Luciano Fontana and his unlikely letters: “Why so much hatred for Israel and so much understanding for Putin?”

https://www.corriere.it/lettere-al-direttore/24_ottobre_07/perche-tanto-odio-per-israele-e-tanta-comprensione-per-putin-rd-04e5d9ae-4582-4971-a95e-d8974887axlk.shtml

I always read the responses of Luciano Fontana, Director of Corriere della Sera, to readers’ comments with a great deal of skepticism, but this time I think it is bordering on misinformation.

The letter in question, to summarize it, expresses concerns about the fact that the demonstrations are all pro-Palestine, at times praising Iran and terrorist groups, while no one demonstrates in favor of Ukraine. I quote the reader: "A free and independent nation like Ukraine has been invaded and attacked by Putin’s Russia, which demonstrates contempt for the rules of the UN and international law with deliberate and repeated massacres of civilians and hospitals. I believe that no one in good faith can deny this. Why isn’t the same fervor shown towards the Palestinians also seen towards the Ukrainians? Maybe there are Serie A and Serie B nations?"…

The response of the director of the CdS, Luciano Fontana, really needs to be examined:
"It is truly disconcerting, and should arouse indignation among all Italians, that someone could praise October 7th, a deliberate massacre aimed at eliminate defenseless citizens just because they are Jews."

We agree, no one should praise a violent and traumatic act, it is an insult to the memory of the victims, survivors and otherwise, and their families. Regardless of one’s positions. And Iran is considered by most supporters of peace to be a hostile, inconvenient state that needs to be reduced to size as soon as possible.
However, to say that the attack on October 7 was aimed at "eliminate defenseless citizens just because they are Jews" It’s a huge fallacy. The director consciously mixes the attack against the citizens of a state seen as illegitimate and oppressive, by paramilitary groups formed after years of local wars, with hatred towards a religion. Once again, antisemitism = anti-Zionismas if everything had happened in a vacuum. As if there weren’t also political and strategic reasons behind an attack that aimed to take hostages to obtain a bargaining chip. Incomprehensible simplificationa year after the start of the war, not worthy of a newspaper editor. Then you can also be in favor of Greater Israel, for goodness sake, or argue that the Palestinians must be stopped once and for all and by any means because they will forever be a danger to the Jewish State, but it is not possible to simplify everything in this way banal.

"He’s right, there is a pure and simple truth: the squares filled against Israel, the only democratic state in that torn region, and they have never seen a march in defense of the Ukrainians and against the Russian invasion."

This is, quite simply, a lie. On February 24, 2022, ten thousand people took to the streets in Milan in favor of Ukraine, for peace. The ceasefire was loudly requested in many European and non-European cities and capitals, in many demonstrations including Pride.
The West, of which we are part, immediately severed relations with Russiasanctioning it, even at the expense of citizens who, despite having to face enormous sacrifices, accepted them. We gave money, weapons, training to the Ukrainians, with the approval of the people. We made Ukraine win Eurovision with a mediocre song. We removed the flag from all Russian citizens and made their travel to Europe difficult. We have taken assets away from the oligarchs. We host thousands of Ukrainian refugees and hold them in the highest regard. Orsini, pro-Russia, was considered a kind of circus animal. Despite this, protests have occurred and continue to occurbut the consensus is that the population, the state and the information, in the case of Ukraine, were on the same page. So the momentum is running out, we feel we have done and are continuing to do something. The opposite of the situation in the Middle East, where from the first days we saw ads on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh8t8sHnTng) who raised awareness among the world population against the murder of 40 children by terrorists (among other things they wrote Hamas terrorists = ISIS, pure disinformation considering that one group is Shiite, the other Sunni).

"In the end there is a great underground understanding of the Russian dictator’s reasons and its imperialist aims: the blame is more often attributed to NATO, to the West. Zelensky and the Ukrainians were even accused of having neo-Nazi roots, with a reversal of reality: more understanding for the aggressor than for the attacked. […] This attitude from «two weights and two measures» is unfortunately widespread, even if not a majority. It led to the absence of any mobilization on behalf of the tens of thousands of killed Ukrainian civilians. It is an absence that It should make us reflect and even a little ashamed: the deaths of October 7 and those of Ukraine matter much less for many supposed democrats."

We understand the reasons of the Russian dictator, just as we understand the reasons of the Ukrainian population, of the security of the State of Israel, of the oppression suffered by the citizens of Palestine and the West Bank. We can rationally criticize either reason and then take a stand. There is no black/white, these are complex issues rooted in history. However, the Western world is defending Ukraine. We criticize Trump because he wants to sell it to Russia in exchange for peace. We have been supporting the weakest country for years trying to balance the situation.
In Lebanon and Palestine, this is not the case. Whoever killed the greatest number of civilians had no consequences whatsoever. The injustice is all there. If our governments had made any move to defend and protect the defenseless in those parts of the world, why take to the streets? Why go "against" the government and the status quo?

I find it shocking that anyone, uninformed, could read Fontana’s words and form an idea that is completely disconnected from reality. They are different situations.

Then, the anti-globalization, anti-American, anti-G7, black blocks etc. they have always existed and have radical ideas that many do not share at all, in fact they are called "infiltrators" within the processions. But most of those who took to the streets believe in justice and are calling for a ceasefire and a fair solution, as was done for Ukraine. They are normal people who make the reasons of those who cannot do so heard, certainly not people who should "be ashamed"or anti-Semites, because the director of one of the most important newspapers in the country says so.