An activist with the International Solidarity Movement—the anti-Israel group that regularly holds protests against the Israel “occupation”—has been taken hostage by the Islamist terrorist organization A-Tawheed wal Jihad. The group is reportedly threatening to execute the activist unless Hamas releases several prisoners:
The kidnappers belong to A-Tawheed wal Jihad, a terror group of the Salafist Muslim stream. They have released a video showing Arrigoni bruised, tied and blindfolded, and text scrolling across the screen “threatens that he will die unless Hamas releases Salafist prisoners by 5 p.m. Friday.
As you can imagine, the video is quite disturbing. The kidnapped activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, is apparently a blogger for Guerilla Radio as well as the Communist newspaper Il Manifesto. His writing about Israel is all over the web (although most of it is in Italian).
The political views of the International Solidarity Movement are wildly misguided, and its goals are to damage, if not to destroy, the Jewish state. Obviously, that does absolutely nothing to diminish the hideousness of Arrigoni’s kidnapping. Over the past year, 14 foreigners have been taken hostage in Gaza. All of them have been released quickly, and let’s pray that happens again in this case.
