{"id":6253,"date":"2011-04-23T08:37:13","date_gmt":"2011-04-23T04:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=6253"},"modified":"2011-04-27T14:01:27","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T10:01:27","slug":"stay-human-vik-arrigonis-simple-powerful-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/stay-human-vik-arrigonis-simple-powerful-message\/","title":{"rendered":"Vik Arrigoni’s Simple, Powerful Message"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDear Mary,\u201d wrote Italian justice activist Vittorio Arrigoni to a friend. \u201cDo you\u00a0(know who) will be on the boats?… I\u2019m still in Gaza, waiting for you. I will be at\u00a0the boat to greet you. Stay human. Vik.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMary\u201d is Mary Hughes Thompson, a dedicated activist who braved the high seas to\u00a0break the Israeli siege on Gaza in 2008.\u00a0Vittorio Arrigoni, or Vik, was reportedly murdered by a fundamentalist group in\u00a0Gaza, a few hours after he was kidnapped on Thursday, April 14. The killing was\u00a0supposedly in retaliation for Hamas\u2019 crackdown on this group\u2019s members. All who knew\u00a0Vik will attest to the fact that he was an extraordinary person, a model of\u00a0compassion, solidarity and humanity.<\/p>\n

Arrigoni\u2019s body was discovered in an abandoned house hours after he was kidnapped.\u00a0His murderers didn\u2019t honor their own deadline of thirty hours. The group, known as\u00a0the Tawhid and Jihad, is one of the fringe groups known in Gaza as the Salafis. They\u00a0resurface under different names and manifestations, for specific \u2013 and often bloody\u00a0– purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe killing prompted grief in Gaza, but also despair,\u201d read an op-ed in the UK\u00a0Independent on April 16. \u201cNot only was Arrigoni well known and well liked there, but\u00a0it escaped no one that this kidnapping was the first since that of the BBC\u00a0journalist Alan Johnson in 2007.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0However, Johnson\u2019s kidnappers, the so-called Army of Islam (a small group of\u00a0fanatics affiliated with a large Gaza clan) held their hostage for 114 days. There\u00a0was plenty of time to organize and pressure the criminals to release him. In\u00a0Arrigoni\u2019s case, merely few hours stood between the release of a horrifying video\u00a0showing a blindfolded and bruised activist, and the finding of his motionless body.<\/p>\n

The forensic report said that he was strangled. His friends said that he was\u00a0tortured.\u00a0Vittorio Arrigoni\u2019s murder was an opportunity for Israel\u2019s supporters. Most\u00a0notorious amongst them was Daniel Pipes. He wrote, in a brief entry in the National\u00a0Review Online: \u201cNote the pattern of Palestinians who murder the groupies and\u00a0apologists who join them to aid in their dream of eliminating Israel.\u201d Pipes named\u00a0three individuals, including the Palestinian-Israeli filmmaker, Juliano Mer-Khamis,\u00a0and Arrigoni himself, and then proceeded to invite readers to \u201csend in further\u00a0examples that I may have missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pipes\u2019 list, however, will have no space for such names as Rachel Corrie, Tom\u00a0Hurndall and James Miller, for these individuals were all murdered by Israeli\u00a0forces. Pipes will also fail to mention the nine Turkish activists murdered aboar\u00a0the Mavi Marmara ship on its way to break the siege on Gaza in May 2010, and the\u00a0nine activists abroad Irene (the Jewish Boat to Gaza) who were intercepted,\u00a0kidnapped and humiliated by Israeli troops before being deported outside the country\u00a0in September 2010.\u00a0 82-year-old Reuben Moscowitz, a Holocaust survivor, was one ofthe activists aboard the Irene, as was Lillian Rosengarten, an American \u201cwho fled\u00a0the Nazis as a child in Frankfurt,\u201d according to a New York Times blog.<\/p>\n

The people Pipes failed to mention truly represent a rainbow of humanity. Men and\u00a0women of all ages, races and nationalities have stood and will continue to stand on\u00a0the side of the Palestinians.\u00a0But this story is selectively ignored of pseudo-intellectuals, intent on dismissing\u00a0humanity to uphold Israel. They refuse to see the patterns in front of them, as they\u00a0are too busy concocting their own.<\/p>\n

Writing in UK Guardian from Rome, on April 15, John Hooper said, \u201cArrigoni’s life\u00a0was anything but safe. In September 2008 he was injured (by Israeli troops)\u00a0accompanying Palestinian fishermen at sea. Two years ago he received a death threat\u00a0from a US far-right website that provided any would-be killers with a photo and\u00a0details of distinguishing physical traits, such as a tattoo on his shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group that murdered Arrigoni, like others of its kind, existed for one specific,\u00a0violent episode before disappearing altogether. The mission in this case was to kill\u00a0an International Solidarity Movement activist who dedicated years of his life to\u00a0Palestine. Shortly before he was kidnapped, he wrote in this website of the\u00a0\u201ccriminal\u201d Israeli siege on Gaza. He also mourned the four impoverished Palestinians\u00a0who died in a tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt boarder while hauling food and other\u00a0goods.<\/p>\n

Before his murder, Arrigoni was anticipating the arrival of another flotilla \u2013\u00a0carrying activists from 25 countries boarding 15 ships \u2013 that is scheduled to sail\u00a0to Gaza in May. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adamantly called on EU\u00a0countries to prevent their nationals from jointing the boats. \u201cI think it’s in your\u00a0and our common interest\u2026that this flotilla must be stopped,\u201d he told European\u00a0representatives in Jerusalem, according to an AFP report, April 11.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials are angry at the internationals who are \u2018de-legitimizing\u2019 the\u00a0state of Israel by standing in solidarity with the Palestinians. Arrigoni has done\u00a0so much to harm the carefully fabricated image of Israel as an island of democracy\u00a0and progress. Along with other activists, he has shattered this myth through simple\u00a0means of communication.<\/p>\n

Vik signed his messages with \u201cStay human\u201d. His book, detailing his experiences in\u00a0Gaza, was entitled Restiamo Umani (Let Us Remain Human). Mary Hughes Thompson shared\u00a0with me some the emails Arrigoni sent her. \u201cI can hardly bear to read them again,\u201d\u00a0she wrote. This is an extract from one of them:\u00a0\u201cNo matter how (we) will finish the mission\u2026it will be a victory. For human rights,\u00a0for freedom. If the siege will not (be) physically broken, it will break the siege\u00a0of the indifference, the abandonment. And you know very well what this gesture is\u00a0important for the people of Gaza. That said, obviously we are waiting at the port!<\/p>\n

With hundreds of Palestinians and ISM comrades we will come to meet you sailing, as\u00a0was the first time, remember? All available boats will sail to Gaza to greet you.\u00a0Sorry for my bad English\u2026big hug\u2026Stay Human. Yours, Vik\u201d<\/p>\n

Vik\u2019s killers failed to see his humanity. But many of us will always remember, and\u00a0we will continue trying to \u201cstay human\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAMZY BAROUD: Grief and despair have been the overwhelming emotions felt by those who knew Vik Arrigoni. He has, however, left us an enduring message. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":6254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,83,60],"tags":[5089,2064,2275,6445,18300,1104,18278,278,227,2597,18311,2557,726,1879,584,1253,18297,1747,2204,1601,3581,2546,18302,6152],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}