The electoral campaign is ignited in Sesto San Giovanni, 80,000 inhabitants on the border with Milan.
To trigger the controversy less than a week after the vote, are some posts deemed anti-Semitic by
Michele Foggetta, an exponent of the Italian Left
and candidate for mayor of the center-left who wants to regain the 'Italian Stalingrad' by snatching it from the outgoing mayor of the Lega Roberto Di Stefano.
The case was raised by Il Giornale, which published the sentences of the Italian leftist, addressed - in 2011 and 2014 - to the State of Israel, defined as a "devil" and a "mountain of m ...".
The outgoing mayor, and candidate for an encore, Di Stefano, speaks of "embarrassing positions" and "shameful insults", according to whom the offenses "are synonymous with an absolute lack of a sense of democracy and respect for institutions and an entire people" .
"
In life you make mistakes and then you change and grow
. The language and the merit that I used towards the State of Israel years ago in old statements no longer represent me in any way", Foggetta replies on Facebook.
THE REACTIONS IN THE CENTER RIGHT
"In Sesto San Giovanni, the left would like to elect an anti-Semitic mayor. About Israel and its people, this candidate has written abominable phrases. Read where is he? Those who support him are complicit", comments the deputy of the
Lega
Igor Iezzi, group leader in the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Chamber.
For Andrea Orsini of
Forza Italia
, member of the Foreign Affairs Commission and of the Italy-Israel Parliamentary Collaboration Group, "disbelief and indignation are the only reactions possible after reading the unworthy expressions against Israel and the Jewish people uttered by the left-wing candidate for mayor in Sesto San Giovanni, Michele Foggetta. And that any responsible political force, right or left, should condemn with disdain ".
"Well - continues Orsini - the most incredible thing is that there has not yet been any clear distancing and no explicit condemnation by forces such as the Democratic Party, which continue to support his candidacy as if nothing had happened.
"Even more disconcerting is the reply from the interested party, who dismisses the insults against Israel and the Jews as errors of youth, but only a few years have passed, he does not apologize to those in the Jewish world who have felt offended and hurt, claims a paradoxical coherence in the have always supported the two peoples-two states solution ", continues Orsini.
"My solidarity goes to Israel, the Community and other Jewish Institutions. A man consistent with an anti-Semitic past cannot become mayor of an important city in Lombardy. I expect all responsible political forces to converge on this".
