Arrigoni's Murder Trial in Gaza:
Answers Not Just a Verdict -- Vittorio Utopia Arrigoni:
''History is us'
23 August 2012
By Ramzy Baroud
There was once a young man from a very small Italian
town called Bulciago who wished to change the world.
As soon as he finished his exams, he began his quest.
He travelled near and far, and when he arrived in
Jerusalem in 2002, he knew he had found his calling.
In 2008, that young man, Vittorio Arrigoni, sailed the
high seas on a small boat. His purpose was to help end
the siege imposed on a long-suffering population
living in the tiny Gaza Strip. In a journal entry that
was recently published in a much anticipated book,
Freedom Sailors, Arrigoni wrote:
"History is us; History is not cowardly governments;
with their loyalty to whoever has the strongest
military; History is made by ordinary people."
Vittorio's history sees ‘ordinary people' as actors
who can change the world: courageous sailors who can
challenge great military powers, doctors dashing
through borders and saving lives, writers, teachers,
speakers, musicians and people from all backgrounds.
Vittorio's middle name was Utopia, but his was hardly
a utopian undertaking. It was very much real, and
Vittorio was himself charting the way for others. Once
in Gaza, he was determined to see his mission through
to the very end, despite having many compelling
reasons to leave. In September 2008, he was injured by
the Israeli navy as he accompanied Palestinian
fishermen in Gaza's territorial waters. A month later
he was arrested – or more likely, kidnapped – by the
Israeli military, and subsequently deported. A month
later he returned, just in time to report on the
so-called Operation Cast Lead. This was a one-sided
war on Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009,
following the failure of the siege to achieve Israel's
political objectives. The 22-day war killed over 1,400
people and wounded thousands more.
Vittorio was there to witness it all. As many turned
the war off and on through their remote controls,
Vittorio was accompanying ambulances in middle of the
night, comforting the wounded, weeping with the
bereaved, calling on the world to help, and surviving
the war himself.
He sent daily dispatches to Italian media, blogged on
his website and wrote to friends the world over. His
book, Restiamo Umani (Stay Human) offers a glimpse
into the courageous man's experiences. In his first
entry, he wrote as an Italian activist. By the end, he
was a Palestinian man besieged in Gaza.
In the eyes of some, he was dangerous. A US-based
far-right website called for his murder. It was not
Vittorio the person that alarmed Israel, but the
notion of what he and others like him symbolized – a
challenge to the predictability of a conflict between
a powerful oppressor and a powerless but defiant
oppressed. As far as Israel was concerned, an idealist
from a northern Italian town had no business being in
Gaza, where people are indefinitely caged in an open
air prison. Neither Vittorio nor any other
international activist was supposed to disturb the
inhumane experiment.
Yet, Vittorio's story had a most unexpected twist. On
April, 2011, he was kidnapped and murdered. His
murderers were Palestinians from Gaza, commanded by a
mysterious Jordanian character whose origins and
motives remain unclear. It was a horrifying,
anti-climactic end to a story that was never intended
to turn so wrong.
It took Palestinian society a long time to reconcile
with the fact that Vittorio's murderers were in fact
Gazans, while others gloated with triumph. Vittorio's
very detractors were leading a media war defaming
Palestinians, international activists and the
supposedly misguided Italian who believed that the
ordinary can change history.
Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, historian Geoffrey
Alderman stated: "Few events - not even the execution
of Osama bin Laden - have caused me greater pleasure
in recent weeks than news of the death of the Italian
so-called 'peace activist' Vittorio Arrigoni" (as
quoted in View from Jerusalem with Harriet Sherwood on
May 18, 2011). While Sherwood found the comments
‘shocking', pleasure at the killing of a peace
activist is fully consistent with Israel's ceaseless
efforts at ‘discouraging' international activists from
showing solidarity to Palestinians.
Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since the
breakup with rival Fatah in 2007, seemed genuine in
its attempt to capture Vittorio's killers. An
investigation quickly pointed at Salafi groups, Tawhid
and Jihad, Army of Islam and others. A manhunt
followed, leading to the killing of a Jordanian
citizen, Abbad a-Rahman al-Brizat, and Palestinian
refugee, Balal al-Omari. Others were captured, and in
September 2011, a trial began.
The trial of Vittorio's alleged killers has not
exactly been a model of transparency. On September 4,
a verdict is scheduled to be handed down to four men
accused of involvement in the murder. Al-Brizat, the
Jordanian man, was perhaps the most important key in
the trial. He is gone now, and allegations that his
true aim was to exchange Vittorio for an imprisoned
Salafi leader, Hisham al-Saedni remain unverified.
Just eleven days before Vittorio's murder, another
activist, JulianoMer-Khamis, was murdered in Jenin, in
the West Bank. The timing of the killings is puzzling
and suggests a larger plot. Hamas and other
Palestinian officials suggested hidden Israeli hands
in both the vile acts, but the thread is yet to be
found and unraveled.
Earlier this month, Hamas freed al-Maqdissi – the man
the supposed Jihadists wanted to free - citing lack of
evidence. A few days later, following the murder of
Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, it cracked down on his
group. The plot here starts to thicken beyond the
ability of any straightforward narrative to explain
all the missing links.
On September 4, four men will be awaiting the verdict
of a Gaza military court. But much more will be on
trial that day, not least the credibility of Gaza's
legal system. Many questions will need to be answered
to truly understand what is transpiring in the Gaza
Strip, and who is behind the hidden agendas.
The killing of Vittorio was intended to not only kill
him as a person. It was also meant to destroy the very
idea that sailed with him and his friends to Gaza in
2008: that ordinary people are history and that they,
and only they, will eventually make the difference in
a world ruled by sheer interests and military might.
Yes, justice for Vittorio Utopia Arrigoni is
paramount, but we expect the Gaza government to hand
down more than a verdict, but answers to those trying
to kill Vittorio's dream – along with our humanity.
- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net)
is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the
editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is
My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold
Story (Pluto Press, London.)
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