The University of Palermo in Sicily on Tuesday distanced itself from remarks that one of its professors made online, urging social media users to “unfriend” all Jews on Facebook to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper quoted Rector Massimo Midiri calling Professor Luca Nivarra’s remarks “culturally dangerous,” adding, “On complex issues such as the conflict in the Middle East, the path forward must be one of dialogue and critical discussion, not isolation and what approaches ideological censorship.”
He did not announce any disciplinary action against Nivarra, who teaches in Palermo’s Faculty of Law.
In a post on Monday, Nivarra urged users to “unfriend your Jewish ‘friends’ on Facebook, even the ‘good’ ones,” arguing that even Jews who criticize Israel were complicit in “covering up the horror” of what he described as a “Palestinian Holocaust.” “It’s a small, tiny thing,” he wrote, “but let’s start making them feel alone, face to face with the monstrosity to which they are complicit.”
Italy’s minister of university and research, Anna Maria Bernini, wrote on X Tuesday that Nivarra’s remarks “not only offend the Jewish people but also all those who identify with the values of respect and civil coexistence.”
In previous Facebook posts, Nivarra wrote that “there are no good Israelis,” and that “Israeli society is morally rotten.” He also said there was “only one difference” between the Israel Defense Forces and the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, which is that Eichmann claimed to be following orders, whereas “the IDF soldiers are happy to do what they do.”
Italy has about 27,000 Jews, according to a demographic study performed by the Italy-born Professor Sergio DellaPergola of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Foundation Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center (CDEC)—an independent institute for Italian Jewish history and culture based in Milan—registered 877 antisemitic incidents in 2024 compared to 454 in 2023.
Last month, following a string of antisemitic incidents, Davide Romano, director of the Museum of the Jewish Brigade in Milan, told JNS that Jew-hatred has reached the highest levels he’s ever witnessed. “The level of pro-Hamas propaganda in Italy is insane,” he said.
