Debate contributions by Mimmo LUCANO

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when I heard about the attack on Sigfrido Ranucci - to whom I extend all my solidarity, including the drafting of Report – I thought about how much courage it takes today to tell the truth. In a time when power tries to silence those who investigate, those who tell, those who illuminate the shadows, investigative journalism becomes an act of resistance. Ranucci, like many other honest journalists, does not defend himself, he defends the dignity of his job: the truth. The truth that you don't buy and you don't bend. And those who tell it, even when they are alone, keep a light that belongs to everyone on. That's why today I want to say: We do not leave courageous journalists alone, because when one of them is threatened, it is the freedom of all of us that trembles. Democracy is crying.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, those who remain indifferent to genocide are complicit. Faced with the systematic destruction of the Palestinian people, our institutions have turned their eyes, covered their eyes, closed their ears. Here, in this House, silence is deafening. You legitimized colonial violence with the alibi of Israel's security. But what security can justify the killing of more than 55,000 civilians and the use of hunger as a weapon? Israel has crossed every red line, trampled on every principle of humanity. Yet, the doors of the European Union remain open, agreements in force, military supplies continue. Why? Why are you complicit? Why is Ursula von der Leyen complicit, Kaja Kallas complicit and this Parliament complicit? So let's say it openly: The European Union has failed, it has become the guarantor of Israeli impunity, complicit in a live genocide. That is why today I ask what should have been done for months: immediate sanctions against the State of Israel, suspension of the Association Agreement, freedom for the Palestinian people.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is an unprecedented massacre in Gaza, a genocide carried out with full awareness and the tacit support of the West. Israel violates every principle of international and humanitarian law, even affects hospitals, schools and shelters, but no one stops it; He enjoys total and shameful impunity. Europe is complicit in this horror: It finances and weaponizes Israel, maintains commercial relations with a criminal government. In the West Bank every day the lands are stolen and the homes of the Palestinian people are destroyed by armed groups of settlers protected by the Israeli army, which should be defined as what they are: terrorist organizations. This is apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonialism in its most brutal state. History will judge severely those who are silent today, but we cannot remain silent. We stand with the Palestinians for justice, for dignity, for the freedom of a people that refuses to be erased.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, international law is dying before our very eyes, including through our complicit silences. He dies affected by Donald Trump's sanctions on the International Criminal Court, which risk seriously compromising its functioning. But it also dies because our defense has been weak, intermittent, depending on the conveniences of the moment. He dies while carrying out the genocide in Gaza and dies to ensure the impunity of the powerful. He dies with the European Union ignoring the International Court of Justice and continuing to trade with illegal Israeli settlements. And with international law, our dignity and that sense of justice that we should instead return to the victims of terrible crimes, such as those committed by Al Masri, whose hands are stained with blood, torture and violence committed in the camps of Libya, are also at risk of dying. Al Masri, after being arrested by the Italian police on behalf of the International Criminal Court, was released and brought back with all honours and with a state flight to Libya, where he will continue to claim victims. Cavilli for the Italian government, which in reality has all the political responsibility for this shame, which passes over inhuman violence and lives of which we have forgotten. Responsibilities that belong to all of us, who are still supporting, even with European funds, inhuman agreements such as the one between Italy and Libya, and which we are even thinking of replicating. History will not discount us for these shames.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was supposed to be a targeted and limited operation, but it is clear that, after terrorist attacks and bombings, Israel invaded Lebanon, further expanding the scenario of devastation and projecting the whole region towards a war that does not seem to have an end. After witnessing the ongoing genocide in Gaza, we should ask ourselves: Is Europe able to stop it or do we still want to be complicit? How much longer can we allow him? His impunity is in fact our responsibility, our complacent silences, the inability to consider all lives equal and to react with measures up to what is happening. We must suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, we must prevent any sale of arms or military technology, we must put in place sanctions against Israel and we must respect international law not in words but in deeds.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the title of this debate follows a logic that is not only incorrect, but dangerous and infamous. The link between terrorism and migration follows the reality of the facts, it does not want to create security, but to increase and feed the industry of fear to justify the criminalization of citizens fleeing wars, misery, poverty and disease: social phenomena and dramas produced by our rich and opulent worlds and our perverse economies of colonialist and neoliberal wars. I have another fear: that of our countries and our depopulated land, from which we flee for lack of work, prospects and rights. I am afraid of the abandonment and loneliness of our communities. I am afraid of the injustices and inequalities that create despair. I'm not afraid of who's coming, I'm afraid of who's leaving. The liberal drift, which is xenophobic and unacceptable...