Jews not welcome in the Arab spring
You will recall the story of David Gerbi, the Libyan-born Italian Jew who so loved his homeland that in the aftermath of Gadhafi's fall he wanted to return to Libya and re-establish the Jewish community there.Gerbi may love Libya, but Libya - or at least its current residents - do not love him or any other Jew. And so, after an angry protest calling for his deportation, Gerbi will voluntarily return to Italy.
A few hundred angry protesters gathered in central Tripoli on the eve of Yom Kippur on Friday, calling for the deportation of a Libyan Jew who has been trying to reopen a synagogue sealed since ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi expelled the country’s Jewish community in 1967.Gerbi (at least says he) blames Gadhafi for his former countrymen's anti-Semitism.
The protesters carried signs reading, “There is no place for the Jews in Libya,” and “We don’t have a place for Zionism.”
The crowds tried to storm Italian Libyan Jewish psychoanalyst David Gerbi’s Corinthia Hotel in central Tripoli. There was also a demonstration in Benghazi in the east of the country.
According to Gerbi, the crowd wanted to forcibly remove him from the hotel.
“They were impeded by hotel and Libyan security and government officials,” he said.
Gerbi said that National Security Adviser Abdel Karim Bazama, rebel leader Mustafa Saghezli, Interior Minister Ahmed Dharat and Justice Minister Muhammad Allaghi were among the government officials present at the hotel.
“The Tripoli crowd dispersed after Allaghi warned that any use of force on the part of the protesters would immediately result in strong international condemnation,” Gerbi said.
“He [Allaghi] reassured them the ‘problem’ would be resolved within 48 hours.”
“I want to contribute to, not obstruct, the building of a new democratic and pluralistic Libya. It is sad and absurd that my mere presence in Libya, should set off so much hostility and I regret this,” Gerbi said.Whether it's Gadhafi's or Mubarak's or Assad's or Ben Ali's doing, the fact remains that most of the people of Libya and Egypt and Syria and Tunisia are deeply anti-Semitic, and there is little or no prospect of their changing anytime soon. In some respects, Jews and Israel might have been better off with the former, strongman rulers, who would keep the anti-Semitic impulses at least somewhat in check. The Arab spring is not for us.
“However,” he continued, “what happened reveals the extent of Gaddafi’s anti-Semitic conditioning of an entire generation, those in their forties and fifties. Forty-two years of lies, of hate propaganda falsely accusing Jews of having been paid off to abandon the country in 1967, of having robbed Palestinians of their homes and of planning to colonize Libya.”
“Fortunately, the older generation still recalls warm friendships with former Jewish neighbors,” Gerbi said, “and I will continue to work to restore a 2,300-year-old coexistence and advocate active roles in the NTC for Libyan Jews, for the Libyan Amazigh population, for women and all ethnic and religious minorities.”
On Sunday, after a personal meeting with Libyan and Italian diplomatic representatives, he agreed to return to Rome on Tuesday by military plane in order to ease the tension.
Gerbi said the Italian ambassador in Tripoli claimed that the controversy over his actions was strengthening the extremist wing of Islam in the current internal war in Libya between extremist and more moderate, liberal Muslim forces.
Gerbi had been told he was “complicating matters,” that “the time is not ripe for such actions” and that his security was endangered. In addition, his attempt to clean out the garbage littering the synagogue was defined as “breaking into an archaeological site without permission,” for which he received a police summons.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Arab spring, David Gerbi, Libyan regime change
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:28 AM
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