When discussing anti-Semitism, one cannot avoid talking about Israel

The vitriol directed at the anti-Semitism bill currently under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies – on social media, but also in the mainstream press: it is a ‘foul-smelling’ bill, writes Roberto Della Seta in *Il Manifesto* – creates a smokescreen that obscures the real issue at stake. It is worth cutting through the fog, because this is a serious matter. Not particularly serious, to tell the truth, is the accusation that the bill is ‘illiberal’, or that it threatens freedom of expression. There is not a trace of such a threat in the text, nor are there any such practices currently in place. Long gone are the years of the Cold War, which did indeed result in prison sentences for those accused of defamation. None of that is the case. The bill appears dangerous to its critics because it is backed by figures on the right, whom many regard, as is well known, as the embodiment of totalitarianism, and so every effort must be made to distance oneself from them.

However, this is the current fad. In any case, Article 1 – almost an unsolicited defence – states: ‘without prejudice to the freedom of political criticism and freedom of expression, and the freedom…’. Of course. A question does arise here, but it is too complex for the haters. Because the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century introduced a flaw into the absolute freedom of expression that defines liberal democracy. Although it only became established gradually, after years of silence (a historical process that should not be overlooked), over time the Holocaust has become a pivotal event in contemporary history. This has given rise to a principle whereby freedom of opinion is also defended by censoring the expression of certain opinions. Such as anti-Semitism, which deserves to be banned, even when it is merely an opinion. However, let us set this detail aside, not least because the bill does not introduce any criminal penalties and merely establishes a ‘coordinator’ who, with the help of a vast, very vast array of representatives, is to adopt a ‘strategy… on a three-year basis’, aimed at monitoring incidents of anti-Semitism, encouraging research, promoting all manner of educational initiatives in schools, training and refresher courses within the civil service, and so on.

So there is no repression, then. After all, critics of the bill are not fighting to ensure that, in the name of freedom of expression, anti-Semitic views are free to be expressed or that Jews are free to be spoken ill of – as one of the founding paradoxes of freedom would have it. Nor, however, are they opposed in principle to censoring anti-Semitism. Their concerns lie elsewhere entirely. In fact, they fear that the condemnation of anti-Semitic views might affect movements whose stance is hostile not to Jews, but to the State of Israel.

This brings us to the other, more serious issue raised by the critics. Already last year, in December 2025, a statement opposing the bill under discussion today was signed by a number of “scholars of Jewish history and anti-Semitism, together with writers who focus on the Jewish world or who defend freedom of speech and opinion”. It was a curious mix of groups, bringing together an audience – which we assume to be quite large – of writers who defend freedom of speech, and a far smaller group of those who ‘deal with’, or study, the history of the Jewish world. But as is often the case in the world of academia, an interest also stems from the personal history of those who cultivate it. The signatories of that declaration included well-known intellectuals of Jewish origin, among them Anna Foa, Roberto Della Seta, Carlo Ginzburg, Gad Lerner, Stefano Levi Della Torre, Simon Levis Sullam and Valentina Pisanty. We do not know, in each case, how close their relationship with Judaism was – or had become over the years – nor how many felt – as Primo Levi wrote of himself – ‘more Italian than Jewish’; and we know even less about their personal relationship with the State of Israel. What is certain is that the events of their time had compelled them to engage with these issues, sometimes emerging from a youthful, anti-fascist secularism to become scholars and enthusiasts of the Jewish world, and now going so far as to warn of the danger that the condemnation of anti-Semitism might stifle “legitimate criticism of Israel, which for years has been pursuing violent, authoritarian and even genocidal policies against the Palestinians”.

The fact that the signatories describe themselves as, and are, scholars of Jewish history and anti-Semitism makes their casual and militant use of the term ‘genocidal’ all the more embarrassing. But this incident is revealing. Because the interplay between Jews of the diaspora, anti-Semitism, Israeli policies, Palestinian movements and pro-Palestinian movements in the West forms a highly convoluted tangle, not easy to untangle. Let us begin, then, by noting that the draft bill never mentions Israel. However, the text is accused of drawing on the definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which, amongst its examples of anti-Semitism, mentions the State of Israel on more than one occasion alongside Jews. This connection is present in various similar texts, such as the Global Anti-Semitism Act, passed – not without opposition – by the US Congress in 2004. Indeed, it is the United States – where the Jewish community, alongside the Israeli community, is the largest – that is home to the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). As Graziano Del Rio, a signatory to the bill, pointed out, Europe and Italy, along with dozens of other countries, have endorsed that declaration, which was adopted in 2016 and endorsed by the European Parliament in 2017 and by the Conte government in 2020.

Many consider that statement to lack authority – Marc Mazower described it as “vague, repetitive and incomplete” – and the signatories of the 2025 Italian appeal write that it “ignores the more balanced and authoritative Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism”, issued as an open critique of theIHRA. PD Secretary Elly Schlein is now clinging to that distinction – as if it were a last-ditch lifeline – to justify her vote against the bill, thereby distancing herself from right-wing figures whose signatures also appear on the same text. A careful comparison of the two declarations has already been published in Il Foglio by Bruna Soravia. Suffice it to say here that the Jerusalem Declaration also devotes a section to the links between antisemitism and Israel, for example by condemning the application of antisemitic symbols, images and stereotypes to Israel, or holding Jews responsible for Israel’s conduct.

In short, when discussing anti-Semitism, one cannot avoid talking about Israel. So perhaps it is worth taking a few steps back and examining the relationship not only between anti-Semitism and the State of Israel, but first and foremost between Judaism and the state. Over the centuries, anti-Semitism has consistently targeted individuals, groups and communities found in various forms within both the Roman-Christian and Arab-Islamic worlds of the Euro-Mediterranean and Eastern regions. Each with their own distinct histories and fates. In the Arab-Muslim world, Jews were protected, tolerated and consistently degraded; in the European world, they were alternately glorified (amongst the many stereotypes, the intelligence of Jews has always been extolled, from Spinoza to Einstein) and persecuted, attacked and exterminated, culminating in the catastrophe of the Holocaust. Although the term is a recent one, it is only within this ancient historical context that one can speak of anti-Semitism, of aversion and hostility towards Jews. A fate upon which the nation state has exerted its influence; in its primary drive for standardisation, it mismanages diversity, which becomes ‘minorities’, caught between assimilation and expulsion. The problem also permeates twentieth-century democracies, in which political representation and the rule of law developed precisely within the framework of the nation-state, which was constantly grappling with the problem of managing diversity whilst upholding equality. But before that, the nationalist impulse had already taken hold, reaching its most extreme manifestations in the massacre of minorities – first the Armenians, and then the Holocaust.

Consider how many of these tragedies have befallen European Jews, leading them to establish a state in the lands of their forefathers – a Jewish state, the dramatic and necessary Zionist oxymoron, the state of a ‘nation’ that has defined itself as ‘Jewish and democratic’. Thus, anti-Semitism seemed to have been defeated, since the Jews were no longer amongst us as a subtle and pervasive threat. They had their own state. But sometimes history moves at an accelerated pace, and it is hard to keep up. The questionable decision of the UN in 1947 – a UN that was then Euro-Atlantic in character, which imposed a ‘state-based’ solution, complete with its corresponding map and population transfers, as was the case with so many state formations of the time, with Eurocentric arrogance. Israel’s statehood has run its rapid course, partly due to the wars of aggression it has faced and its fierce counter-attacks. The image of tanned farmers in collectivist kibbutzim defending their crops from armed watchtowers has taken on a different complexion; what has emerged is a strong, militarily formidable state, shaken by internal conflicts (elements not unfamiliar to the fate of many new nation-states).

It is here that Western aversion to Israel’s wars flourishes. It does not stem from the deaths and ruins in Gaza – however harrowing they may be, like the massacres in Darfur, Mali and Xinjiang, or the executions by hanging in Iran, or the plight of women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. It stems from profound upheavals, from the realignment of global power blocs through decolonisation and independence movements. The UN has changed in character; it has become a crude mouthpiece for the Third World, and as early as 1975 it hastily equated Zionism with racism (a decision later revoked), and in 1993 in Bangkok it included the Palestinian cause amongst ‘Asian values’. Certainly not out of ‘anti-Semitism’. If it has become so today, theirs was not hatred of the Jews. The anti-colonial liberation movements did not follow ‘indigenous’ lines at all, but were entirely derived from the very process of ‘state-building’, or, if you will, Westernisation.

A nationalistic dynamic alien to Arab-Muslim culture – and, in this sense, devoid of anti-Semitism – has been imported into it. The Second World War, a great nationalistic war, had already sealed the fate of Jewish communities in Mediterranean countries, beginning with the Farhud – the destruction of the ancient Jewish community of Baghdad in 1941 – which was, in essence, a precursor to the subsequent eradication of Jewish communities in the Arab countries bordering the Mediterranean. Anti-colonial nationalism thus ended up importing anti-Semitic tendencies as well, such as those adopted by Khomeini when, from Paris, he described the Jews as the atavistic enemies of Muslims, using the classic stereotypes of anti-Semitic rhetoric. Since then, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – the quintessential European libel – has become a constant reference point for Arab propaganda.

It is this realignment that is reshaping the European ‘left’, of which today’s opponents of the bill consider themselves – and, alas, are – the heirs. They have lost the memory, or rather cannot forgive the memory, of the times when young democrats went to lend a hand on the kibbutzim, when Israel was a bastion of European anti-fascism, the standard-bearer of the left. Even the USSR’s support for the Arabs had already clouded the positions of the European left, which had become anti-colonialist and Third Worldist. Then, in 1982, the diaspora was thrown into crisis; the war in Lebanon, Sabra and Shatila, and the attack on the synagogue in Rome widened the rift between the left and Israel.

The settlers, swept up in ethno-nationalist fervour, have become the enemy, whilst the European left – now bereft of its leading ally in the East – has discovered itself to be ‘pro-Palestinian’ and has resorted to old and new stereotypes, foremost among them ‘genocide’, within which lie hidden, denied, age-old anti-Semitic undertones.

It then fell to Israeli leaders to link European anti-Semitism to Israel, when Moshe Dayan and Ben-Gurion declared that the Israeli government would represent all Jews. This continued until the Basic Law of 2018 defined Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Thus, the link between Judaism and Israel is complete, and criticism of Israel is equated with anti-Semitism. However much one may deplore and oppose Israel’s military policies and territorial occupations, it should not be claimed that these are to blame for the fact that, every day and everywhere, Jewish citizens are attacked; that they are forced to remove their kippahs or Star of David, erase their names from doors, take down their mezuzahs, or avoid booking an Uber using their own name; that synagogues, schools and Jewish centres are threatened and attacked; if, on the other hand, Israeli artists, actors, sportspeople or even ordinary tourists are banned; if universities demand anti-Israeli statements and cut off scientific collaborations, archaeological excavation projects or medieval studies; if, at a prestigious Italian university, there are those who wish to halt a joint research project with Yad Vashem. And so the circle is complete.