This text continues an article I wrote about two weeks ago on the urgent need to establish a Jewish People's Guard. It is not a summary of the existing situation, but an opening salvo in a necessary process: building an international Jewish security network, adapted to the threats of the 21st century.

The Jewish people did not always know, or were not always able, to defend themselves when it became clear that no one else would do so on their behalf.

The establishment of the State of Israel and its security apparatus changed the fate of the Jewish people living in Israel, but they did not rule out the principle of mutual responsibility among Jewish communities in the Diaspora. Today, more than ever, the State of Israel's commitment to Jewish communities worldwide is growing. One thing is now unmistakably clear: exclusive reliance on local authorities in the Diaspora, important as they may be, is not enough. A complementary move is required. Not a militia. Not a replacement force. Rather, a coordinated, professional, international defense framework that operates in partnership with the State of Israel, Jewish communities and security bodies and authorities in the various countries.

From here, we must move from idea to action. This means building early warning and deterrence mechanisms, sharing information among communities, training community based response teams under an organized and well drilled command and control model, and strengthening Jewish resilience at an organizational level, not merely a state of mind. A genuine security network is measured by its ability to anticipate threats, identify patterns and respond quickly and responsibly, not only after an incident has already occurred. This is a process that demands leadership, coordination and resources, and above all: an understanding that this is a long term responsibility.

During Hanukkah, it is important to recall a simple truth that is too often forgotten: we do not rely on miracles. A miracle is a last resort, not a work plan. The Maccabees did not wait for salvation. They built power, organized and acted. Today as well, Jewish resilience will not be built on hope alone, but on initiative, mutual responsibility and early preparedness. If we want a safer future for the Jewish people, we must be relentlessly proactive and build the Jewish People's Guard not as a slogan, but as a reality.

Where efforts converge, the miracle will follow.

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The belief is understandable. A broad swath of Israel's political spectrum has long been defined by being either for or against Netanyahu, so it seems reasonable to imagine that his departure might release the pressure. In reality, though, this expectation is misplaced. The intensity of the Netanyahu fixation points to something deeper.

For decades, Israel's Center-Left has struggled to reconcile its founding self-image with the demographic, cultural, and religious transformation unfolding around it. This dissonance has bred both anxiety and resentment.

In other societies, similar discomforts have often been managed through scapegoating: identifying a figure or group to bear the blame for the strains of modernization. Jews historically filled that role, having been accused over the centuries of obstructing redemption by rejecting whichever "truth" the societal majority held sacred. 

Jewish Israelis cannot scapegoat themselves, but the psychological mechanism of blame displacement applies no less to them. It is primordial – more ancient even than the flesh-and-blood Jew. As Jean-Paul Sartre observed, "If the Jew did not exist, the antisemite would invent him."

Confronted by unsettling social change, some Israelis did precisely that. They projected their unease onto a figure who embodied it – Israel's most dominant and resilient political figure, Benjamin Netanyahu.

While Netanyahu cannot, on his own, make Israel more religious or less liberal, he has consistently drawn decisive support from sectors of society that many in the Center-Left regard as emblematic of that change. For those who once saw the state as an extension of their own secular and liberal image, Netanyahu became the ideal vessel for their fixation. He came to personify the fact that Israel has slipped away from them, such that they could no longer fully command or define it.

Strikingly, Netanyahu unsettles Israel's elites not because he is foreign to them, but precisely because he isn't. In him they see an inversion of themselves that threatens their sense of moral and cultural superiority. Like them, he is Ashkenazi, Western, educated, secular, and culturally polished – yet he deploys these traits in service of a political and cultural vision that rejects many of their premises.

He is fluent in the West but not deferential to it. He reflects the elites' self-image, but not the insecurities that shaped it. He looks like the Israel they believed they built, yet acts like the Israel that outgrew them. 

Over time, this intolerable mirror image has caused political disagreement to harden into moral essentialism. Netanyahu's decisions came to be viewed less as policy choices than as psychological symptoms, interpreted through a lens of mistrust. Assertive diplomatic or military moves were cast as recklessness, while restraint was deemed political calculation. The result was an opposition defined less by alternative policy than by the conviction of Netanyahu's inherent guilt.

Throughout Netanyahu's premiership, Center-Left parties could have zeroed in on education, housing, fair military enlistment, or any of a dozen other issues, making their position the non-negotiable price of joining unity coalitions. But doing so would have meant legitimizing a political and cultural reality they no longer felt represented them. So instead, opposition to Netanyahu became their organizing principle.

The trouble with scapegoating is that it consumes the societies that practice it. Once a single figure is cast as the source of all dysfunction, the energy that might be spent addressing real challenges is redirected into neutralizing that figure.

With the backing of Israel's unelected intellectual and security elites, the anti-Netanyahu movement increasingly leveraged the administrative state not to extract policy concessions, but to engineer his removal from office. The gravest consequence was the weakening of Israel's ability to act as one society under threat. During the judicial reform crisis, large segments of the anti-Netanyahu camp conditioned participation in reserve military duty on the fate of the legislation. October 7 revealed the cost of turning national defense into a bargaining chip.

Scapegoating can produce a momentary catharsis when the chosen target falls. Should Israel find itself with a new Prime Minister, many will experience that fleeting relief – the illusion of moral and national renewal. Yet the deeper social rifts that gave rise to the fixation will remain unresolved. Removing the scapegoat cannot substitute for self-reckoning. Just as no renaissance followed Iraq's expulsion of its Jews, Israel should not expect sudden transformation once its own "Jew" is gone.

Genuine healing begins only when a community recognizes that the object of its hostility was never the true source of its ills. For Israel, that means acknowledging that Netanyahu is not the problem – and that refusing to engage constructively with his political base has been a grave error.

If Israel's Center-Left cannot reach that understanding before Netanyahu leaves the scene – be that in 2027 or 2037 – the path to national reconciliation will emerge too late, with a society freed of its scapegoat but still captive to its fears. The "day after Netanyahu" would then feel less like a new dawn and more like the uneasy continuation of the same night – the country's chance for renewal deferred once again and its divisions left to fester.

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The flood of critical articles in Israeli media about his meetings with Pollard, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir, alongside criticism of his pre-appointment television commercials, seem to me not only unfair but completely wrong.

Huckabee is performing his duties with distinction at a time when Israel faces existential threats on seven fronts. Instead of criticizing him, the Israeli media and public should be "celebrating" the fact that the United States finally has an ambassador who understands Israel's situation from the depths of his heart and defends it without any apology or reservation.

Yes, the ambassador hosted Pollard at the embassy residence in July. Yes, the meeting was not pre-cleared with Washington and did not appear on the official schedule. And yes, many in the American national security establishment still view Pollard as a problematic figure. But anyone who has followed his career knows that Huckabee publicly supported Pollard's release long before it became politically "convenient," and when he met as ambassador with the man whose release he had so championed, it was an act of simple human decency.

The same logic applies to his meetings with the ministers. When five Western countries imposed personal sanctions on two democratically elected officials, Huckabee did not join the chorus of condemnation but instead invited them to discussions described as cordial - which even bore fruit on various issues, from coordinating security in settlements in Judea and Samaria to planning for emergency situations.

A Model of Integrity

The spectacle of America's ambassador praising a sleep supplement on television caused eye-rolling from Tel Aviv to Washington, but the facts are simple: the commercials were filmed before his appointment, contain no reference to his current title, and fully comply with the disclosure requirements of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

More importantly, they reveal something essential about the man: Mike Huckabee has never pretended to be a typical establishment figure. He is a former governor of a small state who supported his family through broadcasting and lectures, and he makes no apology for it.

In an era when many diplomats enrich themselves through shadowy consulting contracts or paid lectures from hostile governments, Huckabee's transparent contract with the dietary supplement company is a model of integrity. And perhaps most importantly: Huckabee has restored a sense of trust. When he says the U.S. "has Israel's back" - Israelis believe him, because they have watched him prove it for decades.

As an international lawyer who has spent 40 years traveling between Jerusalem and Washington, I have seen many ambassadors. Some were brilliant operators, others were close friends of Israel, but almost none combined deep policy expertise with genuine emotional commitment. Mike Huckabee does, and the Israeli press owes him and the alliance he represents an apology, as well as a resounding "thank you."

This is the time to be grateful that the man in the embassy is someone who prays daily for the peace of Jerusalem, refuses to equate victim with aggressor, and understands that the U.S.-Israel alliance is not a "favor" America grants Israel - it is a strategic and moral imperative for both nations.

Attorney Marc Zell is the Chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel and Vice President & General Counsel of Republicans Overseas Inc.

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This astonishing distortion of history coincided with a parallel diplomatic storm. Last week, Yad Vashem published a brief historical note on social media: "Poland was the first country where Jews were forced to wear a distinctive badge in order to isolate them from the surrounding population." These are uncontested historical facts. Yet the Polish government responded with fury. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum – funded and overseen by the Polish state – accused Yad Vashem of misleading the public by failing to spell out that Nazi Germany, not Polish authorities, issued and enforced the badge decree.

The reaction spiraled instantly. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the government's IPN institute, and the Auschwitz Museum all condemned the post. Warsaw summoned Israel's ambassador. Officials demanded that Yad Vashem explicitly clarify in the original post itself that Poland was under German occupation, insisting that failure to insert the adjective "occupied" amounted to an attack on the Polish nation. Yad Vashem noted that the linked article clearly explained this context – yet Polish leaders declared the explanation insufficient.

What we are witnessing is not a misunderstanding. It is a symptom of a deeper and more dangerous trend: the systematic re-engineering of Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe, and in Poland most of all.

A fragile national identity and a rigid historical orthodoxy

No serious historian disputes that Nazi Germany planned, implemented, and carried out the genocide of Europe's Jews. Nor does anyone deny that Poland suffered enormously under occupation. But history is more complicated than national mythmaking allows. As scholars such as Jan Gross, Jan Grabowski, and Barbara Engelking have demonstrated, roughly two-thirds of the Jews in hiding in Poland were betrayed or killed with the direct involvement of Polish citizens. Both realities – German responsibility and local complicity – are true simultaneously.

Yet in contemporary Poland, even acknowledging these parallel truths is treated as heresy. The fury over the Yad Vashem post rests on a brittle premise: that any wartime reference to "Poland" without the word "occupied" is a slander against the nation. In Belgium, France, or the Netherlands, historians are not required to pepper every sentence with "occupied." Everyone understands the context. But in Poland, this insistence has become almost theological – because it guards a deeper anxiety: that Poles were not only victims, but in some cases victimizers.

Jedwabne and the return of the buried past

Nowhere is this clearer than in the enduring trauma of Jedwabne. On July 10, 1941, hundreds of Jews were murdered in that village by their Polish neighbors – burned alive in a barn while the crowd jeered. For decades, the memorial plaque falsely attributed the massacre to the German occupiers. Villagers knew this was a lie. Only with Jan Gross's "Neighbors" did the truth become impossible to ignore: the perpetrators were locals, not Nazis. Similar pogroms occurred in nearby towns such as Radziłów, Szczuczyn, and Wąsosz.

The political backlash was swift. By 2018, the Polish parliament passed Article 55A, criminalizing public statements that assert Polish participation in Nazi crimes. Government-aligned groups sued historians Grabowski and Engelking for documenting how Jews in hiding were betrayed by their Polish neighbors. Although higher courts eventually acquitted them, the message was unmistakable: writing honestly about Polish complicity is a dangerous act.

This pattern is not unique to Poland. Hungary's House of Terror Museum presents the Hungarian nation almost exclusively as a victim, erasing the Hungarian state's central role in deporting 430,000 Jews to Auschwitz. Across Eastern Europe, governments cloak historical revisionism in the language of patriotism, using museums, curricula, and official rhetoric to transform complex histories into comforting myths.

Rose's distortion – and Poland's fury

Distorting Holocaust history corrodes public understanding of the genocide, dishonors its victims, and weakens the moral foundations of the postwar international order. If nations can rewrite their own past – sanitizing collaboration, erasing local antisemitism, and recasting their populations solely as heroic resisters – then the Holocaust becomes not a universal warning, but a political tool.

This is the broader context in which Ambassador Rose's remarks and the Polish government's outrage must be understood. Rose adopted a narrative increasingly promoted by Poland's nationalist right: that any suggestion of Polish involvement in the persecution of Jews is "a grotesque falsehood" and "a blood libel." Meanwhile, Polish officials erupted over a factual Yad Vashem post – summoning diplomats, demanding edits, and condemning historians – not because the facts were wrong, but because the facts were uncomfortable.

The truth is neither simple nor convenient: Germany committed the genocide, and some Poles helped hunt down their Jewish neighbors. To deny either reality is to deny history itself.

Daniel Schatz holds a doctorate in Political Science, is an author and columnist. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown, Columbia University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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Greta Thunberg, who in recent years has abandoned climate conferences to participate in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, has accused Israel of "genocide" and "crimes against humanity" in Gaza, going so far as to compare military operations to a "systematic destruction of the planet." These words marked a turning point in her journey: from "Fridays for Future" to "Fridays for Palestine."

At her side was Albanese, who has never hidden her radical views. Famous for her harsh statements against the Jewish state, she was recently sanctioned by the United States for "prejudice and incitement to hatred." The US State Department has restricted her participation in conferences and official meetings in the United States, accusing her of overstepping the limits of her mandate at the United Nations and spreading a narrative that "legitimizes violence against Israel."

On several occasions, the Italian rapporteur has called Israel "an apartheid state" and "a colonial regime that aims to wipe out the Palestinian people." She has accused Western countries of "moral and material complicity in war crimes" and has even called on European governments to "stop all military and scientific cooperation with Tel Aviv." These statements have caused irritation not only in Jerusalem, but also among UN diplomats, who see her as a divisive figure and a source of institutional embarrassment. Despite everything, Albanese continues to present himself as the voice of "universal human rights," ignoring the fact that his role requires neutrality and detachment. His presence on the streets, alongside a now politicized figure such as Greta Thunberg, consolidates an ideological alliance that has nothing to do with environmentalism or diplomacy.

The Italian marches on November 28 and 29, 2025, thus risk turning into a militant showcase, where causes overlap and become confused: climate, Palestine, anti-capitalism, hatred of the West. In the middle of it all is a young and disillusioned audience, attracted by simple slogans and symbols that are easy to share on social media. But why did the unions invite Greta Thunberg and Francesca Albanese to participate in the demonstrations on November 28 and 29? It is certainly not a random choice, but rather a response to a specific strategy that is more political than union-related. Firstly, the presence of two internationally recognized figures guarantees media visibility: the attention of newspapers and television stations, both Italian and foreign, transforms an ordinary strike into an event with global reach. It is a choice of communication, even before content.

Added to this is the desire to internationalize the protest, linking national issues—wages, precariousness, inequality—with global battles for the climate and against war. In this context, Thunberg becomes the symbol of the struggle against capitalism and the fossil fuel-based economic model, while Albanese represents the voice of denunciation against Israel and, more generally, of accusation against the West, which is considered jointly responsible for global injustices.

There is also a clear internal political message : their participation also serves to strengthen the opposition to the government, accused of siding with Israel and reducing the space for social dissent. In essence, their presence embodies a symbolic gesture of defiance towards the executive. Everything converges in a well-thought-out political and media calculation : to use two iconic figures, very different from each other but both functional to the narrative, to give the strike an international and anti-system dimension that it would otherwise have struggled to achieve. Many observers speak openly of the 'exploitation of Italian squares' by foreign figures seeking visibility. Italy, fertile ground for symbolic activism and the rhetoric of "global struggles," once again becomes the perfect stage for a protest that mixes defunct environmentalism and partisan geopolitics. Greta Thunberg and Francesca Albanese thus represent two sides of the same paradox : a young woman who has stopped talking about carbon dioxide and an obscure diplomat who speaks like an activist. Both are united by the certainty that they are right, but far from the reality of what they claim to defend. But the question for both remains the same : who is paying them to do all this?

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Much has been said about today's young generation. That they live on TikTok, that they lack ideals, that they're self-focused. But when the war began, this generation proved just how wrong we were about them. I came to realize two simple truths.

First, young Jews around the world deeply want to support Israel. They want to come here and stand with their people in their time of need. They fought to arrive in Israel, and during the war with Iran, some even fought to stay.

The second thing I understood is that they are paying a heavy price for that support, sometimes too heavy, simply because they do not yet have the tools to face this challenge. Since October 7, Jewish communities around the world have been confronting an unprecedented wave of antisemitism, hatred, and incitement. In such times, the need for young Jewish leaders — confident in their identity and connected to Israel — has become more essential than ever. Leaders who can speak, act, and guide others — not from fear, but from conviction, purpose, and hope.

For over twenty years, Masa Israel Journey, a joint initiative of the Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel, has brought thousands of young Jews from around the world to Israel each year for long-term programs. Every day, we ask ourselves one simple question: since most Masa fellows ultimately return home, how can we turn their time in Israel from a powerful experience into a leadership journey? Guided by this question, and the vision behind it, we continue to act.

Next month, during the Israel Hayom Summit in New York, when we ask ourselves, "Where do we go from here?", we will look first at the young people sitting in the audience. I know I will be thinking especially of the 210,000 Masa alumni — each of whom contributes to Jewish life in their own way, carrying the knowledge, values, and connection they gained here in Israel.

This year, we will once again present the Masa Changemakers List — an inspiring group of young men and women, all Masa alumni, who have turned the values and skills they developed here into meaningful action in fields such as diplomacy, media, politics, art, and social entrepreneurship. Each one of them is leading real change in their community — and together, they embody the mission we have set for ourselves: to build the next generation of Jewish leadership.

Anyone who has seen young people who came here over the past two years, as they step off the plane in Israel, eyes shining with excitement, running to volunteer in the orchards near Gaza, unafraid but full of purpose, knows the truth. This generation is just as committed to the Jewish people as any before them, perhaps even more so. They are talented, driven, and ready to lead. We see it every single day.

When I look forward, I feel hopeful. There is a generation we can trust. Our role is to look at them, believe in them, give them the right tools, and prepare them — and ourselves — for the challenges that lie ahead for all of us.

The post Facing forward appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

As both a New Yorker and a lifelong Zionist, I asked myself, "Who would be the best candidate for mayor to lead our city forward in these dark times?"

It was, however, a talk with a much respected family friend, an Israeli who has lived in New York for 25 years, who helped me make the ultimate decision.

He said the following on Andrew Cuomo, who I already mistrusted as arrogant and too old and a womanizer: "I'd vote for Bibi, who you know I despise, before I'd vote for Cuomo." He also observed at length how Israelis – who all said to me Mamdani was an antisemite who would be the ruination of Jews in America – did not have the context with which to understand this mayoral race, just as Israelis have accused Americans of having the same lack of context when confronted with their overwhelming support of the Palestinian cause.

Americans who were on the side of the Palestinians did not understand what the phrase "From the river to the Sea" actually meant; they had never visited Israel and did not understand how close the borders and constant attacks were: never fully understood how Hamas has deliberately and for decades embedded their fighters and ammunition in hospitals and schools and mosques without regard for their own civilians, or how the Netanyahu government arrogantly dismissed the possibility of a Hamas attack of the severity of October 7. Context is indeed critical.

So what to do? Mamdani is young, energetic and on the side of the poor and working class immigrants who are the engine that drive this city. He is also surrounded by Jews from the previous and this new administration who will advise him and hopefully keep him in check. Even Barack Obama has said he will mentor him if asked, and I truly believe he will be too busy learning how to run this enormous and complicated city to have time to make life miserable for the Jews here.

So, perhaps because I am a life long educator and believer in raising up the disenfranchised, I voted for the future rather than the past.

The writer of this column, a Jew from New York, asked to stay anonymous. 

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But behind the criminal incident lies a management lesson: how organizations lose the ability to distinguish between illusory and real security. The Louvre heist didn't happen despite the advanced security systems, but largely because of them. When trust in machines replaces human alertness, when the system is perceived as a substitute for thinking, reality tends to strike from the simplest place.

BREAKING: Footage of the heist targeting the Louvre in Paris has now been released.

This is the first time we can see actual video of the "heist of the century."

Here, the thieves escape on a truck-mounted lift before fleeing on a scooter. pic.twitter.com/LsCrAFeziW

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 22, 2025

The Louvre's security systems were built under the assumption that the threat would look like it used to. Suspicious figure, alarm, physical breach attempt. But in an era where risk stems from the combination of technology, human agility, and surprise capability, management methods remained fossilized. The cameras documented everything, but nobody actually saw. Data flowed in real time, but there was no one to connect it into one picture. In other words, the technology was smart, but the management wasn't.

This is perhaps the essence of the challenge of the artificial intelligence era: the smarter the systems become, the more relaxed people get. Digital security creates an illusion of control, and the organization becomes addicted to procedures and systems rather than to wisdom. No algorithm identifies a lack of attention, no software warns about mental stagnation. When everything is connected, it seems like everything is under control – until it turns out nobody is really alert anymore.

If the Louvre Museum, one of the most secure places in the world, can be breached in seven minutes, any organization is vulnerable. Not always technically, but conceptually. Not through a back door, but through managerial blindness. Risk management in the current era is no longer a bureaucratic process of updating technologies, but an art of adaptation. It requires managers who identify anomalies in real time, who understand that the unexpected is already the rule, and who grasp that the real threat is complacency.

Ultimately, the Louvre heist isn't just a story about security – it's a parable about leadership and responsibility. It reminds us that as long as we continue to entrust human judgment to smart machines, we remain exposed to precisely what isn't considered possible. In an era of artificial intelligence, risk management isn't about preventing the unexpected, but about recognizing when reality has already changed and moving with it.

The author is CEO and founder of Duality strategic consulting firm.

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In recent weeks, from Rome to Milan, Turin, Bologna, and Udine, incidents of violence have multiplied. Journalists have been attacked for "not telling the truth," police officers have been wounded with flagpoles, and operators have been jostled and threatened. These scenes evoke a climate of political tension not seen in decades. Behind these protests is an organized network. This is not a spontaneous phenomenon. Security services confirm that there is a new bond between subversive antagonism and pro-Palestinian movements, an alliance cemented by hatred towards Israel and, more generally, towards democratic institutions.

Many of the marches are promoted or logistically supported by the CGIL, Maurizio Landini's trade union. In the name of peace, local offices are made available as meeting points or starting points for marches. Flyers, posters, megaphones, and banners are produced with internal resources. It is a political operation disguised as civil mobilization. Landini, who has not hesitated to comment on every government decision on labor, pensions, and minimum wage, is silent this time.

No condemnation of the violence, no words of solidarity for the reporters who were attacked or the police officers who ended up in hospital. The same silence also weighs on Giuseppe Conte and Elly Schlein, who only a few weeks ago were marching in the same squares, calling for a ceasefire. Now, faced with images of the degenerate marches, they prefer to look the other way.

This political ambiguity comes at a price. Because behind the slogan "Free Palestine" there are forces at work today that are anything but peaceful. These are the same circles that in recent years have attempted to revive the season of "no global," "no Tav," occupations, and blockades. A galaxy that blends the old culture of class hatred with the new anti-Western ideology.

Intelligence agencies report the presence of groups linked to the old autonomy movement, insurrectionary anarchism, and movements that in the past had contacts with international protest networks. Now, the Palestinian cause provides the perfect cover: an emotional, exploitable cause capable of attracting young people and justifying all forms of disobedience.

The strategies are always the same: infiltrate legitimate demonstrations, provoke a reaction from the police, and spread manipulated images on social media to fuel outrage. At the same time, the narrative equating the Israeli state with "Western fascism" and the Italian police with "servants of imperialism" is growing. This language is a direct throwback to the Years of Lead, adapted to digital language. "This is no longer social protest, but political subversion," observe sources at the Interior Ministry. "It is a movement that uses peace as a smokescreen to legitimize violence."

In many marches, symbols and gestures reminiscent of the Red Brigades have reappeared: clenched fists, chants against the "occupying forces," slogans about "armed resistance." Meanwhile, the institutional left remains silent. Conte and Schlein prefer not to disturb their militant base. They avoid making statements, remain silent on the attacks, and do not take a position on the drift of a movement that declares itself "anti-fascist" but behaves like fascists. The fear of breaking the consensus front weighs more heavily than political responsibility. It is a paradox that does not escape observers: those who call for a ceasefire in Gaza cannot stop themselves in their own cities. Those who claim to defend freedom trample on it against those who do not think the same way. And those who fill their mouths with words like "peace," "justice," and "human rights" end up using their fists as a political argument.

In terms of internal security, alarm is growing. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations are now considered to be at high risk of subversive infiltration. Police forces have increased surveillance levels in several cities. The concern is not only physical violence, but also the ability of these groups to create a climate of media intimidation: hate campaigns against journalists, lists of "traitors," threats on social media. Instead of curbing this drift, the CGIL is accompanying it. Some local union leaders have participated in the marches, openly justifying the demonstrators' 'reaction' against the police. It is a snapshot of a union that, having lost its role as mediator, has chosen radicalization as a means of political survival. While the guns are silent in Gaza, a different war is being fought in Italy: ideological, media, identity. A war that does not aim at peace, but at the delegitimization of democratic institutions.

And the silence of the leaders of the left—Landini, Conte, Schlein—is the bitterest proof of this moral surrender. Today, those who talk about peace but tolerate violence are not defending rights: they are betraying them. Those who say they are fighting for freedom but attack a journalist or a police officer are not militants: they are subversives. And those who remain silent while all this is happening are accomplices. The truce in Gaza could last weeks or days. But the truce in Italy is already over. And if subversion returns to march under the banners of peace, the risk is not only to public order: it is the short memory of a country that has forgotten how much it costs to look the other way.

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At the time I proposed that the written condition that would sit above every agreement should be that the first terrorist is released only after the last fallen soldier has been buried. Had we done that, we would not be facing this dilemma today.

Under the agreement the government signed, Hamas is supposed to return everyone within 72 hours. There were real sanctions regarding the living hostages and that is why they were brought back, but regarding the deceased  there was left a gap the size of Shalom Tower and it was obvious that Hamas would pass through it and squeeze the life out of us, keep assets we cannot obtain and we will now have to invent levers for that, moreover and this is the main point, Israel currently has no leverage at all over the return of the fallen.

We, the Goldin family, have been on this for 11 years, and the levers presented to us are ineffective because they are the same levers presented to us since the end of 2014. If those levers did not work for 11 years, someone has to convince me they will work now.

The only thing clear in this agreement is that the party running the business now is the US, and for me personally it is very, very difficult that Americans are handling the issue of the deceased hostages in this agreement. I do not see how the State of Israel, which must rebuild Israeli society, contributes to that, and that is my problem today.

I warned, and the disaster happened

For 11 years I have been fighting to bring my son, and I warned that if they did not bring Hadar and Oron Shaul in a proper manner in dealing with Hamas a disaster would happen, and the disaster happened. We fought for two years, we paid with 913 casualties from our best sons, and if they had listened to us, to the Goldin family, everything would have looked different.

Now it is clear we will continue to fight, and it is clear we will not stop until we bring Hadar and all the other deceased hostages, because if we leave them with the enemy, we have lost this war. No matter how many celebrations they hold or what they do, we lost this war because Hamas won, and in this agreement we enabled it that opening.

Now the role of the government of Israel is to show Israelis how it will close that gap, how it will bring the fallen and how we begin a new path. That is its mission, and in the past 24 hours I do not see that happening, only the opposite.

Professor Simcha Goldin is the father of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, a fallen IDF soldier held by the terrorist organization Hamas since August 2014.

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