The establishment gave extremism its credentials

Milan’s shopkeepers were sweeping up broken glass while Italy’s political class debated the grievances of the people who had broken it. On 17 and 18 October (and then again on 25 October in Bologna, Rome and Turin) violence spread through the city centre. Shops were looted, bins burned and police attacked with projectiles. Around Piazza Duomo, the state struggled to maintain control of public space. The damage demanded an explanation that took political agency seriously.

Giorgia Meloni’s government responded with emergency legislation. The measures approved on 20 October introduced an offence of violent participation in demonstrations, strengthened enforcement powers and provided for 500 additional soldiers in Milan. Their adoption marked the scale of the security crisis. A government deploying military reinforcements to its financial capital has moved well beyond managing an unruly demonstration.

The opposition’s response followed a familiar script. The leader of the far left Democrats (PD) Elly Schlein stated that “episodic violence should not be exploited to obscure good reasons” while insisting that attention return to peaceful protesters struggling to live. The leader of the Chinese-aligned Five Star Party (M5S) Giuseppe Conte said “episodic violence must be condemned” but emphasised economic hardship as justification to the riots. Their condemnations were fictional. Their explanatory reflex was revealing. The discussion quickly returned to circumstances that could soften the judgement of those who had chosen violence. Shopkeepers and injured officers were expected to await a fuller understanding of their attackers’ difficulties.

Another explanation travelled further. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto invoked hybrid warfare, and reporting examined possible Russian interference. That hypothesis had advocates inside the government itself. Foreign manipulation, however, warrants investigation; it cannot become a substitute for examining political commitments expressed openly in Italy. A search for remote instigators is incomplete if it overlooks domestic advocates of revolutionary violence.

The later identification of Youssef Siher exposes that omission. Investigators identified the thirty-year-old Italian citizen of Moroccan origin as the administrator of Movimento 17 ottobre, a social media channel that emerged after the original disturbances and promoted further mobilisation. He is under investigation for incitement, with reported aggravating circumstances involving terrorist purpose and use of electronic communications. While his responsibility for the riots is being investigated, his public political record can already be read.

That record contains a defence of Hamas’s 7 October terrorist operation. In an essay originally published in September 2024, Siher called it “a revolutionary act of decolonization.” He challenged its moral condemnation and portrayed its perpetrators as agents of liberation. He argued that Western leftists unwilling to embrace a radical rupture with the Western system remained part of the colonial problem. Islam occupied a central revolutionary role in his account.

The screenshots from his social media accounts add disturbing contemporary context. One shows an account bearing Siher’s name responding “Allahu Akbar!” beneath Matteo Salvini’s condemnation of the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023. On October 8, he doubled down with a one-liner: “I am Palestinian.” The political meaning of it appears unequivocal.

The institutional biography makes the affair more serious. ISPI, a think tank, gave Siher a research traineeship in its Middle East and North Africa Observatory and published several contributions under his name. Its website lists work on UNRWA, Morocco and Syria, including a co-authored commentary dated December 2024. Il Fatto Quotidiano also published his journalism. These platforms conferred professional credibility upon a man whose publicly available writing justified Hamas’s operation.

ISPI now emphasises that his internship occurred in 2024 and that he has not collaborated with it since. Yet his defence of Hamas was originally published in that same year. The precise internship dates should be disclosed. The relevant editors should explain whether they knew of the essay and what bearing, if any, it had on their assessment of his suitability. A former appointment remains a decision for which an institution can be held accountable.

A further screenshot, dated 4 May 2025 and attributed to ISPI analyst Matteo Villa, praises Siher’s understanding of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict, says they shared an office and directs readers to his ISPI publications. The original post requires authentication. On its face, however, it records professional praise and personal familiarity extending beyond the internship year. It considerably complicates any attempt to portray Siher as a negligible former presence.

The biography itself supplies an uncomfortable image of institutional retreat. The search-indexed version identifies him in the present tense as a research trainee; the live page uses the past tense. The timing and purpose of that alteration remain unestablished. The substantive question survives the grammatical correction: what judgement did ISPI exercise when it admitted and published him?

ISPI’s proximity to the Farnesina raises the stakes. Ministerial supervision, research funding and joint organisation of Mediterranean Dialogues place it within Italy’s foreign-policy establishment. Those relationships make its editorial standards a public concern. A research institute specialising in political Islam should be particularly capable of recognising an author’s justification of Islamist violence and explaining how it evaluates such commitments.

The evidence establishes institutional access and professional validation. Knowing protection or operational collusion would require further proof. The documented facts are already sufficiently damning to demand answers. An author justified Hamas’s attack while building a respectable analytical profile. Prestigious platforms helped establish that profile. Their responsibility for their own choices cannot be deferred until the criminal proceedings conclude.

Meloni can reinforce Milan’s streets. The institutions that distribute intellectual authority must account for what happened inside their own offices. They should explain why advocacy that ennobles Hamas’s violence proved compatible with the credibility they helped Siher acquire. A change of tense is a poor substitute for an answer.