A Jewish bookseller and member of the Italy-Israel Association said the Turin bookstore he runs has become the target of an anti-Semitic campaign in recent weeks.
So far there have been no violent incidents, Angelo Pezzana told the newspaper La Repubblica, but the campaign has included anti-Semitic slogans scrawled on the windows of the Luxemburg Bookstore, insults hurled at shop assistants and the distribution of leaflets.
Pezzana, an ecology activist and leader of a homosexual organization, said he believes the campaign is the work of ultra-leftists, possibly belonging to the pro-Palestinian Proletarian Democracy Party. He characterized the vandals as “gangs of Nazis.”
The organizers of the leaflet campaign denied the comparison, however, saying that they are anti-Zionist, but not anti-Semitic. In an anonymous written statement, they explained their campaign is “against the massacre of Palestinians and against Pezzana’s pro-Zionist initiatives.”
The campaign has come at a time of increasing anti-Israel sentiment among Italians, especially within left-of-center political parties.
Plainclothes police have put the bookstore under surveillance.
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