Da partigiani a fidāʾiyyīn: studenti palestinesi in Italia e analogie radicali tra sionismo e fascismo

This article examines how Palestinian students in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s utilized radical analogies between Zionism and fascism to translate their anticolonial struggle for the Italian political context. Drawing on archival materials from the Italian section of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) and the wider New Left, it argues that these students constructed a distinctive, extra-European antifascist culture. They did this by appropriating and rearticulating the core Italian political binarism of fascism/antifascism, framing Zionism as a racist, colonial, and fascistic ideology. This study follows the development of this analogy from its roots in pre-1948 Palestinian political thought through the scholarly work of the PLO Research Center in Beirut, and finally to its mobilization by GUPS in Italy. The article demonstrates how this “global antifascist” framework served as a crucial channel of communication and a tool for building solidarity with Italian militants, who themselves saw in the Palestinian fidāʾī a reincarnation of the partisan. However, it also highlights the limitations of these analogies, which often essentialize complex historical phenomena. Ultimately, the article reveals the transnational circulation of political concepts and the role of Palestinian students as key mediators in crafting a shared language of resistance between the Middle East and Europe during the Global Sixties.