Erri De Luca in Jerusalem: “I Am a Zionist, and There Is No Genocide in Gaza”

Erri De Luca’s upcoming appearance next week at the International Writers Festival in Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem has been presented by Israel Hayom as more than a literary engagement, describing it as a moral alignment against prevailing political winds. The Italian writer will take part in the event “From Naples to Jerusalem,” a conversation with university professor Uri S. Cohen about contemporary Italian literary and cultural life, De Luca’s works, and his new book, which is expected to be published in Hebrew soon. Festival director Julia Fermentto-Tzaisler had originally invited J.M. Coetzee, but the South African Nobel laureate chose to boycott Israel.

In the interview, De Luca said that in Italy and much of the West today, “Zionist” has become an insult, but he embraces the term as the simplest recognition of the Jewish right to a national homeland and existential defense. He argued that anyone who accepts Israel’s right to exist and envisions two entities living side by side is already, in his view, a Zionist. He said he is willing to state this openly, regardless of the cost.

De Luca also described a recent exchange with singer Achinoam Nini, who invited him to an event she is organizing in Florence in July. He said he told her he would be happy to attend, but only on the condition that he not share a stage or participate with people who want Israel erased from the map, and that he would not join any forum or event that uses the word “genocide” to describe the war in Gaza. He said he rejects that term as a historical and linguistic distortion, insisting that Gaza is experiencing a brutal modern war with devastating civilian casualties in a dense urban battlefield, but not genocide.

He added that if Israel’s goal were extermination, it would not have repeatedly moved civilians away from combat zones, arguing that such measures undermine the accusation. De Luca said he feels little concern about criticism from the Italian cultural establishment, claiming he has been voluntarily isolated from that world for 25 years and has never accepted literary prizes or roles within literary institutions.

The writer also spoke about his deep attachment to Hebrew, the Bible, and Jewish culture, and said his emotional connection was shaped by memories of war, Naples’s devastation, and the Holocaust. Reflecting on the October 7 attack, he said the day revealed a collapse of older frameworks and emphasized what he described as a grave lack of preparedness and defense. He called the attack worse than a classic pogrom because of the large-scale hostage-taking and detention in tunnels, which he said added a planned and rational cruelty.

Looking ahead, De Luca said Israel is fighting what may be the last war in the familiar regional structure, and suggested that Hamas and Hezbollah must be defeated politically and operationally. He argued that lasting internal liberation from authoritarian rule often follows military defeat, drawing parallels with postwar Italy, Franco’s Spain, and Argentina after the Falklands War. In his view, change in Gaza and the broader region may depend on a similar rupture.