A piercing chorus of tooting horns and dockers shouting \u201cwe don\u2019t want you\u201d greeted an Israeli-owned container ship when it arrived in Livorno, a port city on the coast of Tuscany this week.<\/p>\n
For two days, the striking dockworkers stood their ground, refusing to unload and reload the ship\u2019s cargo in a display of defiant solidarity for Palestinians and the Global Sumud flotilla attempting to bring aid to Gaza<\/a>. The protest was a triumph and the ship, bound for the US and Canada, left.<\/p>\n From Genoa, Trieste and Ravenna in the north, to Salerno and Taranto in the south, in recent weeks port workers across Italy<\/a> have succeeded in obstructing ships believed to have been carrying weapons for Israel, as opposition to the country\u2019s war in Gaza intensifies.<\/p>\n The dockers\u2019 determination to block weapons and stifle trade has been a crucial component of the pro-Palestinian uprising in Italy as pressure mounts on Giorgia Meloni\u2019s far-right government to take a stronger stance against Israel.<\/p>\n Pro-Palestinian demonstrators with a placard showing Meloni, protesting on the Ponte della Libert\u00e0 connecting Venice to the Italian mainland. Photograph: Barbara Zanon\/Getty Images<\/p>\n On Friday, thousands took to the streets after Cgil, Italy\u2019s biggest trade union, called the second general strike in less than two weeks, closing schools, stalling traffic and causing disruption on public transport and in healthcare. There were also spontaneous protests on Wednesday night after Israeli forces intercepted the flotilla<\/a> and arrested hundreds of activists, including the prominent campaigner Greta Thunberg.<\/p>\n The incident in Livorno was the first time an Israeli ship transporting general merchandise had been blocked.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael is carrying out an extermination of people in Gaza \u2013 by killing them, by starving them,\u201d said a dockworker, Luca Simoni. \u201cWe cannot remain indifferent. We have always been a port of welcome, not one of war. We will continue protesting until this war ends.\u201d<\/p>\n People rally at the Galileo Galilei airport in Pisa. Photograph: Enrico Mattia Del Punta\/EPA<\/p>\n Recent surveys show strong backing among Italians \u2013 including a significant share of supporters of Meloni\u2019s ruling coalition \u2013 for the recognition of a Palestinian state and in support of the flotilla aid mission.<\/p>\n Meloni has criticised Israel\u2019s killing of Palestinians in recent months, casting it as a \u201cdisproportionate\u201d reaction to Hamas\u2019s 7 October 2023 attacks, and has opened up to Italy recognising a Palestinian state, albeit with caveats. But she continues trying to maintain the delicate balance between being one of Israel\u2019s staunchest allies in the EU and a friend of Arab nations, all the while following the line of the US president, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Still, she is mindful of public opinion, especially with Italy in the throes of several regional elections, and has sought to exploit the protests and flotilla to attack her leftwing opponents.<\/p>\n Meloni has described the convoy as \u201cdangerous and irresponsible\u201d and, despite the humanitarian mission involving hundreds of activists from different countries, she said it was only targeted at \u201ccreating problems\u201d for her government. Meloni took a swipe at Friday\u2019s general strike, accusing Italians of undertaking \u201ca long weekend disguised as a revolution\u201d while claiming the event was politically orchestrated and offered no real benefit to Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Meloni government can only survive with scapegoats,\u201d claimed Gianfranco Francese, who heads the Livorno unit of Cgil. \u201cThere is also a great contradiction between what Meloni says and what she does,\u201d he added. \u201cShe talks about being a great patriot, a Christian and a mother, but she has not taken any political or diplomatic action to stop the massacre of women and children.\u201d<\/p>\n But despite the strong public sentiment reflected by the wave of pro-Palestinian protests, Meloni\u2019s Brothers of Italy party continues to lead in polls, at about 30%, and she has headed an uncharacteristically stable Italian government since coming to power in October 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cOn one hand, there is the majority of public opinion in solidarity with Gaza which wants an end to the war,\u201d said Lorenzo Pregliasco, a co-founder of YouTrend, a political analysis firm. \u201cBut you don\u2019t see the effects of this when it comes to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Pregliasco referred to last week\u2019s elections in the Marche region where Meloni\u2019s coalition won a second mandate. The same outcome is expected in votes in Veneto and Calabria.<\/p>\n Pregliasco said there was \u201ca real risk of the [Gaza] movement having too much of a leftwing identity, which would alienate people who are horrified with the war but who are not pro-Palestinian militants\u201d.<\/p>\n Nadia Urbinati, a political scientist at New York\u2019s Columbia University and the University of Bologna, said the reason why the effects of the protests were not being reflected in elections was because barely half of Italian voters go to the polls.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd those who do, vote for the right,\u201d she said, adding that Meloni could easily use the protests to disarm opponents.<\/p>\n She said every spontaneous movement of citizens was vulnerable to being infiltrated by antagonists, and alleged that this had been happening in order to \u201ccriminalise and repress\u201d the Gaza movement.<\/p>\n Susanna Romitelli, a cardiologist in Rome, has attended several pro-Palestine protests in the Italian capital and joined the march close to Piazza Vittorio on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cLast night, there was an initiative held in Italy\u2019s hospitals during which we remembered the thousands of medics killed in Gaza while trying to help people,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a very touching moment and we will continue to mobilise. You might not see it in political polls yet, but I think this government is starting to be very afraid of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A piercing chorus of tooting horns and dockers shouting \u201cwe don\u2019t want you\u201d greeted an Israeli-owned container ship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-472543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115313486328039557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}