From Mr M. Degiorgio

I refer to the letter titled “Sheer hypocrisy” by Joe Scicluna of Pietà TMIS, 20 August). Unlike certain people one finds in local extreme-right circles with which Mr Scicluna seems familiar, I do not go round with a band on my wrist with an inscription “white pride worldwide”, nor do I use the Celtic cross, which is neo-Nazism’s favourite symbol as my computer avatar on hate-spreading forums such as Lowell’s vivamalta.com that among other things promotes aggressive anti-Semitism.

To such people, even taking a neutral stand in the Lebanon-Israel conflict is unthinkable because the only way they see it is that “the Jews” must be blamed for everything that goes wrong all over the world. ANR’s position on the Middle East is neutral but being neutral does not mean turning one’s head the other way when seeing unbridled, one-sided, vicious attacks by certain Maltese politicians and opinion-makers against both the State of Israel and the Jewish people. All ANR did was to raise public awareness that the latest Middle East crises was started by the Lebanese and thus Israel had a right to defend itself, that even Jewish civilians, including children were dying. Unlike Mr Scicluna and many other people, we are not only sorry for the Lebanese civilian casualties, we are also sorry for the Israeli ones because they too are human beings.

Mr Scicluna accuses me of hypocrisy because ANR is strongly in favour of the proposed Constitutional amendment that will make abortion very difficult to introduce in the future, but claims that we condone the “attacks that are murdering civilians and innocent children”, referring to the Lebanese children. I remind Mr Scicluna that ANR is driven by Christian values, therefore we do not condone any form of killing whether it is an unborn child, an Arab, a Jew or an African illegal immigrant. Perhaps Mr Scicluna should reflect on hypocrisy since from his letter it is very clear he is sticking up for those same people that would shoot illegal immigrants at sea and call for the destruction of Israel. Such people, yes, should be jailed because they are nothing more than vulgar criminals who deserve no sympathy whatsoever.

Martin Degiorgio

Chief spokesman for ANR