Prof reports: 'Linkedin closed my profile after a post on Gaza'

He relaunches an old video about Gaza on X and Linkedin closes his profile. It happened to Lorenzo Kamel, 46 years old, university professor in Turin, internationally renowned historian and scholar with a CV this long and around fifty publications including books and articles translated into 15 different languages. “It was a simple post,” said the professor.

Footage from December 2023 showing Israeli soldiers chanting a war song against Hamas and Hezbollah.

Kamel had underlined that one of the verses chanted by the military read "there are no civilians who are not involved", adding that in his opinion it was the "implementation of dozens of public statements" by political representatives of Tel Aviv. But it was nothing original or new: on the contrary, it was stuff that had already been widely distributed on the web.

Whether it was a violation of any policy is currently unknown. Kamel, on his social media contacts, explained that "a group of people mostly from a single country (not specified - ed.) started commenting under my post on Gaza and, most likely, reporting me".

“Immediately after that they blocked me,” he added.

For at least three days the professor has been trying to resolve the situation by dealing with the Linkedin support service (the platform is owned by Microsoft) but apparently the matter has become a via crucis. First they asked him for "passport, photos, documents, etc." or, alternatively, nothing less than "the sworn declaration made before a notary".

Then, yesterday, an email address that was essentially unreachable because it was associated with an account opened 18 years ago "when I lived in Jerusalem": the verification code had been sent to a mobile phone that the teacher no longer has. "It's incredible," he commented.

Kamel received messages of solidarity from several colleagues. At the University of Turin he has been full professor of history of international relations since 2024. He obtained a two-year 'masters of art' in Social Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has taught and carried out research in numerous universities in Europe and the United States, and is a recognized expert on Africa and the Middle East.

His book 'Israel-Palestine. Two stories, one hope' won the Giuseppe Sciacca award in 2010.