Today’s strike has a more political color than ever before. After Salvini’s measure attempt was blocked by the TAR, Italian Jewish communities also intervened and dragged the protest day into controversy. Noemi di Segni lashed out at the USB union’s decision to include genocide of the Palestinian people (which, according to the UN, is defined as “consistent with Israel’s methods of warfare”) among the reasons for the strike.
The President of the Union of Jewish Communities said, “If, as citizens, we understand the reasons for the strike despite all the negativities, as citizens of this country, we emphasize once again that the strike is not a square where hate and distortion slogans are shouted.” The Italian (Ucei) then raised the alarm about the risk of antisemitism.
“Shock and awe”: Accusations of support for Palestine
“We were astonished to read that among the reasons for the strike called today and supported by TAR, ‘support for the genocidal Israeli government, as well as against Italy’s increasing intervention in the battlefields of the East.’ turning it into a field ripe for exploitation and distortion that sows hatred,” Di Segni condemned.
“The concept is: Is the Israel-genocide combination fashionable and attracting attention? Let’s also use this as a union for any claim,” he continues. “And it does not matter that these horrors have been witnessed in recent days in the Middle East and other parts of the world. We insist not only on stigmatizing the habitual abuse of constitutional rights and basic means for the protection of workers’ rights, moreover through a municipal corporation, but also on Israel’s European democracies for the right to defend itself and to encourage ongoing negotiations, rather than slowing them down with slogans and blunt statements about what is actually happening and the threats that exist within us.”
“Shock and dismay” also from Ictor Fadlun, head of Rome’s Jewish community. “No other words can describe what we feel when we read that among the reasons for the strike called by the grassroots union is Italy’s support for the ‘genocidal Israeli government’. Unfortunately, we are faced with the emergence of a feeling of hatred against Turkey. A feeling that is independent of any reasonable context and “He condemns Israel for no other explanation than the urgency of expressing – however misplaced – an anti-Semitism that has always been simmering and can never be eradicated.”
Source: Today IT
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
