What Berlusconi Meant for Israel
What Berlusconi Meant for Israel
Silvio Berlusconi’s era is over. Italy’s longest-serving prime minister since World War II earned international notoriety for starlets and showgirls.

His pundits are now competing among themselves to find the better description of his presidency: monopolist, reactionary or simply “a brothel”.

His political uncorrectness often created diplomatic troubles to Italy, like when Berlusconi compared a German politician to a concentration camp kapo, when he publicly supported the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Chechnya or he called Barack Obama "tanned".

But his terms as Italy’s leader saw the rise of the first and only pro-American and pro-Israeli government in the midst of a Europe that delegitimized the “war on terror”.

In the shadow of intensive reports about an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities, a few days ago Berlusconi’s government allowed the Israeli air force to complete a drill over the Italian island of Sardinia (it’s the same distance between Jerusalem and the Iranian nuclear sites).

After the 9/11’s attacks, Berlusconi led a pro-US rally in Rome, meanwhile hundreds of thousands marched in an anti-war protest. Berlusconi told a mass rally in Piazza del Popolo, “We are all citizens of New York”. 

The flamboyant billionaire forged a special relationship with “mio amico” (“my friend”) George W. Bush. In 2003 Berlusconi took his distance from the “old Europe” and supported the war in Iraq, despite massive popular opposition in Italy and international isolation. After the United States and Britain, Berlusconi sent to Iraq the largest military contingent of the foreign coalition. Italy paid a heavy price in blood: twenty-five Italian soldiers and civilians have been killed in Iraq.

In 2006, Berlusconi addressed a joint US Congress and he was welcomed with a standing ovation (an honour reserved only for Washington’s most favoured allies).

Berlusconi’s administration spearheaded the campaign to force the European Union to list Hamas in the black list of terror organizations.

“I feel the suffering of the people in Israel personally”, Berlusconi told the Hebrew Yediot Aharonot newspaper in 2008. That year he became the first Italian prime minister to address Israel’s Parliament.

No European government helped Israel to feel a normal country vis-à-vis public opinion as Berlusconi did. He played a role in building warmer relations between the Jewish state and the European Union generally.

In 2003, the Jewish rights group, the Anti-Defamation League, honoured him with its Statesman Award. Berlusconi linked Italy’s commitment against Iran’s atomic program to Ahmadinejad’s genocide agenda (he drew parallels between Iran’s President and Hitler).

Berlusconi worked hard to soften resolutions critical of Israel at the United Nations and promoted Israel’s inclusion in the European joint economical accords.

He took part in an “Israel’s Day” in 2002 organized by my newspaper, when the Jewish State was beset by horrific suicide attacks of the Oslo War.



I feel the suffering of the people in Israel personally”, Berlusconi told the Hebrew Yediot Aharonot newspaper in 2008.

His government said “no” to UN’s Durban conferences and again another “no” to the Goldstone’s report that, de facto, prevents Israel from exercising the right to self-defense.

He was the only European leader to snub Yasser Arafat, when during the Second Intifada the Arab leader was contiguous with terrorism.

Berlusconi supported Israel’s right to defend itself during the 2009’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza, while all the other European leaders blamed it as “disproportional”.

His government has always ignored requests by prosecutors in Milan to seek the extradition of 22 Americans identified as CIA operatives wanted in the disappearance of an Egyptian cleric in Milan, who was allegedly kidnapped as part of the “extraordinary rendition” program.

According to the former US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, Berlusconi convinced Muammar Qaddafi to abandon a nuclear program. “It was Berlusconi”, Rumsfeld said to Fox News last march.

Berlusconi has certainly been a demagogue, the living symbol of many Italian vices, but he revolutionized a decades-long Italian terror-appeasing diplomacy embodied by the photographs of the previous Italian Foreign Minister, Massimo D'Alema, walking arm and arm through the ruins of Beirut with Hizbullah parliamentarians.

The chattering classes will never confess it, but the “Italian clown”, as Berlusconi was depicted by The Times last week, was a blessing for Israel and the West after 9/11.