1.
Things are difficult right now for Europe. Things are difficult when it comes to the waves of immigration that threaten its integrity. The war in the Middle East is also difficult. It is difficult for Europe to change its old perceptions. I have just returned from a five-day tour to explain Israel's position. I went of my own accord, nobody sent me. I learned from Israel's citizens, the heroes of the Black Saturday of Simchat Torah on October 7, who in the early hours of the attack when the dimensions of the slaughter became clear, headed to the front, placing their lives in danger. They saved hundreds, holding the front until the army arrived. And so, I too headed to Italy, to the front of Israel's public diplomacy.
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It's important to know that there is an insufferable gap between our sense of justice here in Israel and the way the war is portrayed around the world. Over four days of my stay in Italy, I appeared on television seven times, I gave three major interviews to print media and one interview to the leading Italian news agency, which reached all decision-makers and media. I spent Shabbat with the Jewish community of Milano. I was asked to strengthen their spirit. Things aren't easy there for our brothers and sisters. A sense of fear prevails, and rightly so.
2.
As ambassador, I insisted on the translation of the Hamas charter into Italian. So now, I could quote from it. I pointed to two major principles of the organization that perpetrated a massacre of our people: A commitment to the destruction of the State of Israel and another commitment to the murder of Jews. A similar document was written in German almost one hundred years ago. It served as inspiration for the Final Solution for the Jews of Europe. Hamas are the new Nazis. The free world fought without restraint against Nazi Germany because it understood that this was a war against tyranny that wished to enslave peoples under its monstrous ideology.
The spirit of that Nazi ideology rose anew from the depths of history in the form of Iran and its proteges: Hamas, Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian factions in Syria, the Houthis, and others. Not only Israel is threatened, so too are the citizens of the entire West. In Europe's major cities, there are dormant cells of the very same evil that attacked us. Any expression of weakness on the part of the West will encourage them to emerge from their slumber. Journalists and intellectuals who I met with supported us; others, however, speak out against us. For years I have been interested in how the Europeans were blind to Hitler's intentions; now I see it happening again in real time.
3.
In one of the television programs I appeared on, protestors could be seen tearing off or burning the Israeli flag. In response, I said that burning the Israeli flag is tantamount to setting the world's hope on fire because the return of the Jews to Zion after 1800 years of exile is the beginning of the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of world peace. I turned to the viewers and told them that this is also their war against absolute evil, against tyranny that seeks to enslave all of us in the name of a belief in death, and which uses people as human shields.
I presented the fatwa [religious decree] issued by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the late Egyptian cleric and supreme religious authority of the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Hamas and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan belong: "Constantinople was conquered in 1453 by the Ottoman, Mehmed bin Murad (and became Istanbul) ... And now there remains the conquest of the other city, Rome, and this is what we hope for and believe in. This means that Islam will return to Europe once again as conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice... and until it includes East and West." The symbolism of Rome as the capital of Western Christian civilization is clear. So you see, I said, he threatens you, not just us. That is Hamas.
4.
Israel, I said, faces a cruel dilemma. Imagine that a criminal is pointing a gun at your daughter while hiding behind an innocent civilian. What would you do? Would you save your daughter at the expense of the life of that innocent civilian or would you let her die so as not to harm innocents? The IDF protects civilians, but Hamas hides behind them. Hamas built hundreds of kilometers of tunnels for its war effort, but not one single bomb shelter for its population. Israel evacuated communities in its north and south to keep its civilians out of the warzone. It also instructed Gazans to head to the south of the Strip, but the Hamas cowards forbade them from evacuating to be able to use them as human shields.
I told my audience of the horrors committed by Hamas; the rape of our daughters, the murder of babies, the beheadings, how they burned children and entire families alive. I read out testimonies from the inferno to millions of viewers. While the Nazis tried to hide their shocking deeds, Hamas terrorists filmed them with pride. A spokesperson for the Muslim community of Milan dismissed the atrocities and claimed they were fake news. On another program, a respected journalist cast doubts. I replied that was how Holocaust denial began.
5.
On yet another program, I sat opposite a politician who downplayed the evil committed by Hamas and claimed that Israel was no longer a democracy if it committed such war crimes. As we bleed to death, they engage in supposedly rational talk in TV studios. Another chapter of "Blindness." Then they played a recording from the inferno of a girl shouting "Daddy, daddy, they are coming to kill me, help me." Her father, helpless, asked her for a location, while she screamed in terror. I thought to myself that those were the last words the father heard from his daughter before her life came to an end. Her voice was similar to my daughter's. I wanted to die. I couldn't go on. I recalled the words of Alterman's poem from the collection "Joy of the Poor": Like a winged bird towards his nest,/ My daughter, my daughter,/ Thy heart goes out to his knife,/ My daughter, my daughter."
I recalled the terrible night of the suicide bombing in Karnei Shomron in February 2002. My niece Shira was seriously injured; after a long and difficult operation, doctors removed a large nail from her heart. Miraculously it did not cause a tear. I spent that entire night in the hospital and saw how my brother-in-law, Shira's father, wilted under the terrible psychological stress and only my sister kept him going. For one moment I experienced that horror again. They saw what I was going through and asked what happened.
I said that in no place and no time should a daughter have to scream like that before her father. It is abnormal! And that is why we must destroy Gaza. I meant Gaza as the home of Hamas, as a concept, and of course not the destruction of its population. Any reasonable person would understand the difference. I added that after October 7 we must all change our preconceptions. No longer can anyone threaten a Jew with a death sentence and escape without a deadly response. We did not return home after the Holocaust to experience those same sights once again. I explained that we asked the Gazan population to evacuate and that we did not intend to harm it.
Haters of Israel took that material, spliced it, and put it up online. An antisemitic storm in a teacup. The broadcaster, a famous figure in Italy, said the following day that everyone had understood what I meant. He even screened my clarification. Many called to support me, including ministers from the Italian parliament. After that, I appeared on another four programs with high ratings and made it clear what I meant and spoke about the terrible dilemmas faced by Israel. In the end, everything worked out for the best, because many other programs approached me and a lot of viewers were exposed to content from my interviews. A few hundred antisemites sent me their best wishes on social media, but that is a small price to pay for being able to appear on such an important front. In the heat of battle, we invest less in the media, but it is of supreme importance to strengthen support for Israel and bolster Jews around the world.
Am Yisrael Chai!
