Israel’s Ambassador to Italy Jonathan Peled on Sept. 18 condemned a decision to exclude the Jewish state from a tourism fair scheduled for October in northern Italy, saying it fuels antisemitism and strengthens Hamas and other terrorist groups.
Organizers of the TTG Travel Experience in the Adriatic seaside city of Rimini, in the Emilia-Romagna region, announced last week the cancellation of Israel’s booth at the Oct. 8-10 event.
Rimini Fiera, the organizer of the fair, informed Israel’s Tourism Ministry over the weekend that the decision was made in coordination with the Rimini municipality and regional authorities, Ynet reported on Sunday.
This came after the town’s social democratic mayor, Jamil Sadegholvaad—who is of mixed Italian-Iranian origin—urged Israel’s exclusion in a joint letter and social media post published on Thursday with the president of the Emilia-Romagna region, Michele De Pascale.
The letter states: “We genuinely do not believe it is ethically or morally acceptable today to present destinations of war, terror, and death as vacation spots, and—in defining commercial agreements—to disregard the just words of condemnation of the violence carried out by the Netanyahu government, expressed also by the Italian government and by the European Commission, which has recently announced upcoming EU sanctions.”
In response, Peled said in an X post on Thursday that barring the Israeli booth “represents yet another intrusion by political ideology that exploits every opportunity to use attacks against Israel for electoral propaganda purposes, heedless of the serious effects that such decisions have on cultural, religious and business relations between Italy and our country.”
“Every year, Israel is visited by hundreds of thousands of Italians who, for work, tourism or religious reasons, value our destination. Israel also represents a significant influx of incoming tourism and business for Italy,” the envoy added.
“We strongly condemn this push toward isolation and the constant attitude of aggression toward Israel, which fuels the manifestations of antisemitism we are witnessing these days and strengthens the destructive terrorist strategy of Hamas and other organizations linked to it.”
