“Quousque tandem abutere, Europa, patientia nostra?”

I’m no Latin scholar, nor was I ever a particularly good student of Latin, but I’ve always remembered this phrase: “Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?” Probably not because it’s in Latin, but because of the rhetorical skill with which, in just six words, it highlights the limit that has been crossed, denouncing the weight of the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Well, for a few days now, the straw that broke the camel’s back has turned into a deluge: I shudder several times a day when I think about this, about this line that we—the Italian government, the European government and so many other governments—have long since crossed, ignored, and trampled upon: tolerance of the atrocities committed by the Israeli government, by its ministers, by the wives of its ministers, by its army, by its police, by its sailors, by its prison guards. 

I feel ashamed in front of my children when they ask me to explain to them “why” the Israeli government can kidnap people 1,000 kilometres from its shores, “why” it can keep them in prison, “why” it can torture them… “why” don’t we react? 

I felt ashamed even before, when I couldn’t answer the question of “why” we supported an army that had massacred thousands of children simply because they lived in a part of Palestine, and I also couldn’t answer the question of “why” there are settlers who can illegally occupy territories and freely kill those who live there. 

I do not want to live and die in shame, or with the memory of this shame. I do not want to be asked “why” any more, but I want the principle of “never again” to be upheld—a principle that does not apply to just one people or one country, but to each and every one of us, in every part of the world. 

So that in that “Garden of the Righteous” in Jerusalem, where non-Jews who fought and were often killed to defend a Jew are honoured, we may once again walk there and keep alive the condemnation of a horror that we have never allowed to be repeated. And do so without fear that a government will have us arrested and tortured. 

I know that relations with Israel are complicated for Europeans, and not just for us. There is a strong sense of guilt over what happened as a result of Nazism and Fascism; I know that, shamefully, European countries have used Israel to do the “dirty work” of maintaining the balance in that part of the world, so that we ourselves do not suffer too many repercussions. 

I am also aware that Tel Aviv is a major customer for our arms industry, that trade relations in general are substantial, and that the economic and financial interests of Israel and/or Israeli citizens are significant here in Europe—perhaps so significant as to trigger serious crises. 

But I also know that every constitution, every fundamental charter, and every European treaty (more or less) upholds freedom and the dignity of human life; condemns the death penalty and, perhaps even more so, torture; protects children and the vulnerable; and condemns war as a means of resolving disputes. These are important values, I believe, for us “Westerners” (even if today I am beginning to have some doubts); perhaps they even come before the great economic prosperity in which we live. Certainly, we have built our society on these values over the last 80 years, and it is upon them that the European Union was founded. We must continue to defend them, everywhere, even if it costs us something, because our dignity depends on the defence of these values, which we have chosen for ourselves; it depends on our ability to look at ourselves in the mirror in the morning and decide that yes, we deserve to show our faces in public, that we do not deserve to spit in our own eyes.