SANTIAGO ALBA RICOIsrael y el derecho a la existencia

 Israel oculta que su derecho a existir se basa en negárselo al pueblo palestino, se presenta falsamente como amenazada y presenta como incuestionable su régimen político fundacional, esencialista, supremacista y colonial. Israel existe, pero el mundo no puede permitir la negación de Palestina. 

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Open letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Gaza war from 280 Iranians all over the world

Original: نامه سرگشاده به دبیرکل سازمان ملل متحد در رابطه با جنگ غزه

Honorable Antonio Guterres
Secretary General
The United Nations
404, E 45th Street
New York, NY, 10017

November 13, 2023

Honorable Mr. Guterres,

As you are aware, in the past four weeks, the Israeli military has been bombarding innocent civilians in hospitals, churches, mosques and schools in Gaza in an unprecedented way-- this clearly amounts to war crimes. Also, Gaza population has been forced to relocate.

We, as a group of Iranian civil society activists, appeal to you to do your utmost to bring this human catastrophe to an end as soon as possible.

Also, we respectfully request that you as the UNSG, encourage related organizations to provide humanitarian assistance such as food, water, and medicine to the vulnerable people of Gaza urgently.

We hope that your term as the UN Secretary General would create a context for lasting peace in the region.

Signatures

Aalam, Behnaz - Abed, Mohammed - Aghai, Amir - Aghaipour, farzaneh - Ahadzade, Hamid - Ahmadzadeh, Jahangir - Akbarzadeh, A-azam - Akhavan, Siavash - Alamshahi, Nosratollah - Alang, Ali - Alavi, Abdolhosein - Alinezhad, Mahin - Amin, Akou - Amini, Siavash - Amir-Atyabi, Hooshang - Amiri, Kamran - Amiri, Reza - Amirkhosravi, Babak - Ardalan, Soraya - Aref, Peyman - Arzpeyma, Alale - Asri, Hosein - Asri, Iraj - Athari, Kamal - Ayatollahzadeh, Mahboube - Ayatollahzadeh, Saeedeh - Azad, Behnam - Azadbakht, Nasim - Azarafra, Marzieh - Azgoli, Gholamali - Baba-Ahmadi, Dena - Bagheri, Jamshid - Bagheri, Khosrow - Bagheri, Rostam - Bagherzadeh, Arash - Bagherzadeh, Rowshanak - Bagherzadeh, Yadollah - Bakhoda, Afsane - Bayat, Azad - Bayat, Somayeh - Beheschti, Hamid - Behmanesh, Aliakbar - Behrouz, Shekve - Behzadi, Doustali - Binapour-Khotbesara, Mohsen - Boldaji, Parvaneh - Changizi, Ali - Danesh, Diana - Daneshgari, Roghiyeh - Deyhim, Shahnaz - Doustdar, akbar - Ebrahimi, Hamide - Eetemadi, Farnoush - Eftekhrifar, Soudabe - Emari, Manaf - Eskandari, Danial - Fahimi, Ashraf - Fahimi, Mahin - Fahimi, Naser - Fahimi,Parvin  -Fani-Yazdi, Reza - Fardad, Abbas - Farhadi, Ahad - Farkhondeh, Vahid - Farsadmanesh, Farsad - Fatehi, Mehrane - Fathi, Mastoure - Firouzi, Jamile - Forghani, Azadeh - Foroughi, Azadeh - Ghaeni, Siavash - Ghahremani Mostafa - Ghaleb, Gholamhosein - Ghaleb, Parisa - Ghalebi, Hamze - Ghani, Mehdi - Gharavi, Noureddin - Ghasemi, Shahryar - Ghashghaee, Mehdi - Ghelmani Rashidabad, Behrouz - Ghorbani, Ahmadreza - Ghorbani, Mohammad - Ghoreishi, Reza - Golestani, Abolghasem - Goudarzi, Afsane - Gouyandeh, Jafar - Haddadi, Nasrollah - Hadizadeh, Mohammad Hosein - Haghighat, Mohammad - Haji, Reza - Hasani, Shabgir - Hasani, Taliee - Hasanzadeh, Raouf - Hashemi, Shahrzad - Hashemian, Taghi - Hashempour, Ahmad - Hoseini, Mansour - Hoseini, Nazele - Houshmand, Ahmad - Imani, Jamile - Jadiri, sepideh - Jafari, Fariba -  Jalaiepour, Hamidreza - Javadian, Mahmoud - Jazayeri, Maasoume - Jowshani, Mohammad Reza - Kalanaki, Mahmoud - Kalantari, Habib - Kanani, Yadollah - Karamad, Farzaneh - Keshtmand, Azad - Khademosharieeh, Morteza - Khalili Nasiri, Anoushirvan - Khazaie, Hamid - Khorram, Amir - Khorram, Bahareh - Khorram, Behrouz - Khorrami, Ayla - Khorrami, Hosein - Khorrami, Majid - Khoshro Safa, Kaveh - Khoyini, Aliakbar - Kord, Mahmoud - Koushi, Hosein - Langaroudi, Fateme - Latif, Amir - Latifi, Nariman - Madani, Seid Esmaeel - Mahallati, Nazanin - Mahbaz, Effat - Mahjouri Rad, Mohammad Sadegh - Mahmoudpour, Seid Fateme - Majdzade, Spehrdad – Majdzadeh Khanedani, Mina - Maleki, Keyvan - Maleki, Nasrin - Mansouri Tehrani, Seid Mehdi - Mansouri, Mohammad - Marandi, Ata Aidin - Marandi, Bahram - Marjai, Farid - Marjai, Hosein - Massarrat, Mohssen - Minouiefar, Abolfazl - Mirdamadi, seid Sarajeddin - Mirdamadi, seid Yaser - Mirzai, Allahkaram - Mohammad Nezhad, Hamid Reza - Mohammadi Pei, Mahvash - Mohammadi, Jamshid - Mohammadi, Malihe - Mohammadi, Owzhan - Mohammadian, Rezadoust - Mohsenzadeh, Mohsen - Monazzaf, Mehdi - Moradi, Almira - Mortazavi, Minou - Mostafavi, Alnar - Motahhari, Reza - Mottaghi, Mehrab - Mouhebati, Mohammad Ali - Mousavi, Ali - Mousavi, Mahmoud - Mozaffari, Ali - Nahidpour, Noushin - Naiemi, Hamid - Namdari, Reza - Nasiri Khalili, Anoushirvan - Nasiri, Faramarz - Negahdar, Farrokh - Noori, Mehri - Nourizadeh Nader - Ommatali, Arsalan - Parsa, Daryoush - Peyman Habibollah - Peyravi, Tayyebe - Pooya, Naser - Poursafar, Ali (Kamran) - Rafiee, Hosein - Rahmanian, Bizhan - Rashidi, Iraj - Razi, Farid - Razmara, Mohammad - Rezaie, Ahad - Rostami, Younos - Rouhi, Peyman - Rowhani, Ali - Rowhanifar, Hesam - Saddighian, Alireza - Sadeghi, Morteza - Sadeghi, Siavash - Sadr Ameli, Fatemeh - Saed, Raman - Safari, Ebrahim - Safari, Ladan - Safiri, Homayoun - Sajjadi, Daryoush - Salimi Sharifi, Alireza - Sanjari, Ghodratollah - Sardad, Ali - Sarikhani, Alireza - Sedreneshin, Zahra - Setvat, Maryam - Seyedzadeh, Reza - Shafaghi, Shahryar - Shafeghati, Yahya - Shafiee, Manouchehr - Shahir, Parviz - Shahrabi, Abdolhamid - Shahraki, Manouchehr - Shahrestanaki, Mohammad - Shahsavandi, Saied - Shahzamani, Akbar - Shakeri, Ali - Shamekhi, Taghi - Shariati, Ehsan - Shariati, Mehdi - Sharifzadeh, Mohsen - Shateri, Mohammad - Shayan, Fatemeh - Sheykhi, Mohammad - Shirazi, Hamid - Shiri, Babak - Shiri, Ebrahim - Shiri, Tamrlan - Shisheie, Masoud - Shoae Shargh, Amir - Shohrati, Mehdi - Shokouhi, Ali - Shokouri, Mazyar - Showghi, Mohammad Hosein - Siahpoush, Seid Ahmad - Soleimani, Arezou - Soleimani, Mohammad - Soltani, Hamid - Soltani, Mohammad Reza - Soltani, Siamak - Tabasi, Mohsen - Tabatabaie Lotfi, Seid Mohammad  - Taghavi, Goli - Taghizadeh, Mohammad Taghi - Taher, Bahman - Taherian, Mohammad Reza - Tajik, Abdolreza - Talani, Rahele - Talebi, ashkbous – Talghari Nezhad, Seid Mohammad Bagher - Tamassoki, Ali - Tavakkoli, Gholamabbas - Tavallaee, Majid - Tavanaiepour, Farrokh - Tavassoli, Abolfazl - Tavassoli, Nahid - Tayyari, Forough - Tayyari, Forough - Tekkeie, Vakil - Teymourifar, Kourosh - Tonekaboni, Zohre - Torfenezhad, Parnia - Torfenezhad, Pazhman - Torkaman, Sonja - Touti, Elahe - Towhidi, Mahmoud - Vahedian, Farshid - Vahedian, Firouze - Vahedipour, Iraj  - Varzidekar Tehrani, Mohammad Masoud - Vaseghi, Roghiyeh - Vatanabadi, Mehrzad - Vaziri, Tahmaseb - Yahou, Davoud - Yazdani Rad, Karim - Yousefi  -Eshkevari, Hasan - Yousefi, Edalat - Zamani, Nahid - Zanjani, Mehrdad - Zargarian, esmaiel - Zarkoub, Abbas.

GIDEON LEVYThese Are the Children Extracted After the Bombardment of Gaza's Jabaliiya Refugee Camp

 Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 2/11/2023

A Hamas terrorist was taken out of the debris, carried in his father’s arms. His face is covered with dust, his body jerking like a sack, his stare blank. It’s not clear if he’s alive or dead. He is a toddler of three or four, and his desperate father rushed him to the Gaza Strip's Indonesian Hospital, which was already bursting with wounded and dead people.

Palestinians look for survivors under the rubble of destroyed buildings following Israeli airstrikes in Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday. Photo: Abed Khaled /AP

Another terrorist was extracted from the wreckage. This time she’s clearly alive, her fair, curly hair is white with dust; she’s five or six, being carried by her father. She looks right and left, as though asking where help will come from.

A man in a tattered vest scribbles here and there, a white sheet folded like a shroud in his hands, covering an infant’s body, and he’s waving it in despair. It’s the body of his son, a newborn baby. This infant hadn’t yet had a chance to join Hamas’ military headquarters in the Jabaliya refugee camp. He had only lived a few days – a butterfly’s eternity – and was killed.

Dozens of youngsters continued digging in the rubble with their bare hands in a desperate effort to extract still-living people or the bodies of neighbors, raising destroyed walls from the hand of a child sticking out of the ruins. Perhaps this child was a terrorist in Hamas' Nukhba force.

All around stood hundreds of men, dressed in rags, clasping their hands together hopelessly. Some of them burst into tears. An Israeli solar heater with a Hebrew sticker lies in the rubble, a reminder of days gone by. “We have no time for feelings now,” says camp resident Mansour Shimal to Al Jazeera.

On Tuesday afternoon, Israel Air Force jets bombed Block 6 in the Jabaliya refugee camp. In Israel, it was barely reported. Al Jazeera reported that six bombs had been dropped on Block 6, leaving a huge crater, into which a row of gray apartment buildings fell like a house of cards. The pilots must have reported successful hits. The sights were horrific.

When I went to Gaza’s Daraj Quarter in July 2002, the day after Salah Shehadeh’s assassination, I saw harsh sights. But they were pastoral compared to what was seen in Jabaliya on Tuesday. In Daraj, 14 civilians were killed, 11 of them children – about a tenth of the number of people killed in the bombing on Tuesday in Jabaliya, according to Palestinian reports.

In Israel, they didn’t show the Jabaliya scenes. And yet, hard to believe, they did take place. A few foreign networks broadcast them in a loop. In Israel, they said the commander of Hamas’ central battalion in Jabaliya, Ibrahim Biari, was killed in an air force strike in the most crowded refugee camp in Gaza and that dozens of terrorists had been killed. Shehadeh’s killing was followed by a penetrating public debate in Israel.

What took place on Tuesday in Jabaliya was barely even heard about here. It happened before the bad news about the Israeli soldiers who were killed was released, while the wartime campfire was crackling away.

According to the reports, about 100 people were killed in the Jabaliya bombing and some 400 were wounded. The pictures from the Indonesian Hospital were horrifying, no less. Burnt children thrown one beside another, three and four on one filthy bed; most of them were treated on the floor for lack of enough beds. “Treatment” is the wrong word. Due to the lack of medicines, life-saving surgery was carried out not only on the floor, but without anaesthesia. The Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia is now a hell.

Israel is at war, after Hamas murdered and kidnapped with barbarism and brutality that cannot be forgiven. But the children who were extracted from the debris of Block 6 and some of their parents have nothing to do with the attacks on Be’eri and Sderot.

While the terrorists ran rampant in Israel, Jabaliya’s people were huddled in their huts in Gaza’s most crowded camp, thinking how to pass another day in these conditions, which were worsened by the siege of the last 16 years. Now they will bury their children in mass graves because in Jabaliya, there's no room left for individual ones.

‘Escalate all forms of resistance’ Joint statement from the Palestinian resistance on the course of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle

Joint statement by Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, Oct. 28,2023

The five Palestinian powers held a leadership meeting in Beirut on Oct. 28, 2023, to discuss the course of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle with the Zionist enemy and its brutal aggression against the Gaza Strip.

In their statement, the five powers saluted the martyrs of our Palestinian people and our steadfast and proud people in the Gaza Strip who are facing an organized campaign of extermination, stressing that they are the people of pride, dignity and steadfastness and that they are the people of victory who are loyal to their cause and their homeland, and [the Palestinian forces] pledged to them to continue on the path of resistance until victory is achieved over the Zionist enemy.

The attendees affirmed the following:

• This heroic epic is the battle of the entire Palestinian people, which they are waging in defense of their land, their sanctities, their existence, and their right to freedom against a barbaric enemy that does not spare any of our people from its crimes. It targets hospitals, mosques, churches, universities, and ambulances, and cuts off electricity, water, fuel, the Internet and cellular communications for our besieged people.

• Adhering to national unity is a main pillar in confronting the Zionist war of genocide against our people, as well as rejecting the enemy’s attempts to divide our people or monopolize any part of it. We stress unifying efforts and closing ranks in this fateful battle.

• We call on the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation and the free people of the world to continue their movements to stop the American-Zionist aggression, open the border crossings, bring in humanitarian aid and fuel, and remove the wounded from the Gaza Strip.

• We salute the resistance forces in our nation, especially in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, and we affirm that our Palestinian people are not alone in this battle.

• We hold the United States of America fully responsible for the war of genocide against our people as it chose to support, escalate, and participate in the war of genocide against our people, which requires a strong response from the Arab and Islamic countries, as well as countries friendly to our people to stop this ongoing massacre of our Palestinian people.

• We demand the opening of the Rafah crossing and the entry of aid, humanitarian needs, fuel, and medical and relief teams to our people without delay, allowing the wounded to be transported to Egypt and the Arab and Islamic countries, without interference from the occupation or any of the aggression countries.

• We call on the masses of our people throughout occupied Palestine to escalate all forms of resistance and struggle against the Zionist enemy, targeting its soldiers and settlers, and strengthening popular initiatives of struggle in the face of settler attacks and the encroachment of enemy forces.

• The enemy’s cutting of all access to Gaza, besieging it, and cutting off communications and the Internet completely is a cover for a major crime of genocide that the enemy does not want witnesses to, and we stress breaking this siege with an “official and popular” Arab position.

• We adhere to the right of our people to resist, and its confidence in the victory of our people in this battle as we fight this battle in defense of our land, our people, and our sanctities, and for the sake of liberation, return, self-determination, and the establishment of the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Glory to the martyrs.

Healing for the wounded.

Freedom for the prisoners.

Victory to our people and their valiant resistance.

Toufan al-Aqsa: what can iron do against the wind?

Fausto Giudice, Basta Yekfi !, 7/10/2023

At 3:30 a.m. GMT, at dawn on the Sabbath, Palestinian fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched an all-out attack on Israel from Gaza: while hundreds (between 2,000 and 5,000) of rockets rained down on Zionist settlements, motorized fighters forced their way through the "iron wall" encircling Gaza, others forced their way through the sea barrier and still others landed in Israel aboard motorized paragliders (ULM). According to the Israeli army, 60 Palestinian fighters entered the territory. Some 40 Israeli soldiers and settlers were taken prisoner in the first few minutes, while the number of dead and wounded on the Zionist side remains unknown. The operation has been dubbed "Toufan al-Aqsa", the flood or storm of Al Aqsa (toufan is the Arabic-Persian word that has entered every language, and is the origin of the English word "typhoon"; it is also the name of a series of Iranian missiles).

It's a historical truth: if you want to attack Israel, you have to do it on a Saturday morning, when the Jews are at rest. That's what the Egyptian and Syrian armies did on October 6, 1973, when they crossed the Suez Canal and entered the occupied Golan Heights. In 1973, it took the Zionists a week to wake up, stunned as they had been by the surprise attack, and go on the counter-offensive. Who won the Ramadan/Kippur war? That's up for debate. What is certain is that this war sounded the death knell for Israeli Labor, the Zionists with a human face, the Ashkenazi variant of Mitteleuropean social democracy. It also put an end to the "The Glorious Thirty" and triggered the first "oil crisis". Of the powerful images from this period, two stand out for me: that of European freeways completely empty of cars, and that of the Queen of the Netherlands bringing out her carriage and horses to get around. For the Arabs, '73 had almost erased the humiliation of '67. Ten wars later, where do we stand?

GIDEON LEVYShira Eting, a principled killerThe ‘Perfect’ Israeli Reservist From ‘60 Minutes’ Has Palestinian Children’s Blood on Her Hands

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 20/9/2023

She is the most beautiful Israeli you can imagine, all of the good and beautiful Land of Israel in one person. Raised in Maccabim by a pilot father and a psychologist mother, she is a combat helicopter pilot. She studied at Oxford and is a principal at Vintage Investment Partners [an investment fund with $3.5 billion under management]. She headed the Bnei Zion premilitary academy after the 2018 tragedy in which nine students died in a flash flood, and she was a strategic consultant at McKinsey.

Shira in (protest) action. Screenshot from 60 Minutes

It’s the most Zionist non-Zionism possible. She is 36, with a wife and a daughter [and a dog]. If you asked artificial intelligence for a beautiful, “quality” Israeli woman, you’d get Shira Eting. Now she is also the beautiful face of the protest – a pilot and a principal. At Kaplan Street she swept up the masses: “The moment they tried to rob us of our most important values, we embarked on the struggle of our lives. Our cart is full of freedom and equal rights,” she said to the sound of cheers. How that audience loves to hear such nice things about themselves, the fighters for freedom and equality, and that from the mouth of an attractive combat pilot.

 Last week all this beauty was also exposed to the world. In the military-like khaki T-shirts of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, an organization that is fighting for democracy in Israel, Maj. (res.) Eting explained in polished English and measured words to Lesley Stahl on the U.S. show “60 Minutes” what the protest is all about: “If you want pilots to be able to fly, and shoot bombs and missiles into houses knowing they might be killing children, they must have the strongest confidence in the people making those decisions.”

Go to 9:19 to hear Maj. (res.) Eting's statement

It’s been a long time since we’ve had such a succinct moment, the essence of the Zionist left distilled into in a single sentence. We will continue to kill children, but only under our own people. We will continue to kill children, only if Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid order us to do so. They are people in whom we have confidence, under them it will be principled and moral to kill children. Killing children under Benjamin Netanyahu is unthinkable; he is, after all, opposed to our cart that is bursting with so many values. If Gantz-Lapid order us to kill children, as they have before, then the pilots will report for duty and the courageous and principled refusal to serve if the reasonableness standard is revoked will be forgotten as though it never existed.

Maj. Eting will put on her flight suit, don her helmet, climb into her advanced combat helicopter, which can direct a bomb at a bunk bed in a children’s bedroom, and bomb between Gaza City and Rafah. This is not only Zionism, it is also Israeli feminism, soon in the Sayyeret Matkal special operations unit, by order of the Supreme Court and the chief of staff.

The next time Eting kills children she will do it unintentionally, of course. She is a pilot with a conscience. Some will be killed by mistake and some because she had no alternative. The Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit will post a video showing that Eting refrained from bombing a home due to the presence of children.

When the next war is over Maj. Eting will again come to the city square and speak passionately about values, freedom and equality. Then she will be interviewed again by Stahl, who was moved to tears by the principled pilot, and will tell her how much easier it is to kill children under a center-left government. When it orders pilots to bomb, they will do so without batting an eyelash, as they did in Operation Cast Lead (344 children killed) and in Operation Protective Edge (518 children, 180 of them 5 or younger).

Who killed the 180 young children? Eting and her comrades. They did so in Protective Edge under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and in Cast Lead under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. Five of the six commanders of those two disgraces, among Israel’s most barbaric attacks, are now leaders of Eting’s democratic protest. On their orders, only theirs, she will again kill children. That is what she told the viewers of “60 Minutes,” and she is the most beautiful embodiment of Israel.

HILO GLAZERIn Italy's Alpine Foothills, Israelis Are Starting an Expat Community. Similar Initiatives Aren't Far Behind

Editor's Note

A joke circulated a few years ago in Tel Aviv bars, “An optimistic Israeli Jew learns Arabic, a pessimistic Israeli Jew learns English, a realistic Israeli Jew learns to swim.” It seems that what the Palestinians or Arabs have failed to do (if they ever really intended to), Netanyahu and his government acolytes are causing: a stampede has broken out among Israeli Jews. Indeed, hundreds and thousands of Israelis of various socio-economic conditions and all ages are scrambling to find an alternative to the life in the Jewish state. And in this way a new business, which could be called the relocation industry, has emerged. Hilo Glazer's article tells of the Baita Project, launched in the Sesia Valley, in the province of Vercelli, and other projects, including ambitious plans to create “Israeli cities” in Europe, from Cyprus and Greece to Portugal, and elsewhere. One of them even speaks of creating a “settlement community”, which is reminiscent of the so-called settlements (colonies) in the West Bank. It's legitimate to wonder whether these projects can constitute a definitive overcoming of Zionism and tribalism, or whether they will simply create "little Israels" scattered like confetti across the world.-FG

Hilo Glazer, Haaretz, Sep 2, 2023

In the wake of the judicial coup, Israeli discussions about relocating abroad no longer stop at social media groups. In a lush valley in northwestern Italy, ideas of collective emigration are being played out on the ground – and similar initiatives are taking shape elsewhere as well

“As the number of hours of light in their country’s democracy keeps diminishing, more and more Israelis are arriving in the mountainous valley in their search for a new start. Among them are young people with babies in carriers, others with children of school age, and there are the graying-balding people like me. A teacher, a tech entrepreneur, a psychologist, a dog groomer, a basketball coach. Some say they’re only exploring, still ashamed to admit that they are seriously considering the option. Others look purposeful and motivated – looking into how to get a residency permit, how much a house costs, how to open a bank account and transfer your provident funds while it’s still possible. Underlying all this is a layer of pain, the pain of good Israelis who believed that after 2,000 years they could rest on their laurels, but were now taking up the wanderer’s staff once again.”

The writer is Lavi Segal, the mountainous area he is describing is in the Sesia Valley (Valsesia), in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy, at the foot of the Alps. Segal, the owner of a tourism business from the Galilee, shares his experiences with members of a Facebook group called Baita, which offers information to Israelis seeking to immigrate to and create their own community in Valsesia, many of whose original inhabitants have left in recent decades. The group’s name is an amalgam of Bait (Hebrew for “home,” or “house”) and Ita – short for Italy. Baita in Italian also translates as “hut in the mountains.” And these are not just any mountains: Valsesia is known as “the greenest valley in Italy.” Segal says what he’s presenting is a case of truthful advertising.

“With all due respect for the talk about ‘the beautiful Land of Israel,’” he tells Haaretz in a phone interview, “Israel is perhaps beautiful compared to Syria or Saudi Arabia [but] Europe and the Alps are a different world. The landscape is breathtaking, the weather is marvelous, and all the well-known troubles of Israel – wars, dirtiness, overcrowding, cost of living – simply don’t exist here.”

Segal has lived in Valsesia with his wife, Nirit, for two months; both are in their 60s. “We’re on a journey of familiarization and exploring,” he explains. “We’ve rented a house here, and every so often we talk to real estate agents about the possibility of buying one. At the moment we’re not talking about permanent uprooting, though that could happen if life in Israel becomes intolerable. For the time being we’re looking for a place where we can divide our time between Israel and overseas. Israel is very dear to us: When we’re there we’re active in demonstrations” against the government’s plans for a judicial overhaul.

Nirit, who organizes art retreats, is of two minds: “This place is a dream when it comes to creating art, but I’m very attached to Israel, and like many people in my circles I feel it today especially. I’m apprehensive about the implications of the wave of migration for the protest movement.”

For the time being, she’s decided not to decide, she admits. “I want to hold the stick at both ends. To take part in the protest, but also to stay here for long periods. To move between the two. We have been received here cordially. Despite the language difficulties, we’ve developed some pleasant and natural ties with people. It’s odd, but I’m getting attached.”

Lavi attributes less importance to the political upheaval back home when relating to the decision to investigate other options. “I didn’t need to witness current events in order to grasp that Israel is heading in directions that aren’t good,” he says.

The path of the Segals, who have three grown children, to settle in the valley is being paved thanks mainly to Lavi’s Lithuanian passport. “With it, we can stay indefinitely within the boundaries of the European Union, and the children can study and work. Who would have thought that after everything that happened to our people and to my family on Lithuanian soil, that a Lithuanian passport, of all things, would make this freedom of movement possible for us?”

In the meantime, they’re living in a quiet town that’s 650 meters above sea level.

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