The BDS
The Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) movement is promoted in Italy by hundreds of
associations and small parties and movements having affinities with the radical left,
Islamic-Palestinian extremists, and the progressive segments of Christian churches who
find their cultural base in Liberation theology.
The BDS in Italy has remained circumscribed within extremist and militant milieux.
The most active supporters of a boycott against Israel are individuals (e.g. the professors
Iain Chambers, Wasim Dahmash, Enrico Bartolomei, Diana Carminati, Angelo D’Orsi,
Giorgio Forti, Domenico Losurdo, Vincenzo Tradardi, and Gianni Vattimo, and the
political activist Luisa Morgantini), extremist Islamic and Palestinian organizations
(UCOII, ABSPP, Informazione Palestina, Forum Palestina, Palestina Rossa), and Catholic
groups inspired by liberation theology and for years engaged in bitter anti-Zionist
criticism.
In academia, professors, researchers, doctoral students and undergraduates at the
L’Orientale university of Naples have championed forms of BDS (by signing anti-Zionist
petitions and occupying university facilities in a display of support for the Palestinians,
etc.).
Many political parties in Italy present in Parliament are opposed to BDS, although it
does have the sympathies of broad swaths of the Movimento 5 Stelle and SEL.
Islamist anti-Semitism
In Italy, not many episodes of anti-Semitism motivated by Islamist ideology have surfaced
through public sources. In most cases they are sermons against the Jews or Zionists by
Islamist imams, or else anti-Semitic invective and threats from members of jihadi
organizations or their sympathizers.
The trend in Italy did not change in 2015, although there was a slight rise in the
number of reported cases, perhaps as a result of greater attention to Islamic radicalism by
law enforcement and the mass media following upon the serious jihadi attacks that took a
heavy toll in Europe and in Israel during the year.
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