On 7 October 2008 Alessandro Schwed, writer and humorist known by the name Jiga Melik, published the book “The Disappearance of Israel” in the magazine “Il Male”. The novel formulates the disconcerting hypothesis that the Knesset suddenly decides to “dissolve” the State of Israel by returning its population to the Diaspora from which they had come less than a hundred years earlier, to put an end to anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic prejudice after years of UN resolutions , attacks and everything we know well.
I remember thinking that Schwed had indulged in a rather bizarre hypothesis because despite the Intifada, the increase in terrorist attacks in Israel and in every part of the world, the collapse of the Twin Towers, the long list of terrorist attacks Islamist and anti-Semitic in Europe and the United States, the world had ultimately learned the lesson of Auschwitz and nothing similar could ever happen again, precisely by virtue of the existence of the State of Israel.
Reality went beyond imagination and not because Schwed’s tragic prophecy came true, but because I was not ready to understand with what ferocity, all possible aberration would be unleashed on a festive morning on October 7, 2023.
October 7. What a coincidence.
October 7th changed my life, it forced me to question my certainties. After the first days of solidarity, before the Israeli intervention in Gaza, we moved on to “of course Israel too…” or to “well, what do the Palestinians suffer with the Israeli occupation?”.
Then there was silence, a deafening silence. The silence of Italian feminists, the silence of “Non una di meno”. The silence, as if that violence had never happened, as if those women were not women, girls, children raped, usurped, terrorized, disfigured and mutilated. And finally denialism, what we read these days on social platforms and in newspaper reports where the tiktoker of the moment or the “fact-informed” professor claims that there is no proof of mass rapes perpetrated by Hamas.
Since October 7, my eyes and my soul have been on Gaza, in the hope of seeing the return of the hostages, held in inhumane conditions in the tunnels, those tunnels built with billions from aid from all over the world. I don’t always agree with the choices of the Israeli government, Netanyahu has made many mistakes, but Israel, that small strip of land that extends for less than 500 kilometers in length and 135 in width surrounded on all sides by neighbors who would like to see its end, has the right to exist and live in safety.
We are back on October 7th, one year after that October 7th in which 1200 defenseless civilians lost their lives, 253 were taken hostage and many of these were killed in captivity, the Israeli people mourn their dead, but try the energy to recover. And a few days before the Jewish New Year, Rosh Ha Shanà 5785, the wish I would like to express is to be able to rekindle joy and hope. October 7th is not a date that concerns Israelis and Jews living in the Diaspora, I think it should be a date to keep imprinted in the minds and souls of all those who believe in democracy and in knowing how to live civilly, respecting every human being but above all that women, all women, should never again be treated as objects to be outraged, humiliated, disfigured or possessed.
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