I wheeled through Bologna yesterday morning. The city was restless, like it had woken up on the wrong side of history. Smoke still hung in the air, a bitter aftertaste of the night before. Students had swarmed the streets, shouting “Blocchiamo tutto”, banging drums, waving flags, faces lit by rage and adrenaline. At first glance, it looked like energy, like passion. But as I passed commuters stranded on the sidewalks, mothers tugging children away from the noise, I realised: this isn’t solidarity. It’s self-sabotage.
We’re told these riots are “for Gaza”. That closing schools, derailing trains, blocking hospitals somehow speaks for peace. But let’s not lie to ourselves: no one in Gaza is helped when Via Zamboni is barricaded. No Palestinian child eats better because the Bologna Centrale was sealed off for twenty minutes. No family sleeps safer in Rafah because eggs were hurled at police. What these protests do achieve, with brutal clarity, is this: they paralyse Italian cities and exhaust citizens.
Think of the ripple effect. A nurse can’t get to her shift at Maggiore Hospital. A university student misses an exam she studied weeks for. A shopkeeper stares at empty aisles because clients are stuck behind cordons. Who pays the price of this “solidarity”? Not Netanyahu. Not Hamas. Not even Israel or Gaza. It’s us, Italians, who already navigate fragile routines.
Even Giorgia Meloni, from Copenhagen, cut through the fog: “No benefit for Gaza, but plenty of disagi for Italians”. And you don’t need to like Meloni to admit she’s right. Italy has done far more for Palestinians through official channels than these demonstrators will ever manage: opening humanitarian corridors, evacuating the sick, sending aid. That’s tangible help. That saves lives. Blocking trains? That’s noise.
And here’s the hypocrisy that gnaws at me: students chant that “every university will be a barricade”. They romanticise their occupation of campuses, pretending it’s a frontline. But turning a library into a fortress doesn’t dismantle a single rocket launcher in Gaza. It doesn’t release hostages from Hamas’ tunnels. It doesn’t advance peace one millimetre. It just ruins exams, closes lectures, and frustrates fellow students.
i wrote that intellectual honesty today is revolutionary. And honesty here means admitting the uncomfortable: Hamas is not David fighting Goliath. Hamas is a terrorist group holding civilians hostage, not a noble resistance. Pretending otherwise doesn’t free Gaza—it shackles the truth. And truth, inconvenient as it may be, is the first step toward justice.
Now, I get it. The injustice in Gaza burns. It burns me too. We want to act when we see children buried in rubble, when we see bombs fall on TV. The urge to do something, anything, is human. But here’s the aha moment: not all action is equal. Not all noise is voice. There’s a difference between raising awareness and raising havoc. One brings empathy, the other breeds fatigue. Italians don’t emerge from these riots thinking of Gaza’s pain. They emerge thinking: these ragazzi are out of control.
And isn’t that tragic? Because if the goal was solidarity, the result is alienation. If the aim was justice, the outcome is resentment.
So what should solidarity look like? It looks like fundraising for hospitals in Rafah. It looks like pressuring institutions through legal channels, where real leverage sits. It looks like cultural initiatives that build understanding between communities. It looks like compassion without chaos, protest without paralysis. Solidarity isn’t smoke bombs. Compassion isn’t chaos.
Yesterday in Bologna, the air smelled of burned plastic and spent fireworks. It was acrid, heavy, bitter in the lungs. And as I wheeled past closed shop shutters and tired police officers wiping sweat from their foreheads, I thought: this is the smell of wasted energy. We can do better. We must do better. For Gaza. For Italy. For truth.
Because riots don’t build bridges. They burn them.
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