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Giada Condello

Think intifada won’t touch you? Think again

My fellow Italians chant anti-Israel slogans, forgetting that hate never ends with Jews and ignoring what that means for their own free society
'Intifada until the victory' appears on the bathroom's wall of the University of Bologna on October 2023. (courtesy)
'Intifada until the victory' appears on the bathroom's wall of the University of Bologna on October 2023. (courtesy)

I was scrolling through my phone when she suddenly appeared. “I know this face,” I thought. “I’ve seen her before.” I opened Instagram and there she was: Inbar. Her story was still live —something about the war, soldiers, and wishing for their safe return, I think. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “She just had a baby,” I remembered. “This can’t be happening. She has a baby. Her child can’t grow up without a mother.” I was in shock, repeating it over and over in my head.

Inbar Segev Vigder. (Social media, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

I didn’t know Inbar well; we weren’t friends. She had only come to my house once for work, helping me recover after the birth of my second child. We spent maybe an hour and a half together, close to three years ago, but she left such a great impression. I remember her being kind, professional, and easy to talk to, with a beautiful smile and lively, bright eyes.

On October 1st, Inbar was murdered in a terrorist attack in Jaffa while protecting her baby from two terrorists who came from Hebron to Tel Aviv to kill innocent people. Doesn’t matter who. That’s the thing with terrorists, everyone’s a target. They don’t care if you’re a new mom, an old man, a child, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, or if you just came for a good falafel. Randomness is what makes terrorism so terrifying. Anyone is a potential target. It’s that simple. And on October 7th, we were reminded of that in the most painful way possible.

These terrorists did not care about Inbar’s life, her baby growing up without a mother, or the immense pain her family will carry forever. They didn’t care about the six others they murdered that day. Because they don’t value life. They do not seek peace or solutions—they seek violence and chaos. They are not interested in dialogue nor compromise. They want one state solution, a world without Jews, without Israelis.

Yet, despite this clear hatred, I often find myself stunned by the narratives I read in European media, especially in Italy, my home. There’s a tendency to forget a crucial lesson of history: “the hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.” This is why we see people, in cities around the world, chanting in the streets, “There’s only one solution—intifada revolution.” Do they truly understand what they are calling for? Are they aware of what “intifada” will bring to their own democratic, free societies?

When you call for intifada, you are calling for terror. You’re calling for fear—fear of leaving your home, fear of taking a bus, fear of stopping at a gas station, playing with your kids at a park, or going to a concert. Terrorist attacks in European cities—Christmas markets, concerts, public gatherings—are examples of what happens when intifada-inspired terror is exported. Yet, this reality seems to escape many.

In Italy, for example, there is a Palestinian youth movement, Giovani Palestinesi, which is actively calling for an intifada. Recently, they posted on social media, commemorating October 7th as the anniversary of what they call the “heroic attack” against Israel. They posted: “[…] 7 of October 2024, one year after the heroic attack by the resistance against the Zionist entity, the student intifada officially comes back in the Italian Universities”. And this isn’t just the opinion of 20 delusional people with a handful of followers, these accounts count hundreds of thousands of followers, including some people I’ve considered once very close friends.

In Italy, now, October 2024 there are movements of young Italians considering the killing of babies and the rape of men and women as acts of resistance and they are calling for these “heroic acts” to take place in the streets of Italy. How dare they? How is this allowed to happen in Italy?

Dear young Italian students, intifada means that when you enter the metro in Rome or you get up on a bus in Bologna or Palermo or you have a macchiato in the city center you may blow up or get shot, why? Just because those who you call the “resistance” had decided so. This is what happened during the Second Intifada. This is what happened last week, here in Israel. And this is what you are calling upon yourself in my country, Italy. 

So, I wonder — are these students consciously choosing to ignore facts and history, or is this the result of an education shaped by politicized professors who seem more interested in pushing agendas than educating anyone? Or have we completely abandoned the idea that schools and universities should teach facts instead of personal, emotionally driven interpretations? Take, for example, a recent incident at “La Sapienza” University in Rome, where a professor openly called Israel a terrorist state and was met with applause from students, all while a Palestinian flag hung in the background.

Imagine if this professor had instead shared the fact that the Palestinian Authority allocates seven percent of its annual budget to support terrorists who murder Israelis. Or that Palestinian children are taught from a young age to glorify violence, learning math by counting how many Jews they can kill. These textbooks are used not only by Hamas but also by the PA under the supervision of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Would those students still applaud or are they too far gone to recognize truth from propaganda? I wonder what my ex-friends think about these small details, or if they even care to acknowledge them.

The truth is, Israel isn’t a perfect place. There are many issues here and several should be addressed immediately, but the relentless campaign of lies and propaganda targeting this country over the years, especially the last one, is just unprecedented. What these students and professors fail to realize is that their calls for revolution and intifada only serve to amplify hatred and violence. They aren’t helping Palestinians, Israelis, or anyone else. They are feeding a cycle of dehumanization that will inevitably harm us all.

Just a few days ago, I heard about someone casually overhearing a conversation where people wished for the extermination of Jews, as if it were normal talk. Months ago, an American Jewish tourist told me she was harassed in a Roman restaurant simply for being Jewish, with a waiter refusing to serve her. Another friend shared how she now removes her Star of David necklace before travelling to Italy and advises her family to avoid speaking Hebrew in public places. Is this the world we’ve built one year after October 7th? A world filled with more fear, more hatred?

People need to realize this isn’t some game to fill their weekends or distract from their empty lives. Words matter. They carry weight and power. The hatred spread by these students, professors and all the other anti-Zionist movements is having real-world consequences in this part of the planet. Our lives are actually affected by this, many are dying because of it. Europe, and Italy in particular, should be careful of the ideologies it allows to spread, because, again, the hate that begins with Jews never ends with them.

About the Author
Giada Condello is an Italian professional who decided to move to Israel after falling in love with the city of Tel Aviv and the Israeli chutzpah. Since then, she has been calling Israel her home and she is grateful to be part of a culture that empowers individuals and encourages them to take risks and speak their minds. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in International Development and Cooperation from the University of Bologna and a Master's Degree in Intercultural Cooperation for Development from the University of Trieste.
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