April 16, 2011 03:28 PM  

The tragic, senseless and deplorable murder in Gaza of an Italian pro-Palestinian activist by Salafist militants represents a significant blow to Hamas, which promotes its thorough control over the strip, and will as well harm international efforts to help the isolated enclave – which, in the end, will only wind up further escalating the suffering of the beleaguered residents of Gaza.

The victim was 36-year-old Vittorio Arrigoni, who had for years championed the Palestinian cause and had lived in Gaza since 2009. Despite such worthy credentials, the murderers of the Tawhid and Jihad movement kidnapped Arrigoni Thursday and apparently killed him the same day, said the physician who performed the autopsy. Hamas police found the corpse Friday.

The criminals evidently hung Arrigoni by a plastic cord, despite making a video with the Italian in which they gave Hamas a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday to release their leader from prison. Arrigoni had written a friend in Italy earlier in the week that he was planning to leave Gaza Thursday.

Hamas says it arrested a suspect, but no one should be taken in by any Hamas statements that the organization is not familiar with the splinter group that claimed responsibility in the video. Gaza is a tiny enclave, and Hamas always stresses that it maintains full control over the blockaded territory; whether that still holds true, Hamas is certainly aware of the armed Salafist gangs operating in Gaza. Simply put, there is no excuse for Hamas not to crack down on the kind of extremists who will do nothing but destroy the cause of the Palestinian people.

Worse yet, Israel will also take full advantage of the killing to denounce Gaza, Hamas and by extension all Palestinians as being bloodthirsty radicals undeserving of any concessions. Israel had just received a major boost in its position vis-a-vis Gaza when after South African judge Richard Goldstone’s retraction of his harshest criticisms of the Israeli assault on Gaza at the end of 2008 and early 2009, and now attention will focus on Palestinian barbarity rather than a balanced examination of Goldstone’s flip-flop.

In the end, Arrigoni’s tragic death will severely hurt foreign efforts to aid Gaza. Arrigoni had written for an Italian newspaper and kept a blog in English about the suffering of the Gazan people; in a YouTube video he claimed pride in fighting occupation the way his grandparents had fought the Nazi occupation of Italy.

After his murder, however, how many such activists, even with motives as genuine and such dynamic fervor, will risk a similar fate to remain in Gaza and assist the Palestinian cause? Sympathy for the people of Gaza, cut off from the world, had spiked after Israel’s bloody raid last May on a flotilla trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza. But after aberrant Palestinian Islamists kill one of those most committed to helping them, initiatives to relieve the asphyxiation of Gaza will only suffer as well.