Statement by MP Fiamma Nirenstein, vice-president of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Chairperson of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP)

“We witnessed today a complete political overthrow of Italy’s foreign policy: Prime Minister Mario Monti, from his venue at Palazzo Chigi, decided out of the blue to support the Palestinian unilateral bid for statehood. It is a very bad surprise indeed, an unintelligible reversal of a political stance toward Israel held by our country in recent years. The Italian Parliament unanimously voted against the so-called Durban 2 process, against the fraudulent Goldstone Report. It has forged strong ties with Israel in the fields of science, culture, economy.

Italy, one of the closest allies of Israel for democratic choice, now finds itself – without the Parliament having been consulted on the matter – in the same automatic array of Islamic countries, together with the worst of Europe: the ideological, frightened, uncertain Europe, sensitive to the smell of oil and to the fear of Islam. It will find itself aligned with the anti-Israel, philo-Arab Europe, lead by France and Spain, always ready to take the harshest judgments against Israel’s right to self-defense, indifferent to its security needs, ignoring its vibrant democracy. Democracy for Europe has always been a weak issue; not the same for the United States of America, that, no wonder, support Israel.

It is not true – as the note spread by Palazzo Chigi to explain the vote states – that this resolution will affirm the principle of “two States for two people”. On the contrary, it destroys all the work done in the past decades to build a bilateral peace process. A Palestinian State will not be born. This resolution just reaffirms that the Palestinians, in order to get what they want, do not need to give up anything, neither on the ideological nor on the territorial level. It confirms that they do not have the duty to seat in front of their interlocutor and that they even have the right not to recognize it as an interlocutor.

Not to mention the international agreements, from Oslo onwards: this vote cancels all of them. It creates a situation of chaos that will benefit only Hamas. Again, contrary to what stated, the moderates are not helped by this vote. Palazzo Chigi rather is helping an extremist point of view, isolationist and loaded with contempt and hatred against Israel. And it does so against the Parliamentary will expressed in the past four years”.

Rome, November 29,2012


MP Fiamma Nirenstein
Vice-president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Chair of the Committee for the Inquiry into Antisemitism
Italian Chamber of Deputies
Chairperson, International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians

www.fiammanirenstein.com

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