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Comitato Angelo Baracca in International Bulletin January 2024
One hundred people listening to more than twenty speeches from all regions participated on Sunday 28 January in the second National Assembly to Boycott Israel and Break the Complicity between Italy and the Zionist State.
An assembly promoted by the Angelo Baracca Committee, which in the original programmes should have been distinctly operational, with the main objective of relaunching the boycott campaign after the three national mobilisations carried out in two months against Carrefour.
But the events of the last few days have broadened the spectrum of the discussion, reserving space and political reflection for the most important events. Representatives of organisations of the Palestinian people and the rest of the world, workers and students, pacifist associations, movements and committees of purpose, radical left parties and individuals in solidarity animated the discussion for three hours of the morning.
First of all, the assembly emphasised how on the external front, Italy’s activation in the Red Sea operations decrees a qualitative leap in the country’s participation in the war, now well beyond ‘simple co-belligerence’, which, like the sending of armaments to Ukraine, brings Italy closer to the abyss of war conflict.
On the other hand, on the domestic front, the Interior’s attempt to ban demonstrations in support of Palestine on Remembrance Day showed the servility of the Italian state towards the Zionist state of Israel and NATO.
What remains of this country’s democratic sovereignty has been called into question by the indication that came from the representatives of Zionism in Italy and promptly picked up by our institutions, in the complicit silence of the ‘fake’ parliamentary oppositions.
To have held the squares and defied the bans then was an important signal of the movement for Palestine. In Milan, the will to hold the procession anyway clashed with police batons, proving the pro-Zionist subservience that permeates the res publica at all levels.
Thus, probably for the first time in Italy, the Holocaust Memorial Day broadened its horizons not only to the inhuman Shoah, but also to the other genocides that have occurred in history, from Gaza today to that of the natives of other continents.
In addition, the Assembly emphasised the present and future presence on our territory of Italian-Israeli soldiers fighting in the Israeli army, in fact a foreign armed force in the country’s ranks.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has also formally opened up to after South Africa’s denunciation, includes these same soldiers among its executioners.
This very serious fact exemplifies both the aforementioned weakening of our country’s democratic sovereignty and the double standard reserved by the Italian state for those who went to fight Isis or the resurgent Nazism.
And so, the boycott action must know how to insert itself in the contradictions opening up in the national and international political scenario, acquiring strength and incisiveness alongside the repeatedly manifested popular desire to support the Palestinian cause.
The objective is to field a campaign not only of boycott but also political, legal and awareness-raising, leading directly to 25 April with a clear word: the only Resistance is that of the Palestinian people, there is no demonstration against war and for peace without the flag of Palestine, anti-fascism is anti-Zionism, not allowing the genocide taking place in Gaza to be represented in the squares of Resistance by the flag of the Zionist State of Israel.
In this senario, the proposals put forward by the assembly are outlined on all levels of the campaign, of which we provide an operational summary below:
– second weekend in February, probably Saturday 10th, national mobilisation in front of pharmacies against Teva products, the company that holds the monopoly on generic drugs, ideally to be flanked with a letter to be sent to general practitioners not to prescribe products that have anything to do with the Zionist occupation;
– support for the 23 February strike and participation in the 24 February demonstration in Milan, showing support for the Palestinian people and denouncing in the square the Italian state’s subservience to Zionism and NATO.
In addition to these dates already in the field, the Assembly intends to flank
– a national mobilisation on the issue of academic boycott, asking universities to suspend, as the courageous Rector of the University of Cagliari has already done, collaborations with companies that support Israeli apartheid, such as the Med-Or foundation
– a political-legal campaign against the presence in Italy of Italo-Israeli soldiers who are carrying out the genocide in Gaza;
– moments of denunciation against the bad public service offered by RAI in its coverage of the conflict and against the suspension of funding decreed by the Meloni government to the Unrwa agency, which provides support to Palestinian refugees;
– imagine other moments of boycott and public awareness against Leonardo and the companies engaged in the front line with the Zionist regime.
Certainly intense work, but all the more necessary to show once again all the people’s support for the Palestinian cause.
