There has been a lot of talk in recent days about a bill filed by some parliamentarians of the Democratic Party, which aims to fight anti-Semitism and, more precisely, the fight against anti-Jewish sentiments and propaganda. In reality, what took center stage very quickly were the controversies, all within the Democratic Party, that this bill has generated (or of which it is a child), and it is indeed rather singular, given that the topic covered by the law, given its historical and symbolic relevance, would have deserved to be addressed, dissected, discussed in and of itself. In fact, these are rules “for the prevention and fight against anti-Semitism and for the strengthening of the National Strategy for the fight against anti-Semitism as well as delegation to the Government regarding anti-Semitic content spread on online platforms”. The issues raised, since frontispiece of the bill, are important, we would say imposing, as is the first signature of Graziano Delrio and several others among those of the co-signatories in the small arena of internal politics. Without offending anyone, we will only mention that of Pierferdinando Casini, former President of the Chamber, already “almost President of the Republic”, among the last custodians of the Christian Democratic charisma which, slowly being released, continues to have an important role in the politics of our country and in the corners of the State.

The bill

Let’s start, briefly, from the bottom. The bill on anti-Semitism, signed by a dozen parliamentarians elected from the Democratic Party, sparked an immediate controversy, entirely within their party of choice. Dividing along the axis of those in favor – the signatories and their “neighbors” – and those against were ultimately the components in eternal struggle within the Democratic Party: on the side of those proposing the law, the internal adversaries of the secretary Elly Schlein – not all the adversaries she has, only some of the most aggressive and coherent – and on the other side some of her most explicit and devoted praetorians. On a law whose subject is the fight against anti-Semitism, the internal division within the first opposition party is almost in line with the internal split in the “debate” over the leadership of Elly Schlein’s party. The symmetry between for and against the secretary, and for and against the DDL, became millimetric when four parliamentarians who are in the majority of the party – Nicita, Martella, Lorenzin and Valente – withdrew the signature, after pressure and criticism from executives whose voice is considered that of the secretary, who in recent years has been very careful never to offend or criticize the pro-Pal front, not even among its most vocal fringes, those who for example consider Israel to be a criminal state tout-court, always and forever. Very small political trot, for an issue – anti-Semitism – which has made the history of the horrors of the twentieth century, and is a permanent threat to the foundations of our civil and democratic coexistence, being the matrix of Western racism, including other racisms, no less widespread nor less destructive.

The legislative proposals

Beyond the controversy and political instrumentality that evidently surround this bill on anti-Semitism, it is therefore interesting to delve into the merits of the Bill on anti-Semitism. Indeed, we should say bills, given that Delrio’s is the latest in a short but significant series, always having as its object the fight against anti-Semitism. At the height of summer, the first to propose a bill on the subject was the deputy of Italia Viva Ivan Scalfarotto, followed a few weeks later by Maurizio Gasparri. The Gasparri project is the harshest of the three, and the only one that even intervenes with the instrument of criminal law, explicitly sanctioning with the threat of prison even those who deny Israel the right to exist, intervening extensively on the already existing norm on racial hatred, but further aggravating the punishment for anti-Jewish hatred. The current law, which obviously already covers and sanctions anti-Semitic conduct, is strengthened with specific attention to anti-Jewish hatred. In essence, if the Gasparri proposal became law it would establish that anti-Semitism is worse than other racisms, and that Italian law should punish it more seriously.

The two opposition law proposals, Scalfarotto and Delrio, are very different in their choice of instruments, but share several basic axioms with Gasparri’s. First of all, evidently, both believe that a law ad hoc is the right tool to counter anti-Semitism as a phenomenon in its own right, compared to racism in general. Like Gasparri’s proposal, they refer to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism. Unlike Gasparri, however, they do not use the instrument of criminal law, that is, they do not propose prison for new cases or more serious penalties for anti-Semitic conduct. However, Scalfarotto’s proposal provides for a theoretical extension of the ban on demonstrations and insists on the training of police and law enforcement agencies. In essence, a general and abstract rule that allows public security authorities to ban a demonstration is explicitly stated with reference to the law in question, and in particular with the controversial definition of anti-Semitism chosen by the law as the basis of the entire legal system. Scalfarotto’s proposal and that of Delrio – unlike Gasparri, who does not mention the internet or social networks – also share the unrealistic prediction of a direct and specific intervention on the large platforms, even going into detail – this is the case of the law that sparked the controversy in the Democratic Party – of providing a specific reporting button for “anti-Semitism” on social networks. Which therefore should be added to those to report incitement to racial hatred, once again separating anti-Semitism from other racisms. The idea of ​​forcing Meta to put the button that a handful of Italian parliamentarians want sounds rather naive, a bit boomer-ish, those younger than us would say.

Where is the debate

So this is the debate we have. A few words on the debate that would be nice and necessary to have. It would be nice if the Italian parliament were a place for the advanced development of an overall and long-term strategy against all racism, naturally with specific attention to the historical contingency in which anti-Semitism, following the destruction of Gaza, rears its head. Parliament should represent – ​​conditionally mandatory, under penalty of a very high financial penalty – the sensitivities of a country in a high manner. And then it would be important that, not only in his role as a legislator but also in that of a place for discussion, he spoke openly not only about the junk that circulates at the speed of light on the social profiles of strangers, but also about what draws life from the profiles of ministers, parliamentarians, or which occupies the front pages of some newspapers. We are certainly not talking about anti-Semitism, but it should be investigated whether it is not often racism, and the writer is convinced that it is no less serious. It would be precious, again and finally, if doing politics on important issues, when in the field there end up being foundational sensitivities for our history and our democracy, required the sensitivity and solemnity that history and democracy demand. Mixing them with the shop of the next congress, of the next lists, of the next identity controversy in a talk show, is just another small step in the long march of the debasement of the profession of democracy, which would then be the only real barrier to any racism. Antisemitism, of course, included.

Thinking about the whole story, I was reminded of a fortunate encounter many years ago, when at least half of my professional life was that of someone who reported on Israel from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. I interviewed Zeev Sternhell – one of the most important historians of the twentieth century, an Israeli citizen, among the first to critically deconstruct the Zionist mythology of the origins – and I asked him if he, so critical of his country, felt like a Zionist. He replied to me like this: “If Zionism is the ideal of the right of a people, the Jewish one, to self-determine, to have its own state, its own laws and its own land, of course yes. The battle of the Jewish people for the defense of its universal and truly enlightened right, that of being the master of its own destiny, exactly like the Italians, the Americans, the Poles and the Palestinians.” Rightly, that right to self-determination was derived from universal principles, the same principles that universally and without distinctions of treatment should sanction hatred and discrimination of any human being, “without distinction of sex, race, language, religion, political opinions or personal and social conditions”.