A law professor at the University of Pisa in Italy reported being assaulted on Tuesday by anti-Israeli activists who’d stormed his classroom.
Rino Casella, associate professor of comparative constitutional law, told the ANSA news agency that he was kicked and punched while trying to protect a student during the incident.
“They accused me of being a Zionist just because I have always said I’m not pro-Palestinian,” Casella told ANSA. He filed a police complaint for assault, which resulted in minor injuries. He was examined at a hospital, and received a seven-day sick leave, according to the report.
About 20 students affiliated with left-wing collectives entered Casella’s lecture at the Department of Political Science, waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans. When one student attempted to seize a flag, a scuffle ensued. More than 200 students were in the classroom at the time, but Casella said none expressed sympathy for the hecklers.
Scene che non vorremmo mai vedere, nelle aule universitarie italiane. Ho voluto esprimere solidarietà al professore dell’ateneo di Pisa Rino Casella, aggredito perché non si è voluto schierare con i pro Pal. Il clima di odio è sempre più preoccupante e fuori controllo. pic.twitter.com/7HhJ4KF69C
— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) September 17, 2025
University Rector Riccardo Zucchi condemned the violence, calling it “unacceptable” and stressing that even interrupting a lecture is a form of aggression. Italian Education Minister Anna Maria Bernini also denounced the assault, saying: “Universities are not free zones where it is permitted to disrupt classes or attack professors. What happened is intolerable for a society that recognizes the values of democracy.”
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini wrote on X: “Scenes we would never want to see in Italian university classrooms.” He added: “The climate of hatred is increasingly concerning and out of control.”
Jewish community leaders warned that the episode reflected a dangerous trend.
“What happened at the University of Pisa is precisely the escalation we have long feared, a consequence of conformity to Hamas propaganda,” said Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.
In an unrelated incident in Turin, the administration of the Polytechnic University on Tuesday said it was suspending its cooperation with professor Pini Zorea of Braude College of Engineering Karmiel after he publicly defended the Israel Defense Forces.
The IDF was “the most moral army in the world” he said during a lecture on image processing, Courier Dellasera reported.
Zorea made the remark after anti-Israeli protestors showed up at his lecture to interrupt it. He told them: “I agree with you, free Gaza. But from Hamas.”
Anti-Israel students and groups circulated the video of Zorea defending the IDF, leading to pressure on the university to disassociate from him.
Neither the cancelation nor the assault on campus were unprecedented, and both will likely recur, Davide Romano, director of the Museum of the Jewish Brigade in Milan, told JNS Wednesday.
The most worrying element “isn’t the actions of extremist student groups; it’s the reaction of the rector of the University of Turin,” Stefano Corgnati, said Romano.
Corgnati had said in a statement: “As soon as I learned of the unacceptable statement [of Zorea] I arranged, with immediate effect, for the interruption of the module and the suspension of all activities with the lecturer, who will be summoned for clarification on what happened.”
Earlier this year, the Department of Culture, Politics and Society at the University of Turin decided to end all collaboration with Israel’s Ben Gurion University.
“When the rector and the university structure no longer serve as a barrier to ‘normal’ youth extremism, it vastly exacerbated the problem,” turning once-respected places of higher learning “into propaganda spaces for left-wing populism that destroys academic credibility, as has already happened in the United States,” said Romano.
