I would like to begin with a preliminary remark regarding what Vito Mancuso states in his article published in La Stampa on 13 July 2025, entitled The Two Faces of Religious Fanaticism The Two Faces of Religious Fanaticism.

In my view, Ben Gvir primarily represents a military strategy: the total destruction of the enemy in order to achieve ethnic cleansing, as theorised by the Nazi-fascists. Jews had neither a state nor a military strategy for 2,000 years. Zionism is an ideology that emerged around 120 years ago and clashes with pre-Zionist Judaism. It arose alongside European nationalism and under the threat of Russian and Polish pogroms. It is a settler-colonial ideology (as occurred in Algeria, Kenya, North America, and Australia).

Zionists colonised Palestine thanks to Great Britain. The early Zionists were fully aware that Palestinians existed and that this population would have to be reckoned with, but those who were conscious of this reality were a very small minority. Today, Zionists have “gone mad”: they are hysterical because they are afraid, yet they possess something they did not have for the past 2,000 years—a country. They must legitimise their colonisation and the creation of a refuge state for Jews, and they do so through the Bible. I do not need that refuge state: I am Italian and European; it is my country that protects me.

Where do Ben Gvir’s ideas come from? From a literal, non-interpretative reading of the Bible, despite 2,000 years of rabbinical interpretations. Nazi-Zionists are a minority. They arise from a typically Jewish mechanism: fear of persecution, both individual and collective. The Shoah, the Holocaust, is a tragedy that has never been fully digested. I approach it in historical and political terms, holding the Italian Constitution and the European Constitution in my hands. I “do politics” because I go into schools and associations to speak about these issues, but within an anti-colonial framework, in defence of Palestinians. Zionists are certainly committing a genocide.

Nazi-Islamists read the Qur’an literally, without making use of the 1,300 years of interpretations produced by Islamic scholars. They are a minority and feel persecuted. Mancuso is scandalised that “religious people” commit genocide. He forgets that Catholic states have committed many genocides: in Italy, in Europe, and in the colonies. Protestants have done the same. I imagine—although I have no proof—that Christians also used biblical passages to justify their wars. But this in no way excuses the Zionists, just as it does not excuse the Islamists.

Mancuso writes about “Israelism”: an incorrect term. It is not Zionism, and there is no trace of it in Israel; it is ancient Jewish massacre ideology. We must then clarify what we mean by a “Book revealed by God.” It took 600 years to write the Bible, and the editors in Babylon were at war with those in Jerusalem. With the Jewish state in Palestine 3,000–2,000 years ago, there was already a problem of force and power, which the Bible reproduces. Claiming that Judaism was both a religion and a nation is part of the Zionist toolkit (as highlighted by Shlomo Sand), but this seems entirely unfounded to me: it is religion and nation only today. Archaeological research shows us that the Bible is not a history book, as Ben Gvir would like it to be in order to legitimise Zionist conquests. The “Nazi-Zionists” wearing the kippah seek the “final solution” for Palestinians, and Mancuso seems to suggest that Zionists like Ben Gvir are no different from Nazi-fascists. On this point, I agree. But let us return to our “entanglement.”

A Cruel Entanglement

1,200 Jews dead, around 250 kidnapped (and partly killed), and the fear—perhaps incomprehensible to those who are not Jewish—of falling into a new Shoah. The media speak of tens of thousands of Gaza residents killed by Israelis, but in reality we do not know how many there are, because those buried under the rubble are not counted. Then there are 220 UN officials, about 150 journalists, photojournalists, and television workers. 100,000 wounded—without legs, without arms, without eyes. Seventy per cent of the dead are women and children: Israel wages war on Hamas, but also against non-combatant Palestinians, victims of “extrajudicial killings.” Israel believes it has the right to strike anyone, anywhere, which is absolutely illegal. Added to this are the deaths in the West Bank—about a thousand? —with thousands injured and imprisoned. There is no relationship, no comparison, no proportionality between the 1,200 Israeli dead and the tens of thousands of Palestinian dead and wounded.

I have been to Gaza, entering through Egypt. A gigantic prison: residents could neither enter nor leave; land, sea, and air borders were closed. The events of 7 October 2023 can be explained by the imprisonment of two and a half million people and by more than a century of abuse and apartheid. By what right did Israel block all of Gaza’s borders? It blocked its political, economic, social, cultural, and religious development; it blocked its international relations.

An Anti-Historical Entanglement

The Crusaders went to the Holy Land shouting, “God wills it!” Today, Zionists—Jews in Israel and also outside Israel—claim to be in Palestine/Israel because “God wills it!” Zionist Jews would have the right, over the past hundred years, to recolonise Palestine because they lived there 2,000 years ago and because their prayers always refer to Jerusalem as a spiritual centre. Then Catholic Christians would also have the right to recolonise Rome and Lazio because the Vatican is there, and Romans to recolonise Great Britain and Scotland because the Roman Emperor Hadrian built his wall in Scotland. Some believe that Palestinians are the ancient Jews who lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago and remained there after the Romans destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem and exiled the political and religious leadership, but not the common people—farmers and shepherds. Palestinians respond that they were colonised by the Ottoman Empire and that they had the right to independence. Almost all peoples have obtained independence, except the Palestinians.

An Illegal Entanglement

Everyone appeals to international law. Everyone claims that Israel has the right to defend itself. It seems to me that Israel, since 1948, has never respected international law, the rulings of the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, nor does it respect the injunctions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council. Israel does not even respect the recommendations of its friendly and allied states.

And what about Palestinian rights? The right to a state? The right to a dignified life? The Israeli parliament passed a “basic law,” a kind of constitution, stating that the citizens of Israel are Jews from all over the world, and that those who are not Jewish are not citizens of Israel: Palestinians, Christians, Muslims, Druze who have always lived in Palestine-Israel are therefore not full citizens, or not citizens at all.

Palestinians accuse the State of Israel of being racist, of practising apartheid—the policy of separate development whereby Palestinians are not citizens in their own homeland—of blocking their right to political, economic, and cultural development and to having their own state. They accuse it of arming settlers who illegally—even under Israeli law—occupy their land and homes, depriving them of the ability to work and farm. Of imprisoning people without trial.

Racism and Apartheid

A major ally of Israel was apartheid South Africa: exchanges of weapons (including nuclear weapons) and techniques for controlling Black people and Palestinians. Today, post-apartheid South Africa accuses Israel of genocide. But are Palestinians not “terrorists”? The media, for the most part, think so. A “terrorist” is someone who seeks political results by terrorising the civilian population. Who is terrorising whom? According to “bourgeois” law—equal rights and duties for all, everyone equal before the law—it is Israel that terrorises, seeking ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, while Palestinians, under the right to decolonisation, have the right to defend themselves and to fight Israel.

Finally: Religion and Politics

A chief rabbi of a major Italian city used religion to defend Israel’s policies (Netanyahu is not the only one, as many would like to believe). But what kind of God is that God who prefers one people over another? A mythological god that pleases those who want to be blessed to feel more important? That is not my God.

According to this rabbi, the UN should defend Israel, even though it is an antisemitic organisation. But does Israel recognise the UN? Does it behave according to its rules? Does it accept its resolutions? No. The opinion of 150 UN member states does not count for Israel: they are all antisemitic. One then wonders whether this rabbi is defending Judaism, Jews, or a state. That God should accept and allow Israel’s policies, its violent ethnic cleansing—the Nakba—and its intention to commit genocide makes me think that God has been replaced by what Italians call Beelzebub. Bringing the divine into politics undoubtedly allows Beelzebub to enter as well!

A journalist from a major Italian newspaper claims that the “two peoples, two states” strategy is nonsense. I thought so too, but for opposite reasons: Zionist Jews and Palestinians, if they wish to live in Palestine-Israel, should have a single state with citizens enjoying equal rights. Geopolitics is not immutable! “Two peoples, two states” is not possible at the moment, but the time will come when it will be—not because “God wills it,” but because the majority of the world will want it. Recognising Israel’s military power does not mean that it cannot be politically challenged in other ways to force it to change course.

Western countries must defend and arm Ukraine so that it can live in peace and be respected by Russia. Why not allow Palestinians, who have suffered for 100 years and are still not decolonised, to live in peace? Why should they not receive Israel’s respect? Putin is wrong: he invaded and dismantled Ukraine. Does Israel have the right to carry out ethnic cleansing in Palestine and destroy it? Ukraine has the right to become part of the EU and NATO; why should Palestinians not aspire to the same rights?

To achieve a certain geopolitical balance, decisive steps must be taken:

• Expulsion of Israel from the UN through a vote of the General Assembly that no one can oppose.
• Recognition of the State of Palestine by individual EU member states and by the EU itself.
• Suspension of commercial, political, and military agreements with Israel.

One must be convinced that any policy aimed at distancing oneself from the United States accelerates the construction of the European Union, regardless of who the US president is. Arab and European governments do not recognise the will of younger generations: yet that is where the future must come from. For this reason, young people must know and read, for example, Shlomo Sand on Zionist culture and Ilan Pappé on ethnic cleansing.