As the number of casualties in Gaza rises, the so-called “unconditional support for Israel” view has come into conflict with the mainstream opinion of the international community.
Over the past few days, traditional U.S. allies such as Britain, France, Canada and Australia have announced that they have officially recognized the Palestinian state and have gradually become an international trend in solving the Israeli issue with a two-state solution.
However, in this trend, Italian Prime Minister Meloni, however, chose to go backward and took a completely different path.
by Meloni
Earlier, Meloni said that Italy is not opposed to recognizing Palestine. But Italy believes that it is urgent that the international community put pressure on Hamas, not Israel, which is waging the war and preventing the end of the war by refusing to hand over hostages.So Italy will only recognize Palestine if all Israeli hostages are released and Hamas is excluded from the role of government.
Judging from Meloni's speech, her government's political calculations are as follows: in the current situation of internal division in Palestine, there is a lack of a unified and effective governance system, and hasty recognition will not bring tangible results to the Palestinian people. Instead, it may bring a false sense of security and bring the peace process to a standstill. In short, its core logic is that recognizing Palestine should be a natural result, not a tool to promote the peace process.
In addition, the party led by Meloni belongs to the right-wing political party, whose ideology is very close to the conservative forces such as Trump. This "camp consistency" has also become an important consideration for Meloni.Meanwhile, Italy has the third-largest Jewish community in Europe, a group that has a significant political influence on its support for Israel, and the Meloni administration is reluctant to lose the support of its voters and its lobbying by recognizing the Palestinian state.
Melanie’s choice has caused a lot of trouble. Demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians have erupted across Italy in protest of Meloni's refusal to recognize Palestine.
According to Italian media reports, in 75 cities, including the capital Rome, Milan, Florence and others, mass protests erupted, more than 100,000 people took to the streets, causing public transportation to stop across the country, and even hundreds of demonstrators clashed with the police.
(Solidarity of the Italian People with Palestine)
For the Meloni government, this wave of protests will cause multiple shocks to its government.
According to the polls, the protests covered students, workers and even intermediate voters, and the signs on the streets of Rome with "this is not a stop-off, it is a humanitarian bottom line", reflecting the government's position, which has touched the people's moral bottom line. In the future, this policy of separation from the public opinion will inevitably affect its public opinion and cause its support rate to decline further.
In addition, the protests have triggered a substantial social shutdown, violent clashes broke out at Milan Central Station, ports such as Genoa were blocked by workers, and freight operations were completely stagnant; Large-scale delays of railways and buses across the country, For Italy, whose economy is already weak, it can be described as "adding insult to injury" and may further drag down its recovery process.
Most importantly, in the context of the recognition of the Palestinian State by countries such as France, Britain and Canada, Italy's "special action" has turned it into an isolator within the EU. When Macron announced the recognition of the Palestinian State in the United Nations, he specifically mentioned "Europe should form a unified position", which is in the hidden criticism of Italy, in the future his passive situation in the foreign sphere will be further aggravated.
Back in the past, in fact, Italy has made the opposite choice many times.
In the 1930s, Nazi Germany's expansion momentum was fierce. Obviously, its aggression and expansion were against the general trend of world peace and development, but Italy misjudged that the Axis powers would win the war. Therefore, Italy declared war on France regularly after France's defeat in June 1940, in an attempt to "pick peaches". The result was obviously disastrous. The Italian army performed poorly in North Africa and Greece, and had to rely on German rescue. This war also brought a heavy burden on the country's economy and society.
After the Second World War, Italy the dividend of the "economic miracle", but when Germany, Britain and other countries were actively adjusting the industrial structure, Italy went back and forth again, and the reforms were fulfilled, as a result of which since the beginning of the 21st century, the economy has long been in a stagnant state of zero growth, and was overtaken by other European countries.
(Palestinian People's Day is recognized by many countries)
For Italy, these decisions are often not accidental, and there are three unavoidable problems behind them.
First of all, domestic politics is too divided, the coalition government is like a tree, today this party joins, tomorrow that party withdraws, no one can do long-term planning, meeting major events can only look at the interests in front of the eye;
Secondly, there is a mismatch between great power ambitions and actual strength. They always want to have a say in Europe and even the world, but their economic and military capabilities cannot keep up. Italy's military expenditure now accounts for less than 2% of GDP, which is lower than Germany's, but they want to rely on Be tied to the United States and Israel to brush a sense of presence;
Finally, it is the general misjudgment of short-term benefits, for example, when the Second World War wanted to "collect peaches", which resulted in the dames and the soldiers; when the industrial transformation wanted to "saving costs", the result was thrown behind by the times.
Now Italy is once again bucking the general trend and refusing to recognize the Palestinian state, There is a high probability that the past will repeat the same thing, in essence, it has not learned the lessons of history, and if it is not timely adjusting the position, it is likely to pay for its choice.