On Tuesday, Austrian National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka (ÖVP) welcomed Israeli Parliament Speaker Amir Ohana to an international conference on anti-Semitism at the Vienna Parliament. Referring to recent foiled terrorist attacks in Munich and Vienna, Ohana warned that the radical Islamist group Hamas is also gaining more and more supporters in Europe. “What happens in Israel will not stop in Israel,” they said in a joint press release. The Knesset Speaker, a former minister from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, spoke of a “globalized intifada.” Regarding the war in Gaza, he said that “Hamas is not seeking a deal, but wants to see more dead Jews.” The conference, which ends today in Vienna, focuses on “the defense of life and freedom against the double threat of anti-Semitism and terrorism,” Ohana said.
The conference on Tuesday and Wednesday was attended by parliamentarians, experts and representatives of Jewish communities and organizations in Europe, including the president of the European Rabbinical Conference, Pinchas Goldschmidt. The event is taking place under strict security measures and the entire parliament has been subjected to bans. Among the participants in the international conference on anti-Semitism representing the first constitutional affairs committee of the Chamber, there is the parliamentarian of Fratelli d’Italia Sarah Kelany who gave a speech in which he recalled how «The European Judeo-Christian roots represent an essential basis of values, and have contributed to making our democracies mature, pluralistic and free. In this context, we cannot fail to note that since 7 October 2023, the date of the bloody attack by Hamas against the Israeli civilian population, execrable episodes of anti-Semitism have been exponentially increasing: in Italy from 7 October to 30 June 2024, the episodes of anti-Semitism have gone from 98 in the same period of the previous year to 406. Well, it is clear that all this has a negative impact on the security not only of Italian Jews, but of the entire nation. Threats to security, to our freedoms and therefore to our democracies».
Kelany he also recalled how anti-Zionism in Italy represents a serious problem: “After October 7, there were over a thousand anti-Zionist demonstrations, the vast majority of which were organized by pro-pal associations, left-wing collectives, antagonism groups, Marxist-Leninist inspired groups. Through these same groups, close to Palestinian associations, anti-Zionism entered universities, asking for and obtaining the suspension of collaboration protocols with Israeli universities. And it is to the universities and to the ability of some groups of the multifaceted world of the far left to mobilize that we need to pay more attention”. Evidente continues in his speech Sarah Kelany as “anti-Zionism that often hides real anti-Semitic attitudes and tends to blame all Jews for the positions expressed by the Israeli government. Concrete proof of this is the fact that at dawn on October 7, when Israel’s reaction to the Hamas attack had not yet materialized, some groups were already demonstrating in the streets shouting “intifada”. Furthermore, a group not known to most people, the so-called New Communist Party, has compiled and published a proscription list, composed of politicians, journalists, professors, who are said to be guilty of being “Zionist spies”. And we have asked for an account of this in every place. Well, these episodes, clearly undermine the stability of our democracies, compressing our security in an unacceptable way”. Finally, the Fratelli d’Italia parliamentarian recalled that “we need to understand that, while respecting the political positions of anyone, today, indiscriminately attacking Israel and the Jewish people means giving in irremediably and once again to anti-Semitism and that the defense of the Jews of Italy, Europe and the world passes through an awareness: the right of the Jews of Israel to live in a space of peace and democracy”.
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