Giorgia Meloni is the reasonably intelligent current Prime Minister of Italy. She is the head of the right-wing party Fratelli d’Italia (“Brothers of Italy,” which is also the title of the national anthem, known as the “Inno di Mameli” after its composer). Meloni recognizes the menace to her country — its economic, political, and social wellbeing — of masses of Muslim migrants, though not in the impassioned way that the late Oriana Fallaci did, or that the Egyptian-born convert to Christianity, the journalist and writer Magdi Allam, does. She famously declared that “Islam has no place in Europe.” Now she has come out with a strange notion: that it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine that led Hamas to invade Israel on October 7. More on her view can be found here: “Hamas’s massacre only happened because of Russia’s war on Ukraine – Italian PM,” Jerusalem Post, February 24, 2024:
Hamas’s massacre of Israelis on October 7 is a consequence of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told Milan-based newspaper Il Giornale in a Saturday [Feb. 24] interview.
Meloni, asked whether she feared tensions across the globe were leading to World War Three, answered: “What I think is that if Russia had not invaded Ukraine, in all likelihood Hamas would not have launched such an attack against Israel.
According to the Italian prime minister, “It was inevitable that such a serious violation of the international system based on law, moreover at the hands of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, would have cascading consequences on other areas and quadrants of the world….[like] the Middle East….
Is she right? Did Hamas invade Israel only because it saw how Russia invaded Ukraine with impunity? I think Meloni is forgetting that Hamas has been preparing for just such a terrorist push from Gaza into Israel for many years, building a vast network of tunnels deep under Gaza, some 350-500 miles in total length, and averaging 50 meters in depth, and accumulating huge stockpiles of weapons smuggled in from Egypt. This attack by Hamas was going to take place no matter what happened in Russia and Ukraine. Nor was the timing of the attack connected to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hamas was impelled to attack because of its perception of deep divisions within Israeli society. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis had been demonstrating for months over the proposed judicial reforms. These protests took place all over the country; some demanded that Netanyahu resign and the government fall; there was even talk by some Israelis of “civil war.” Hamas mistook the heated rhetoric coming from opposing groups in Israel as a sign of inner collapse, and chose October 7 to rush into the country, slaughtering men, women, and children. Hamas never expected the people of Israel would immediately come together, that 360,000 reservists showing up as one for duty, and the country of Israel became again united as it had not been since the 1967 war.
“Without a prolonged ceasefire and a solution for the hostages, it is not possible to relaunch the political perspective of two peoples and two states,” Meloni declared. On Saturday, a new and updated outline for a deal to release the 132 remaining Gaza hostages was reportedly reached in a meeting in Paris between the representatives of the United States, Israel, Egypt, and Qatar.
Meloni seems to think that a ceasefire leading to the release of the hostages is desirable because only thus can the “two peoples for two states” outcome be possible. It’s too bad that she still thinks in those deceptive terms. The “two peoples” involved are not the Jews and the Palestinians, but the Jews and the Arabs, and the Arab people already have 22 states. Should the tiny Jewish state be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea, so that a twenty-third Arab state can be created? The Palestinians and their supporters have tried to convince the world, and have had, alas, great success, that there is a separate “Palestinian” people. Too many have forgotten, and very few ever understood, that the notion of the “Palestinians” as a separate people only began to circulate in the mid-to-late 1960s, as part of a propaganda effort suggested to the Palestinians by the KGB. Instead of a vast Arab gang-up on a single tiny Jewish state, which was how most of the world had — accurately — viewed the conflict before 1964, it was now presented to the world as a struggle between the powerful Jewish state and the much weaker “Palestinians, ” whose land the Jews had stolen and now occupied.
The prime minister also argued that Israel’s increasing “isolation in Western public opinion” was the result of Israel’s harsh reaction to the October 7 massacre.
Meloni surely knows that the media coverage in the West, and not Israel’s actual behavior, has been responsible for what she describes as Israel’s “isolation.” The IDF has managed, while fighting in a densely-populated urban environment, where Hamas has embedded its weapons and fighters in and among civilian areas and buildings, to keep down the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths, that in Gaza now stands at 4:3, an unheard-of number. For comparison, consider that the UN has stated that in all the wars since World War II, the average civilian-to-combatant death ratio has been 9:1. In Afghanistan, the Americans and British managed to get it down to 4:1, and in Iraq the Americans did even better, attaining a 3:1 ratio. But no country has ever come close to the 4:3 ratio of civilian-to-combat deaths that the IDF has managed to achieve in the Gaza War. No wonder British Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British forces in Afghanistan, has claimed that the IDF ”is the most moral army in the world.”
How did Israel do this? It is the policy of the IDF to warn enemy civilians away from areas, and from specific buildings, that are about to be targeted by Israeli forces. So far in Gaza, the IDF has dropped 14 million leaflets, made one million prerecorded calls, and 72,000 personal calls, all to warn Gazans to get out of harm’s way. And they did: when Israel dropped six million leaflets at the beginning of the war on northern Gaza, 900,000 Gazans left the north and moved, as the Israelis had advised, south of the Wadi Gaza. Later, at a different stage of the war, when the IDF warned civilians to leave central Gaza and to head to Rafah in the south, they followed that advice as well. Now Israel, making clear that in a few weeks, likely before the start of Ramadan, will attack Hamas in Rafah, is trying to carve out areas where the people now in Rafah can move to, and stay safe.
somehistory says
hamas would have attacked at some point. The Russian thing has been going on for quite some time without the ghouls making the Oct thing happen sooner.
If hamas believed that the *invasion* of Ukraine was license to slaughter a lot of innocent Jews and they didn’t believe that before, then okay. Perhaps the time in between the two events could be blamed on lack of concrete planning or waiting for the U.S. to expend all of its military might first. (sending it all to Ukraine, having none to send to Israel)
However, mozlums have been taught from day one, and each mozlum’s ‘day one,’ that the Jews are fair game, and they have the right and the mandate to kill them “wherever they may be found.” hamas was just getting its evil vultures in a row.
There is a huge melt-down of society, world-wide. (see the words of the Apostle Peter). The Bible prophecies foretold it. Things are going to get much worse before they are made better.
libertyORdeath says
She’s not TOTALLY wrong.
American and Western WEAKNESS, combined with the depletion of our weapons, ammo and OIL reserves certainly played a part in the decision to strike.
DECADES of weakness will have horrific consequences. This in ONLY the beginning!
STJOHNOFGRAFTON says
After plenty of warnings, NATO and the US got reckless enough to poke the bear, resulting in the Ukraine conflict, a proxy war on drip-feed which relentlessly gobbles up young lives on both sides. Despicably, that is the usual collateral damage from war. But follow the money trail. It leads to the Biden crime family, Russian oligarchs and ultimately the biggest player, BlackRock who will make zillions from the clean-up and re-building of the Ukraine.
gravenimage says
How is opposing Putin’s invading his unthreatening neighbor Ukraine NATO and the US “poking the bear”? Ukraine was not poised to join NATO, and NATO has never threatened Russia, in any case.
Putin didn’t invade Ukraine because she was a NATO member, but because she *wasn’t*, and hence he considered her to be weak.
gravenimage says
Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, Claims Russian Invasion Prompted Hamas’ Attack
…………………………………
I don’t think this notion is all that strange. Do I think this was the *only* reason Hamas invaded Israel on October 7? Of course not. But Russia is an ally of Iran, which backs Hamas, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been an inspiration to numerous thugs thinking about invading their neighbors, including Hamas re Israel and China re Taiwan. (Of course, this has also served as a cautionary tale to some).
abu taleb says
Seems most polticians are stupid, or liars. Or both.