U.S.-based international neo-Nazi group of white supremacists has posted a list of “influential” Italian Jews to its website, the World Jewish Congress warned last week.
The list on the Italian-language gateway of the “Stormfront” forum website included journalists, businesspeople, politicians, artists and others.
Italian leaders expressed anger and solidarity with the Jewish community after the list – dubbed a “blacklist of hate” by Italian media – appeared on the Internet.
Nicola Zingaretti, president of the Province of Rome, issued a statement saying the list “reminds us of the most shameful page in our history when, based on similar lists, thousands of Italians were expelled from schools, universities and workplaces and were deprived of citizenship and persecuted.”
Some 1,200 Italian websites that feature anti-Semitic content currently exist on the Internet, according to Italy's leading research center on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center.
CJDC spokesperson Michele Sarfatti pointed out, however, “It is very difficult to intervene when the sites have their servers in other countries.”
Gianni Alemanno, Mayor of Rome, expressed “shame and anger,” railing at the authors of the list, who he said were “ignorant and racist cowards.”
Italian lawmaker Enrico Gasbarra called on the European Union to enact legislation that would “put an end, once and for all, to the possibility of using the Net as a tool of violence and persecution.”
According to statistics quoted on the forum's homepage, there have been more than 7.8 million posts, in over 607,500 threads in the site's discussion area. The organization boasts 214,597 members. Within a recent 24-hour period, 2,472 guests had visited the site.
'Mostly American Lists Also'
A visit to the website's English-language area by Israel National News revealed discussions by members who appeared not to know much about the list of influential Italian Jews.
“On review, it appears to be mostly American,” remarked one, referring to a link that led to the “Jew Traitors Master List” which included members of the Obama and Bush administrations who were either Jewish, or appeared as though they might be.
“Giffords almost got scratched from the list … by one of her own tribe might I add,” remarked another forum member, Desertfox63.
The name at the heaf of the “Jew Traitors Master List” was that of former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, listed as the “son of a Zionist terrorist.” Emanuel is posted to run as a candidate in the race for mayor of Chicago.
Links to other, similar lists of Jewish members of the Bush and Clinton administrations were posted to the site as well.
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