Bologna’s decision to fly a Palestinian flag from its town hall drew sharp condemnation from Italian Jewish Communities. \u201cUsing public property to promote the Palestinian cause in the present conflict in Gaza in a context of increasing violence and increasingly squad-like demonstrations, is not a gesture of peace.\u201d So the Jewish Community of Bologna led by Daniele De Paz regarding Mayor Matteo Leporte initiative to display the Palestian flag on the fa\u00e7ade of the city hall.
\n\u201cAn implicit adherence to the slogan \u2018From the river to the sea\u2019 and therefore to the genocidal will of Hamas,\u201d read a joint note by the Jewish Community Council and the Jewish Museum. \u201cThis is an incitement to antisemitism that greatly endangers the Jewish and Israeli presence in our city and does not benefit the Palestinians either.\u201d The note also states that \u201cas citizens who adhere to European and Western ethical and cultural principles, we consider right to acknowledge the rights of Palestinians to their own state, but within the framework of a path of mutual recognition and willingness for peace.\u201d
\nMissed opportunities are uncountable. \u201cWe should not forget that a state was offered to Palestinians in 1947, 1967, 1979, and that in 2000 at Camp David, in the presence of Bill Clinton, Arafat refused Ehud Barak offer; and that again in 2008 Abu Mazen rejected one of the most advanced plans for peace, offered by Ehud Olmert. Both plans, with different nuances, envisioned the establishment of Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as a capital, with the return of 93% of the West Bank.\u201d
\nThe leadership of Bologna Jewish Community declared itself \u201csaddened in realizing that Bologna municipality automatically reports only the versions of one side (Hamas), without attempting to reconstruct reality also on the basis of Israeli positions.\u201d Likewise, emphasized the Jewish Community and Museum, \u201cwe are struck by how public opinion expects that in a war that Israel did not wage the casualties must be \u2018balanced\u2019 (which very rarely happens in war) and disregards the fact that Hamas cynically uses Palestinians as human shields and uses the number of casualties as a point in its favor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"