The danger is no longer lurking; it’s here, clear and undeniable. What happened recently in Italy is just another alarming signal.
A pizzeria owner, proud of her anti-Israel stance, publicly waved around a discredited book by Ilan Pappe, one of Israel’s most notorious defamers. Rather than educating herself on the true consequences of mass hatred against Jews throughout history, she chose to make her establishment a hub of hostility. Instead of being sanctioned, her pizza place has become a magnet for anti-Israel activism, even receiving the tacit approval of institutions and public figures who have since visited her in solidarity.
This leads us to a haunting question: How does a new hunt for Jews, which culminated in the Shoah, begin? Historically, we reflect on Germany’s descent into barbarism. But today, we tell ourselves it can’t happen again—not in Italy, not in America, not in the modern world. Yet, we deceive ourselves. The mobs have already been unleashed.
Lethal hatred is no longer confined to ideological elites. When crowds chant “Death to Israel,” label Israel “genocidal” and “racist,” and when public authorities seem to agree or stay silent, the threat becomes tangible. In his landmark book Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Daniel Goldhagen exposed the breadth of participation in Nazi atrocities. It wasn’t just the SS; It was the police, civil servants, educators, businessmen, doctors—millions of ordinary citizens. Were such a wave to rise again today, it would likely include segments of the media, humanitarian organizations and so-called “activists.”
We now stand on the brink of a global attack on Jews, disguised as a righteous fight for “human rights.” Goldhagen rightly observed the staggering number of people complicit in the actions of Nazi Germany or aware of the Holocaust. Today, millions have been duped into believing Jews are colonial occupiers in their own ancestral land, ignoring the vast record of international agreements, including the 1948 U.N. resolution establishing Israel’s legitimacy. Few understand that the so-called “occupied territories” resulted from defensive wars against Arab aggression or that Israel fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Even fewer recognize that radical groups seek Israel’s destruction on religious grounds, not political ones.
The public doesn’t stop to question words like “genocide” or “apartheid,” which are now recklessly thrown into political discourse. Millions are ready to vilify Jews under the guise of opposing Zionism, often exploiting the polarizing figure of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about whom they know almost nothing.
The episode involving the pizzeria had three stages: First, the owner expelled an Israeli couple simply for their identity; second, a brief institutional outcry acknowledged the act as anti-Jewish; and third, public figures like Italian politician Laura Boldrini and others reversed course and offered their support, sensing fertile political ground.
This is nothing new. Historically, Jews have been accused of being Communists by fascists, fascists by Communists, beggars by capitalists, and capitalists by Marxists. Today, they are smeared as Zionist nationalists simply for wanting a homeland and the right to defend themselves from terror. People even dare to question whether the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, actually happened.
Meanwhile, Israel’s enemies continue their crimes: Murdering LGBTQ+ individuals, mutilating women, and turning Gaza into a fortress of hatred. Yet this pizzeria becomes a celebrated hotspot, much like Rai 3’s “Presa Diretta” program, which recently aired a biased and defamatory report against Israel. Only three brave voices dared to challenge it, but were swiftly condemned by USIGRAI, a journalism union in Italy, under the pretext of protecting “freedom of information.”
Jews today are under siege across the world. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet who belittles the victims of Oct. 7 and glorifies terror. People worldwide clamor for humanitarian aid that often ends up in the hands of those holding hostages captive underground. Calls for “peace” have become calls for Israel’s surrender.
In Milan, there’s debate over lighting the Palazzo Marino in the colors of the Gaza Strip, citing dubious Hamas casualty figures of 52,000 dead, including 13,000 children. In Ragusa and Catania, in southern Sicily, a new soft drink called “Gaza Cola” is being marketed—yet another symbol of how commercialized and normalized this wave of anti-Jewish hatred has become.
We are witnessing the rise of the willing executioners of our time, emboldened by misinformation, driven by ideological blindness, and legitimized by public institutions. The script is tragically familiar, but the ending depends on whether the world will wake up in time to stop it.