"Unfortunately, I already had the idea that Dr. Albanese was part of that, alas, large category of people whom I define as obsessed with Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor and Italian Senator for Life.
There had already been a precedent." This is stated by Liliana Segre's son, Luciano Belli Paci, in an interview with 'Corriere della Sera'.
"The jurist had posted an image of herself in front of a mural with my mother's face and the word 'indifference.' The hashtag was #Gazagenocide, as if to say that Liliana Segre's statements on Gaza were in contradiction with her lifelong commitment not to look the other way," he explained.
"Evidently, Albanese had not read my mother's words in which she states that she feels repulsion for the Netanyahu government and the fascist and racist right-wing in power today in Israel; those in which she says that one must weep for children of every nationality and expresses sorrow for civilian victims; those in which she denounces war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both Hamas and the Israeli army.
It was enough for her to express her opinion on the appropriateness of not using the word genocide to provoke contempt".
War 'contaminating' democratic debate
"In Italy, not only by Albanese, there seems to be a kind of 'thought cleansing' where one not only has to say certain things, but also say them in a certain way," he continues. "However, this destroys democratic debate. At this stage, war has been imported into the debate, contaminating it. It's as if there's a recruitment on one side or the other.
And this brings no benefits to Palestinians, only intolerance. We haven't yet reached the situation of the 1970s, but we must bear in mind that physical violence always starts from violence that was first verbal and moral".
"Every political side pulls water to its own mill," he adds, "But in the debate on genocide, it cannot be forbidden to support a thesis different from Albanese's. Historians Marcello Flores and Andrea Graziosi, for example, the leading experts in Italy on genocide, do not agree on the use of the word for Gaza."
Paci said that in recent months, the jurist has acted more as an activist than as a neutral expert; if one enters the debate in this way, then one must accept that everyone participates without being silenced, or publicly humiliated like the mayor of Reggio Emilia who, while awarding her, dared to say that to achieve peace, Israeli hostages must also be freed".
"The problem goes beyond Albanese. There are also those who equate Hamas with the resistance. And this should not be minimized. The left in particular, which I call into question precisely because I feel part of it, should take responsibility for this. Instead, there is a certain tolerance towards the intolerant," he concludes.
Francesca Albanese was the protagonist of a 'case' in Sunday evening's episode of In Onda. Albanese, who was supposed to leave the studio around 9 PM for another engagement, suddenly got up and abruptly left the broadcast while another guest, Francesco Giubilei, agreed with Senator Segre's position on the definition of genocide and the tragedy in Gaza.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.