7 October has become a day of anti-Semitism (Italy ranks second in the EU for such events)

Elitzur Hajbi was buried on Wednesday, marking the third anniversary of the Hamas attacks on 7 October. He was the only one missing from the 1,200 Israeli victims of that day (Elitzur’s family had been unable to gain access to the room where he had been murdered on the kibbutz).

Israel had not yet finished burying all its dead when, on 7 October, the world witnessed a massive day of protest against the Jewish state. There were 75 events against the Jewish state on Remembrance Day itself. And if the demonstrations are extended to 14 October, the total rises to 262.

Italy ranks fifth in the world for the number of anti-Semitic incidents (“from the river to the sea” and “the resistance of 7 October” refer to this). The United States has had 45, Spain 40, Australia 21, the United Kingdom 19 and Italy 16 (followed by Germany, Canada, France and the Netherlands).

On 7 October, only within the Jewish community (and for a few Dutch Protestant organisations) was it a day of mourning and remembrance. However, this took the form of only a few flash mobs and moments of remembrance in synagogues guarded by the army and the police.

The atmosphere is well described by Ahmad Mansour, a well-known psychologist and sociologist of Palestinian origin who lives and works in Berlin: “Three years after 7 October, following the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, there are a few hundred people on Bebelplatz in Berlin. A few hundred, in a city of four million inhabitants. Right there, where books were burnt in 1933. A society is not measured by its commemorative speeches, but by those who, on an evening like this, stand alongside the Jewish people.”

Meanwhile, around a thousand pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through Berlin: the image used to publicise the 7 October demonstration was that of a bulldozer smashing through a border fence – the language of a pogrom. Among those taking part in the march, which began at Oranienplatz, was the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Police intervened several times during the march to stop the display of banned symbols (in Germany, it is illegal to glorify Hamas).

Meanwhile, masked protesters shouted “child murderers” outside the headquarters of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in Camden, in north London, whilst a Jewish journalist, Dan Levene, was beaten and suffered serious head injuries after trying to stop pro-Palestinian graffiti artists. 

The streets of Barcelona have once again been filled with people for a demonstration organised by Samidoun, an organisation classified as terrorist in the United States, Canada and Germany, to glorify the terrorist attacks of 7 October. The march proceeded under the slogan ‘Long live the armed struggle of the Palestinian people!’. Furthermore: “Three years since Tufan al-Aqsa”, as the event’s banner read, referring to the name given by Hamas to the massacre.

In Amsterdam, crowds in the squares chanted “Long live 7 October”. Meanwhile, in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the novelist Leon de Winter wrote: “After a thousand years, hatred of Jews remains a liberating feeling, a tragic flaw in our civilisation”. In New York, pro-Palestinian demonstrators stormed the ‘Israelis for Peace’ vigil in Union Square, attended by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has faced criticism for taking part in a similar event, despite all its ambiguities. Among the slogans: “We don’t want peace with the Israelis. On 7 October, we sent your people to hell”. Portraits of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader behind the 7 October attacks, were also prominent at the London demonstration. The date of the massacre has thus been transformed into a mobilisation that has chosen as its emblem not the victims of the massacre but its architect. There are no Palestinians to be liberated. There is only a Jewish enemy to be targeted and the joy of naming him.

The Paris Prefecture had initially banned the march at the request of the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, for fear that it might turn into a celebration of Hamas. A court overturned the ban and the event on 7 October was able to go ahead as planned. In France, the student protests have not been limited to those against Israel. In many secondary schools, pupils even chanted: “Like Mohamed Merah. Bataclan, I shot him in the eye, manhunt, Salah Abdeslam. I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid of hell, the pact remains intact, only Allah can stop him. Bataclan, they were pretending to be dead, lie down, I’ll shoot one of them in the eye”. In the style of Merah, dodging the cameras; at the Bataclan, shooting someone in the eye; manhunt, Salah Abdeslam; do not be afraid of hell, because the pact remains intact and only Allah can stop him.

The name alone suffices. In March 2012, Merah killed three soldiers and then, at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, a rabbi and three children. Merah shot Miriam Monsonego point-blank in the head. Yesterday, in The Telegraph, the renowned historian Simon Schama wrote that “anti-Semitism has returned as solidarity with Gaza”. It took around twenty years for Holocaust Remembrance Day, on 27 January, to become a warning against Israel, which is said to be doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews. On 7 October, the situation was reversed in real time.

7 January marks the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. 14 July marks the anniversary of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. 11 September marks the anniversary of the Twin Towers attacks. 13 November marks the anniversary of the Bataclan attack. 7 October is Anti-Semitism Day.