Mussolini

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 11:54 AM

Subject: Mussolini's Granddaughter

The article errs in its heading because she is Mussolini's granddaughter. She lived for a while in Los Angeles trying to further her acting career, but the Jews were not buying. Now she has performed this rather revolting volte face in the hopes of furthering her political aspirations.

Mussolini's Daughter Says World Should 'Beg Forgiveness' From Israel
Julie Stahl
Jerusalem Bureau Chief

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - The granddaughter of Italy's World War II dictator, Benito Mussolini, said the whole world should "beg forgiveness" from Israel.

Alessandra Mussolini is a member of parliament in the National Alliance party, which is headed by Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini, who is currently in Israel on a four-day official visit.

Fini, in a 1994 interview with the Italian paper La Stamp a, touted dictator Mussolini as "the greatest statesman of the century," but he has since withdrawn those comments.

Fini, who visited the Yad V'Shem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem on Monday, has said he plans to ask forgiveness of the Jewish people while he is in Israel.

Alessandra, who has in the past praised her grandfather, has also softened.

"Not only Gianfranco Fini, but the entire world, including the Vatican and the pope, should beg forgiveness of Israel," Alessandra was quoted as saying in an interview in the daily Ha'aretz .

Fini's party was once a neo-fascist faction but has shifted directions in recent years. Some predict that Fini will be Italy's next prime minister.

Fini's visit follows Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to Rome last week where he met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is also the current head of the European Union .

Berlusconi and Fini are two of the few European leaders who support Israel's construction of a security barrier, which has caused some friction between Israel and Washington.

Berlusconi and Fini have both strongly denounced anti-Semitism in Europe, particularly the findings of a recent EU poll, in which 59 percent of respondents said they believed Israel is a threat to world peace, ahead of Iran and North Korea.

In related Italian development, politicians, priests, nuns and others joined Italy's small Jewish community for Sabbath services in synagogues across the country on Saturday in a show of solidarity following the suicide terrorist attacks on two synagogues last week in Istanbul.

Mussolini wasn't that bad, says Berlusconi

[ABC Radio News, 18 September: Berlusconi apologises to Italian Jews who claim it's not enough]

John Hooper in Rome

Friday September 12, 2003

The Guardian

Even some of Silvio Berlusconi's own supporters and allies were last night

squirming with embarrassment at their leader's latest extraordinary gaffe.

In an interview published yesterday by the Spectator, Italy's prime

minister appeared to defend the actions of his country's fascist dictator,

Benito Mussolini.

"Mussolini never killed anyone," the magazine quoted him saying.

"Mussolini sent people on holiday to confine them [banishment to small

islands such as Ponza and Maddalena which are now plush resorts]."

Italy's fascist leader ordered the brutal 1935-36 occupation of Ethiopia,

led Italy into the second world war and headed a Nazi puppet government

which rounded up and dispatched Italian Jews to Hitler's concentration

camps.

Coming from a prime minister who relies heavily on the hard right,

"post-fascist" National Alliance, Mr Berlusconi's comments touched a

hyper-sensitive nerve in a country whose postwar democracy was founded on

an anti-fascist consensus. It raised for the first time since his return to

power two years ago the issue of how long his more moderate allies can

afford to support him without losing their credibility.

There was a near-apoplectic reaction from the leftwing opposition. Senator

Cesare Salvi, of the formerly communist Democratic Left, called Mr

Berlusconi's remarks "genuinely disgraceful". He said Mussolini's victims

"cried out for vengeance".

Some of Mr Berlusconi's supporters defended his remark, expressed in the

context of a comparison with Saddam Hussein.

One leading member of his party tried to excuse it on the grounds that it

was not an "official phrase". But others made no attempt to hide their

dismay.

"I don't want to believe that the prime minister made the comments on

fascism reported by the news agencies," said Giorgio La Malfa, leader of

the small Republican party, which backs Mr Berlusconi's government.

"The fascist dictatorship was a ferocious one that killed and lethally

wounded its leading political opponents."

In a further, clear rebuke to the prime minister, Luca Volonté,

parliamentary leader of the Christian Democrat Union, an important

component of Mr Berlusconi's governing coalition, said: "Anti-fascism is a

value that unites. It unites the majority [in parliament]. It unites the

government with the opposition. It unites the country. To split over that

which unites is senseless."

The head of Italy's Jewish community, Amos Luzzatto, said he was "not

surprised. Just saddened".

The prime minister's comment appeared in the second set of extracts from an

interview which had already caused sparks to fly last week.

In the first part, Mr Berlusconi was quoted as saying that Italy's judges

were "mentally disturbed" and "anthropologically different" from other

people.

But it was also the latest in a long line of intensely controversial

remarks from a leader who only this week declared that he had no intention

of being "politically correct".

In July, he opened a bitter rift with Berlin by telling a German MEP he

reminded him of a concentration camp guard.

Mussolini's biographer, Dennis Mack Smith, said the Italian fascist leader

was not a murderer on the scale of Hitler or Stalin but "had absolutely no

compunction in having people killed".