanism to pictures of Ann Coulter somewhere else?
I however am neither tyring to immitate or worship any other person or commentator. I'm just saying it like it is and keeping it real, so don't get all up in this and think it will cause my aura to change colors man. I'm just speaking truth to power, and I haven't even been given a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise (yet).
Says the "Dog"
Apparently none you recognize as such or understand as such.
Not my problem.
Says the "Dog"
1. I (Justin Levine), am not the same as the other poster who simply identifies himself as "Justin". "Justin" only speaks for himself. (Does trademark law apply to the names of blog posters by any chance?)
2. Shangui - I never said that this person "deserved" to be killed. I simply said that I don't have sympathy over his death, unless I am convinced that he is not the kind of "peace activist" that uses that label as a cover for anti-Western, anti-Israeli and even anti-Semitic thought). But since that is what the majority of the "peace" movement has morphed into - I think the burden of proof should be with his supporters. Anon252 had it right - "bitter irony" is an apt way to put it (and I too see paralells with this case and the Timothy Treadwell "Grizzly Man" case.)
3. Te - "You have to know more about him to know whether his death was sad?" Of course I do. If he is in favor of Islamic fascists wiping out Israel, then why should I should I be sad over his death? If your resposne is that he is simply a "peace actvist" and doesn't necessarily support Islamic fascism, then you obviously didn't understand my first post and I suspect that no amount of further explanation will make you understand.
4. Erasmussimo - It would not matter what nationality/religion the "peace activist" is/was. What is important is that he be able to demonsrate that his "activism" was not singly directed towards helping only those who come from an Islamic-fascist/anti-Western culture, while conveniently refusing to help Western-style countries (including Israel). He would also have to demonstrate that his activities were not used as a PR ploy to put political pressure on pro-Western forces. Given the state of the "peace movement" today, I merely claim that such activists now have the burden of proof to show as such. I hardly think this is an outrageous demand given the fact that the peace movement is now pro-fascist (How else whould you describe Cindy Sheehan for example?).
Asking someone to have the same amount of sympathy for the death of someone who champions freedom and liberty versus someone who champions Islamic-fascism is simply bizarre. But alas, that seems to be the state of the world today. It's the 1930's all over again. I suspect that this "peace activist" is the Charles Lindburgh of the new era.
But again, let me emphasize that if I am given proof that this man was a true (and rare) peace activist in the sense that he worked to stop the killing by those who started it (meaning, the Islamic-fascists) and is not simply an anti-Western tool, then I will be very sad indeed and say my own eulogy for him.
For those who take issue with my comments, I'd be surious to know your reaction to Orwell's essay that I linked to in my first post. Was he wrong? COuld Hitler have been stopped if people simply linked hands in Washington and demanded an end to the killing?
As I was the first to raise the question, I must say that speculation would lead me to believe that this is quite likely a hate crime as well. But that certainly doesn't exclude other posibilities, even ruling out robbery as a motive, people get stabbed on urban streets like this all over the world, virtually every day. And in only a fraction of those cases is terror the motive.