The post published on the profile of the Young Palestinians in Italy, who announced a demonstration in Rome in support of the Palestinian people, caused too little discussion in relation to its scope. Not bad, a pro-Pal demonstration as we have seen so many in recent months, peaceful or violent. The relevant fact is that the demonstration was organised in view of the first anniversary of 7 October 2023, the day on which Hamas again decided to escalate the conflict against Israel. It was the day of the so-called ‘Al-Aqsa flood’, as the Hamas militiamen renamed it: on that day, the terrorists decided to go outside the borders of Gaza and attacked Israel by surprise, first hitting a concert attended especially by young and very young people, and then spreading to the neighbouring kibbutzim, where even the killing of babies was documented. About 1,200 people lost their lives and another 250 were kidnapped by the militiamen. Just a few hours ago, news came that some of these young people had been killed and their bodies found in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip, a fact that reminded us, once again, that the real enemy of the Palestinian people are the Hamas terrorists. “Two States two peoples,” said Senate President Ignazio La Russa in remembering the victims, “is the only solution to put an end to conflict and death, and the international community must continue to work in this direction. Israel has the rightto exist, a right that many, unfortunately also in Italy, continue to want to deny‘.
The announcement
Here, the Young Palestinians certainly fit into this line-up, who, without ever condemning the actions of Hamas, organised a demonstration precisely in honour of that day: ‘One year of resistance, one year of genocide. 7 October 2023 is the date of a revolution‘, they wrote on social media, adding that ‘after one year, the value of the Palestinian resistance operation and the battle of the “Flood of Al Aqsa” is clear to the whole world’. The demonstration that has been called will therefore be an undisguised way of hailing that tragedy, consumed to the detriment of the Jewish state whose legitimacy, its right to exist, too many do not want to recognise. For this reason, the Young Palestinians have announced that “on 5 October 2024 we will take to the streets of Rome for a national demonstration, to support the Palestinian people and their national liberation movement, to honour the more than forty thousand martyrs of Gaza and its fighters who have been fighting without respite for a year, to honour all of Palestine that resists and rises up against the invader and its colonial state“.
Reactions
The news passed almost unnoticed and, during the day yesterday, there were few reactions. From the left, of course, there is latitude in taking a position. The ambiguities, in fact, are still many: the fear is that by openly siding against Hamas and asking for moderation, one could lose many of the votes of entire ranks, just like those of the Young Palestinians; and so one prefers not to speak. From Fratelli d’Italia, on the other hand, there was indignation at the fact: ‘I feel horror,’ said Giovanni Donzelli, deputy of Fratelli d’Italia and in charge of the party’s organisation, ‘at the mere hypothesis of a demonstration in Italy to celebrate the anniversary of the 7 October massacre. It was not a revolution, but a cowardly terrorist crime‘. Giulio Terzi, a senator from Fratelli d’Italia, was also in the same vein. He defined the Young Palestinians’ post as ‘atrocious and unspeakable’: it is ‘a shameful eulogy of a massacre that demonstrates how the education to hatred widespread in the Palestinian territories is now being exported in a wicked way even abroad in an extremely dangerous manner. An incitement to hatred that, like all the calls for the intifada, exalts genocidal violence and contempt for life, and which – concluded the senator – can find neither space nor justification in our free and democratic society‘.