Israelis attacked at gay pride parade in Italy over Star of David flag

 Israelis attending gay pride parade in Bologna, Italy attacked over flag bearing a Star of David.

By World Israel News Staff

A group of Israelis said they were pushed and verbally harassed at Bologna’s Pride parade on Saturday after marching with a rainbow flag bearing a Star of David.

Witnesses told Channel 12 that other participants objected to the flag, leading to an altercation during the Rivolta Pride march in Bologna, Italy. During the incident, a pregnant woman in the Israeli group was violently shoved.

“They screamed at us that we were murderers; all the children there were scared,” one Israeli attendee was quoted as saying.

Another participant said the group included families with children.

“I stood with my wife and son and another family who came with strollers, and we filmed their screams,” the participant said. “We were with children, proud families who came to march in an event founded to promote our rights — and we were attacked because we are Jews.”

Radio Città Fujiko reported ahead of the event that the march’s platform included a host of political positions including opposition to the war against Hamas and support for Palestinians, as well as housing, labor, climate issues.

Organizers promoted the march under the slogan “No Pride in Genocide, Free Palestine,” and Italian media reported that Palestinian flags were carried alongside gay pride flags during the event.

“Queers know which side to stand on: Free Palestine, from the river to the sea,” some participants chanted during the march.

Signs at the march included the slogan “no pride in genocide,” referring to accusations against Israel over its conduct in Gaza. Israel denies that it is committing genocide.

In a separate incident at the Bologna march, local reports said anti-regime Iranian participants carrying Iran’s pre-revolutionary flag were met with chants of “Zionists out of the march.”

The Bologna incident comes amid broader tensions over Jewish and Israeli participation in gay pride events in Italy.

Last month, the organizers of the gay pride parade in Rome barred Keshet Italia, the country’s only Jewish LGBT group, from participating with a float after the group declined to endorse the organizers’ description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.

Rome Pride said at the time that it distinguished between the Israeli government and Jewish LGBT people, but said Keshet Italia had failed to distance itself from what organizers called the “ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

Keshet Italia condemned the decision.

“There is no pride if minorities are excluded,” the group said. “We do not accept lessons in rights from those who practice identity-based exclusion. Antisemitism disguised as political positioning remains antisemitism.”

The European Jewish Congress also criticized the Rome decision, saying no one should be required to pass a political test to take part in a movement based on inclusion, dignity and equal rights.