May 9th is Gaza's Last Day — not Europe Day. And what exactly would there be to celebrate, with this Von der Leyen Europe and its miniature heads of state, our own church-going Mellona included?
Paola Caridi, Micaela Frulli, Giuseppe Mazza, Tomaso Montanari and Evelina Santangelo proposed dedicating this "Last Day of Gaza" to the martyrdom of the Palestinian people, inviting each of us to somehow make our voices heard — our total opposition to the ongoing genocide in the Strip, carried out in the revolting silence of Western power. Any form of "enough!" will do: shouted, written, or expressed through events, demonstrations, meetings, candlelight vigils. Millions upon millions of people around the world have already taken to the streets demanding an end to this horrific massacre. Have you seen the images? Have you heard about it? No. Gaza doesn't get covered. What gets covered is the semantic debate over the word "genocide." It's not a genocide, these spineless commentators say — it's a war on terror. Maybe a massacre, yes, but a small one, a tiny little massacre. But when a sniper puts a bullet in the forehead of a child — what do we call that? When these vile Zionists drop bombs, blow up houses, hospitals, schools, and then pose for selfies, sometimes laughing, sometimes literally dancing with joy — what is that? When you take a people, throw them out of their homes, destroy everything they have, down to their mattresses — when you raze trees, roads, crops — when you hold hundreds of trucks of humanitarian aid at Rafah with the clear intention of letting every last Palestinian die of hunger and disease — what do you call that? And when there's nothing left in what remains of the hospitals, and children, women, everyone torn apart by bombs gets their arms and legs amputated without medicines, without anesthesia, sometimes on the ground — what is the name for that?
But forget the name. Nobody who matters seems to care what it's called.
And don't anyone dare tell me this all started on October 7th. What a grotesque piece of nonsense. October 7th is a pretext — a horrible, convenient pretext — for Netanyahu and every colonial, sadistic, murderous Zionist like him to wipe out and seize land they've always craved. Land that is not theirs. Not even close to theirs. Palestinians have been driven from their homes since 1948, denied a state, deceived at every turn. And whoever has the nerve to say that "two states" is the solution today is lying through their teeth — because the 700,000 settlers who have violently planted themselves on Palestinian territory will never, ever be made to leave. Never. Just look at Netanyahu and that clown Trump sitting together to plan how to turn Gaza into a piece of Florida.
I have to stop writing because it takes extraordinary effort not to descend into pure profanity. But on May 9th — since so many are joining this initiative — let's make sure there is never an actual "last day" of Gaza.
Alessandro Ippolito