In Italy, Antisemitism Comes at No Cost |
On October 7, 2024, on the anniversary of the Nova Festival massacre, the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano published a comic strip by its cartoonist Natangelo titled The Fairy Tale of October 7th. Little Red Riding Hood decides to go dancing at a rave, even though she had been warned of the danger. The big bad wolves are Hamas. The victims of the worst pogrom since the end of the Second World War are depicted as responsible for their own deaths. Their murderers are described as “freedom fighters.”
The cartoon is not an isolated incident. It will not be the last.
Simone Lenzi, a writer and then serving as Livorno’s Culture Councillor, posted a furious response on X. He described Il Fatto Quotidiano as a sewer and a laboratory of moral depravity. He compared the newspaper’s editorial line to that of Der Stürmer, the Nazi antisemitic propaganda sheet of the 1930s. He did not name Marco Travaglio. He criticized a newspaper and the message it chose to convey.
Travaglio sued him for aggravated........