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“Europe's pathetic clown” — Yitzhak Laor on Berlusconi's anti-semitism

Tamar Shlaim 7 October 2010

Yitzhak Laor's latest article for Ha'aretz takes aim at Berlusconi's anti-semitism and Italy's racism, and argues that Israel should look to Spain and Germany for a model of how to embrace heterogeneity.

Once again, Europe's pathetic clown, Silvio Berlusconi, has delivered a tasteless joke, proving how little dignity is left in Italian politics. This time, the joke involved anti-Semitic motifs and made light of Holocaust victims.

But as far as Israel's government is concerned, Berlusconi can rest easy with his orgies and his demagogic speeches. And he can always be counted on to supply the latter, as he did on Europe's Holocaust Day in 2009, when he stated: "Anti-Semitic laws [instituted under Mussolini] are still perceived as a deep wound inflicted not only on the Jewish community, but on Italy's entire society, which suddenly lost part of its history" (La Stampa, January 29, 2009 ).

Visit Ha'aretz to read the article in full.

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