A conference promoted by two pro-Israeli associations was canceled at the University of Milan, after the police headquarters considered the risk of accidents to be “very high”. The conference was supposed to take place on May 7th with the title «The only democracy in the Middle East. Israel between history and international law”. The event was organized by the president of the «Italia Israel» association of Savona, Cristina Franco, together with the Milanese association «Pro Israel» of Alessandro Litta Modignani. «We wanted to propose an hour of civil debate – comments Cristina Franco bitterly – but there is no longer democracy. We decided to postpone everything out of a sense of responsibility. But we are no longer willing to tolerate.”
The climate of tension even in the Milanese university was considered by the police headquarters to be too risky. To organize the conference, it would have been necessary to deploy the riot police, explain the organizers, and set up other containment measures, including the possible closure of university classrooms and offices. A scenario that the associations wanted to avoid, renouncing the debate. «Unlike others, we respect the police, the structures and the university authorities – adds Franco – To guarantee the safety of the speakers and to avoid enormous inconvenience to the university we therefore decided to cancel the conference, for which they had already registered more than one hundred people. Ours was not propaganda, we wanted to make a serious contribution to the debate on Israel. But apparently that’s not possible. However for us it is just a postponement. We will re-propose the event in times, places and ways that we deem most appropriate. But here we are faced with a violated freedom.”
The conference, writes Il Foglio, should have opened with greetings from the rector Elio Franzini. And then there would have been the interventions of the journalist Fausto Biloslavo, that of the executive director of Un Watch, Hillel Neuer, and of the teachers Marco Cuzzi of the University and Alessandra Veronese of the University of Pisa. There should also have been Alexandre Del Valle’s testimony on the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. But in the end everything was postponed, without a certain date yet.
