Fiamma Nirenstein

Fiamma Nirenstein (born 18 December 1945 in Florence) is an Italian-Israeli journalist, author and politician. In 2008 she was elected to the Italian Parliament for Silvio Berlusconi's The People of Freedom party and she served as Vice President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies for the length of the legislature, ending in March 2013. On 26 May 2013 she went to Israel (made Aliyah).[1] In 2015, Nirenstein was nominated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the future ambassador to Italy, but subsequently withdrew for what she stated were personal reasons. She is Senior Fellow of Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and currently works there, at the Israeli-based think-tank of JPCA. She is moreover a leading columnist for the Italian daily Il Giornale and contributes articles in English to the Jewish News Syndicate. She is also on the Board of ISGAP[2] and of the WJC.[3]

Fiamma Nirenstein.

She lives now in Jerusalem with frequent visits to Italy.

Background

Nirenstein's father, Alberto Nirenstein, came to Italy as part of the Jewish brigade. There he met his future wife Wanda Lattes, who was a partisan in the resistance. She grew up in a Florentine Jewish family with different political views.[4] She began to alter her views after the Six Day War, when Israel conquered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and she found herself in disagreement with her communist friends, who considered that Israel had become an occupying power.[4] During the Six Day War, she was in Kibbutz Neot Mordechai, in northern Israel.[5] Though he signed a protest against Israel's war in Lebanon, her views have since changed since, she suggests, Israel has gained nothing from its withdrawal from that country.[4] In 1993 and 1994 Nirenstein directed the Cultural Institute of the Italian Embassy in Tel Aviv.[4]

Political career

In Italy

Silvio Berlusconi and his ally, Gianfranco Fini, the former leader of Alleanza Nazionale, Italy's conservative party, invited Nirenstein to become a candidate for their joint list Il Partito della Liberta ("The Party of Liberty") for the April 2008 national elections. During her campaign for a seat in Liguria, she did not talk at rallies about local issues, but rather concentrated on expounding her belief that Israel was in the vanguard of Western democracies in the battle against Islamic terrorism. In her view, the most important thing for Italians in grasping their national identity was to stand by the side of Israel.[lower-alpha 1][4] In general, through her political career, Nirenstein aimed to contribute to an anti-terrorist, pro-Israeli and Atlantic Alliance, which advocated the values of the culture of human rights.[6]

Elected Member of the Italian Parliament, she served as Vice President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies for the entire XVIth legislature, ending in March 2013. She was also a member of the Italian delegation to the Council of Europe, where she represented Italy in the Network for the fight against violence on children. Nirenstein also established and chaired the Committee for the Inquiry into Antisemitism of the Italian Parliament. During her parliamentary activity, she had a particular focus on Israel, human rights, international controversies, democratization in the Middle East and awareness of Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Among the most significant activities during her parliamentary activity there are the letter to the Ambassador of Syria in Italy, Khaddur Hasan, to stop the repression of the Assad regime, signed by 50 parliamentarians belonging to all political groups and various parlamentary questions including the question to the Foreign Affairs Committee of May 4, 2011 on the ongoing repression in Syria.[7]

Professional career as journalist and writer

Nirenstein is an expert of the Middle East conflicts, terrorism, anti-Semitism, human rights and her activities deals with the great changes that are taking place within the Middle East democratization process. The pivotal focus and underlying idea that runs through all Fiamma Nirenstein's work is the fight against totalitarianism and terrorism as connected to antisemitism and hate for Israel.

Journalism

Nirenstein is a leading columnist for the conservative Italian daily "Il Giornale". From 1991 to 2006, she has been correspondent from Israel for "La Stampa" daily and the Berlusconi-owned "Panorama" weekly.

She is the author of thirteen books in Italian and seven in English.[8] In Italy, Nirenstein has introduced and prefaced Bernard Lewis, Natan Sharansky and Ruthie Blum. She has been granted over twenty awards for her literary and journalistic activity.

Nirenstein started her career in 1977 and has been a columnist and correspondent for all major Italian magazines (Panorama; l'Espresso; Epoca). Nirenstein contributed to The New York Sun, to the Commentary magazine and has written for the Moment magazine.

Some of Nirenstein's work has been published in four American anthologies. Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias" (Regency Publishing, 2002, pp. 200–206) quotes her extensively for the view she writes well about the phenomenon of terrorism. A piece she wrote on the 9/11 disaster for Commentary magazine the day after the attack to explain the mentality of terrorists was subsequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal.[9]

Fiamma Nirenstein has produced many documentaries for the Italian TV, the last by the title of "Settlers", about the disengagement from Gaza seen from the perspective of the settlers themselves. In 2006 she conceived and conducted a program on foreign affairs, "Ore diciotto/Mondo", on channel RAI 2. Radio Radicale has interviewed here for its "Il medio Oriente visto da Gerusalemme" program.[10]

She has interviewed Rajiv Gandhi and met Deng Xiaoping, protagonists of the anti-communist regimes revolutions of the '80s, and in the area of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, Arafat, Sharon and Netanyahu.

Work at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA)

Fiamma Nirenstein began a working relationship with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli-based think-tank, in the late-2000s. Nirenstein's interests largely focus on European-Israeli relations, anti-Semitism, and sociological studies of terrorism.[11] Nirenstein served both as an editor and contributor for her most recent publication, Lessons from Israel's Response to Terrorism. Within the publication, Nirenstein authored an article entitled "Resilience, the Israeli People's Weapon against Terror". In the essay, Nirenstein argues that Israelis have a unique culture built upon resilience which makes the country particularly strong in responding to terrorism.[12]

In 2016, Nirenstein participated in an interview at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on the subject of European Anti-Semitism. Among the subjects discussed include the history of anti-Semitism in Europe and its contemporary manifestations, particularly in what Nirenstein terms "Israelphobia".

One of her works produced while at the Israeli think-tank was Israel is Us: A Journalist's Odyssey in Understanding the Middle East. According to the organization's website, Nirenstein confesses the publication's premise is 'very simple': "Israel, contrary to commonly accepted propaganda, is a positive model, a case study for anyone who finds himself living in a democratic society that must eventually confront a defensive war- one that encompasses the entire universe of Western democracy today.”[13]

Nirenstein continues to work at the think-tank.

Other publications

Nirenstein's writings have also appeared, among other websites, on the Times of Israel and the Gatestone Institute. Since 2007, she has also maintained her own personal website on which she publishes material in English and Italian. Today she is columnist for the Jewish News Syndicate.[14]

Later political career

In August 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu designated Nirenstein to become Israel's ambassador to Italy. The initial reaction by the Jewish community of Rome was uneven, in fact after some negative reactions that emerged among the Italian Jewish community after the nomination, numerous reactions and declarations in favor of Nirenstein arrived from both Italy and Israel.[15][16][17][18] Subsequently, Nirenstein withdrew from the offer for what she stated were personal reasons. Some press sources said the decision was related to her having called Sara Netanyahu a 'babau' in 1996,[19][20][21] but other news sources confirmed that the decision to withdraw was for personal reasons.[22]

Internationally

On June 29, 2011, Nirenstein was unanimously elected chairperson of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP),[23] an organization that brings together Jewish legislators, parliamentarians and government ministers from around the world.

In the same year, she established a center on Foreign Policy, "SUMMIT - for the dialogue between Europe and Middle East, human rights and democracy", with which she organized tens of events and conferences.

Nirenstein is a Selection Committee Member of the Genesis Prize, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and of the Gatestone Institute, as well as a member of the Advisory Board of Ngo-Monitor and a board member of the European Friends of Israel (EFI).[24] She is also one of the six founding members of the steering committee of the Interparliamentary Coalition on Combating Antisemitism (ICCA), and in the Board of the Friends of Israel Initiative, established on 2010 by former Prime Minister of Spain José María Aznar. She is also a Board member of the "Talmud Project", a major initiative, sponsored by the Italian government, to translate the Babylonian Talmud into Italian.

Nirenstein has been dedicating a great effort in voicing for Muslim dissidents. In December 2007 she promoted and organized in Rome the international conference "Fighting for Democracy in the Islamic World", which was the continuation of the great Prague conference on dissidents, promoted by Natan Sharansky, Václav Havel and José María Aznar in June the same year.

Fight against Antisemitism and anti-Zionism

Fiamma Nirenstein has discussed antisemitism, anti-Zionism and the left. She has been official speaker in a variety of conferences on antisemitism, among them, the world forum of OCSE in Berlin about antisemitism, the Boston Conference on "antisemitism, the press and Europe" (2004), "Multiculturalism, the left and antisemitism" during the 2006 international symposium of the Vidal Sassoon Center (SICSA) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the 2014 SICSA international symposium, she raised the issue of fighting what she deemed to be "Israelophobia" as a means of beating contemporary antisemitism.

Political awards

  • On 16 December 2009 Nirenstein, together with the other members of the ICCA steering committee, was awarded by the Israeli Knesset for her commitment in the fight against Antisemitism.
  • On April 2011, she was awarded in New York by CAMERA, together with José Maria Aznar and John Bolton, for her activity as "Friend of Israel".[25]
  • In June 2011, Nirenstein was included in the Jerusalem Post list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world, headed by Mark Zuckerberg.

In an interview with Haaretz, Nirenstein stated that her country of origin, Italy, had much to learn about democracy from Israel. She also made the following assertions:-

  • "Every Jew in the world is an Israeli even if he's not aware of it. Anyone who doesn't know it is making a big mistake."[4]
  • "...morally speaking, there mustn't be negotiations with Hamas, which thinks that Jews are the sons of monkeys and pigs. You can't negotiate with cannibals, who eat human beings."[4]
  • "I'm not saying that all Muslims are terrorists, or that all Muslims are criminals. But Hamas has announced that it wants to conquer Rome, to make it the outpost from which it will conquer all of Europe.".[4]

Bibliography

  • Il Califfo e l'Ayatollah, (2015) Mondadori
  • A Gerusalemme (2012) The history of Jerusalem through the eyes of twenty years of journalistic work
  • Israele Siamo Noi (2007) On the State of Israel as archetype for a liberal democracy at war with terror. - Translated into English: Israel is us - a personal odyssey to a journalist's understanding of the Middle East, JCPA ed., 2009
  • La Sabbia di Gaza (2006) On the Israeli disengagement from Gaza.
  • Terror: The New Anti-Semitism and the War Against the West (2005) An English-language selection of various articles.
  • Gli Antisemiti Progressisti (2004) A look at the new anti-Semitism.
  • Islam, la guerra e la speranza (2003) An interview with Bernard Lewis.
  • L'Abbandono, come l'Occidente ha tradito gli ebrei (2002). A book that argues the West has betrayed the Jewish people.
  • Un solo Dio, tre verità (2001).(One god, three truths)
  • Come le cinque dita di una mano – una famiglia di ebrei da Firenze a Gerusalemme (1998) Written with her family.
  • Israele: una pace in guerra (1996)(Israel, at peace in war)
  • Il Razzista Democratico (1990).(The Democratic racist)

Notes

  1. Her campaign was centered on the view that Israel is Western democracy's vanguard in the struggle against world terror. Liguria district. I held rallies in Genoa and other cities in the region," she recounts. "But I didn't talk with the people about local problems. I told them that the most important thing for their Italian identity is to stand by Israel's side

References

  1. "The reasons for my Aliyah - Fiamma Nirenstein Home page".
  2. "Fiamma Nirenstein 2020 Senior Research Fellow". ISGAP (in Italian).
  3. "Fiamma Nirenstein at the WJC Governing Board". WJC (in Italian). September 1, 2010.
  4. Meron Rapaport, 'The Israeli ‘Settler’ Serving in Italy’s Parliament,' Haaretz 17 April 2008
  5. Nirenstein, Fiamma (October 27, 2003). "Il nuovo antisemitismo" (in Italian).
  6. Nirenstein, Fiamma (March 12, 2008). "I perchè della mia scelta". fiammanirenstein.com (in Italian).
  7. Redazione di Roma Ebraica (May 27, 2013). "Fiamma lascia l'Italia. Il saluto commosso della Comunità alla paladina dei diritti e d'Israele". informazionecorretta.com (in Italian).
  8. Nirenstein, Fiamma. "Biography". fiammanirenstein.com.
  9. "The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page: Sept. 12, 2001". Wall Street Journal. September 12, 2001.
  10. Reanda, Giovanna (November 27, 2020). "Il Medio Oriente visto da Gerusalemme". Radio Radicale (in Italian).
  11. "Fiamma Nirenstein | Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs". Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
  12. "Resilience, the Israeli People's Weapon against Terror, Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs". Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
  13. "Israel Is Us". Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
  14. "jns writer Fiamma Nirenstein". JNS Jewish News Syndicate.
  15. "Nessun veto su Nirenstein". Moked (in Italian). September 16, 2015.
  16. "Gli ebrei d'Italia e il nuovo ambasciatore di Israele, ritrovare il senso della diplomazia". La Repubblica (in Italian). September 13, 2015.
  17. Laras, Giuseppe (April 29, 2016). ""La verità va sempre detta, perseguita e ribadita"". Imolaoggi.it (in Italian).
  18. Ferrero, Bernardino (September 15, 2015). "Nirenstein ambasciatrice, fioccano i sì da Israele e dall'Italia". L'Occidentale (in Italian).
  19. ANSA,'Fiamma Nirenstein rinuncia a incarico di ambasciatore di Israele a Roma,' Huffington Post 5 October 2015.
  20. Judy Maltz (17 August 2015). "New Diaspora Ministry Initiative Could Open Israel's Gates to Millions of non-Jews With Jewish Links". Haaretz. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  21. "Campagnuccia contro Fiamma Nirenstein". Il Foglio (in Italian). April 22, 2016.
  22. "Ambasciatrice di Israele a Roma: Fiamma Nirenstein rinuncia all'incarico". La Repubblica (in Italian). May 10, 2016.
  23. "ICJP".
  24. "CAMERA Honors Fiamma Nirenstein".
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