We can never emphasize enough the importance of learning history. Italy wanted to show its support for Israel, the target since Saturday of a massive attack by Palestinian Hamas. Believing they were doing the right thing, the authorities projected the Israeli flag on the Arch of Titus, a monument dating from Roman antiquity located not far from the Colosseum, as tweeted by the Italian embassy in Israel.
Except that, as did notice several Internet users, the choice of building is not the happiest. The Arch of Titus was erected in 81 by Emperor Domitian to celebrate Titus’ Roman victories in the Judean War (66-74). It was during this war that Titus’ legions destroyed Jerusalem and Herod’s temple before exterminating the last pocket of Jewish resistance in the stronghold of Masada.
According to the historian Simon-Claude Mimoumi, “the first great Judean revolt against Rome, which ended in a military-political-religious disaster, was a brutal rupture in the destiny of the Judean people”. The symbolism was perhaps not the most appropriate.