1.
It's hard for her, for Europe. It is difficult for her with the waves of immigration that threaten her well-being. It has a hard time with the war in the Middle East. It's hard for her to change the old perceptions. I returned from a five-day campaign. I traveled alone, no one sent me. I learned from the citizens, the heroes of Simchat Torah events, that in light of the riot of the first hours and the scale of the massacre, they stood at the front risking their lives. They saved hundreds, effectively halting the frontline attack until the army arrived. And so I went to the front of information in Italy.
It is important to know that there is an intolerable gap between the sense of justice that surrounds us here in Israel and the way the war is portrayed in the world. For about four days and a bit I appeared on seven television programs, gave three large interviews to the print press and a long interview to Italy's Central News Agency, the main points of which reached all policymakers and the media. On Shabbat I stayed with Jews in Milan. They asked me to speak and strengthen. The situation is not easy there among our brothers and sisters. There is justified fear.
2.
When I was ambassador, I insisted on translating the Hamas charter into Italian. I pointed to a central principle of the organization that carried out the massacre of our people, which emerges from the document: total commitment to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews wherever they may be. There is a similar document written in German about a century ago, which inspired the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe. These are the new Nazis. The world fought Nazi Germany unrestrained, because it understood that it was a war for its existence against a tyranny that sought to enslave peoples under its monstrous ideology.
I said that burning the Israeli flag is the burning of the world's hope, because the return of the Jews to Zion is the beginning of fulfilling the biblical prophecies of world peace. I appealed to the viewers: This is your war against tyranny that seeks to enslave us all
The spirit of that Nazi ideology rose anew from the depths of history, in the form of Iran and its proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian factions in Syria, the Houthis, and more. Not only Israel is threatened, but citizens of the entire West. There are now sleeper cells of representatives of the same evil in the main cities. Any manifestation of weakness on the part of the West will encourage them to wake up in Europe itself. Media people and intellectuals I met supported us, and there were others who spoke out against us. For years I was interested in European blindness towards Hitler - now I saw it in real time.
3.
One program showed demonstrators in Rome burning an Israeli flag. In response, I said that burning the flag is the burning of the world's hopes, because the return of the Jews to Zion after 1,800 years of exile is the beginning of the fulfillment of the biblical prophecies of world peace. I appealed to the viewers: This is your argument against absolute evil, against tyranny that seeks to enslave us all in the name of belief in death, and that uses human beings as human shields.
I presented the fatwa issued by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the supreme religious authority of the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Hamas and Erdogan belong: "Constantinople was conquered in 1453 by the Ottoman Muhammad ibn Murad (and became Istanbul)... And now there remains the conquest of the other city: Rome. This is what we hope for and this is what we believe in. This means that Islam will return to Europe once again, as conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice... until it includes East and West." The symbolism of Rome as the capital of Western Christian civilization is clear. Here, I said, he threatens you, not just us. It's Hamas.
4.
Israel, I said, faces a cruel dilemma. Imagine a criminal pointing a gun at your daughter while hiding behind an innocent person. What would you do? Saving your daughter at the cost of that innocent person's life – or letting her die as long as you don't hurt innocent people? The IDF protects the civilians, while Hamas hides behind them. He built tunnels for war, and not a single shelter for his population. Israel evacuated settlements in the south and north in order to leave the area for war. We told the population in Gaza to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip - but Hamas cowards, who knew how to abuse our children, forbade them to evacuate so that they would continue to protect them with their bodies.
IDF Spokesperson
I told about the deeds of the bastards: they raped our daughters, murdered babies, beheaded, burned children and entire families alive. I read testimonies from the inferno to millions of viewers. While the Nazis tried to hide their horrors, Hamas terrorists photographed them and took pride in them. A spokesman for the Muslim community in Milan dismissed the atrocities, calling it "fake news." In another program, a respected journalist questioned. I responded that this is how Holocaust denial began.
5.
On another program, a politician sat across from me who downplayed the evil of Hamas, claiming that Israel ceases to be a democracy if it commits such war crimes. Rational studio talk, while ours bled to death. Another chapter in "On Blindness." Then they played a recording from the inferno, of a girl shouting: "Daddy, Daddy, they're coming to kill me, help me!" Her father, helpless, asked her for a location as she screamed in terror. I thought to myself that these were the last words the father heard from his daughter, and it would be so for the rest of his life. Her voice was similar to my daughter's. I wanted to die.
I wasn't able to continue with the program. Alterman's words in "Joy of the Poor" came to mind: "Like a winged bird towards his canoe / My daughter, my daughter / Your heart goes out to his knife / My daughter, my daughter." I remembered the bloody night of the suicide bombing attack at a pizzeria in Karnei Shomron, in February 2022. Shira, my sister's daughter, was seriously injured there, and in a complicated operation, a large nail was removed from one of her heart chambers, which miraculously did not tear. I was in the hospital all night, watching as my brother-in-law, Shira's father, collapsed under the mental burden – the threat of the father-daughter bond – and only my sister held him. For a moment, on that show, I experienced that horror. They saw the storm on my face and asked me.
I said that nowhere and at no time could a girl scream at her father like that. This is not normal! Therefore, we must destroy Gaza. I meant Gaza as Hamas' place, as a concept, not for the population. Every decent person understood the difference. I also said that after October 7, we all need to change the old perceptions. There will no longer be a situation in which any Jew is threatened with the death penalty, and there will be no lethal response. We did not return home after the Holocaust to relive the same things. I explained that we had asked the population to evacuate and that we did not intend to harm it.
Israel-haters cut the sentence and posted it on social media. A storm in a cup of anti-Semitic tea. The famous host said the next day on the show that everyone understood very well what I meant, and also posted a clarifying video of mine. Many called to support me, including ministers in the Italian government. I then appeared on four more viewer-intensive programs, making it very clear what I meant and the terrible dilemma Israel faces. Dare came out sweet - many programs contacted me, and others watched more content from my interviews. Several hundred anti-Semites sent me congratulations on social media, but this is a small price on an important front, in which we naturally invest less in the storm of battle, but which is necessary as breathing air, to strengthen support for Israel and to strengthen world Jewry. The people of Israel live!
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us