Italy’s Jewish community says Meloni ‘sincere,’ not worried about fascist past
world media has been intensively covering the italian election and the victory of right-winger Giorgia meloni as italy’s first female prime minister and also a politician who heads what used to be a fascist party. But according to a jewish community leader who spoke with The Jerusalem Post, her election is “a lot less dramatic than what the world media or israeli media portrays it to be.”
meloni is president of the right-wing populist and national-conservative Brothers of italy party (Fdi in italian). Fdi was the largest party in the 2022 italian general election.
sources in the jewish community said right-wing parties have been part of the government in the past, and there is no comparison to France’s marine Le pen. meloni has a relationship with the jewish
community and has been very positive toward israel, one source said, adding: “the only problem may be with members of her party” who have been identified as fascists.
nevertheless, according to
all sources in the jewish community who spoke with the post, meloni told jewish leaders she knows she has a challenge to deal with within her party, and she intends to do so. a few years ago, a number of party members celebrated former prime minister Benito mussolini, who established italian fascism, with fascist and nazi memorabilia in their regional headquarters.
meloni supported israel when hamas fired missiles at it from Gaza. as minister of youth about a decade ago, she visited the jewish community and had positive ties with it.
“meloni has been courageous when she declared that you cannot use fascist symbols and be a member of her party,” said riccardo pacifici, former president of the rome jewish community and current representative of the european jewish association in italy.
“she promised me that she will find these people who are nostalgic for fascism and will ban them from the party,” he said, adding that even though she told jewish leaders of her intentions regarding fascism,
such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, local cells of young Palestinians without any clear organizational affiliation and who are active on social-media networks such as TikTok have been identified as trying to instigate attacks.
One such TikTok star was Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, who was killed by soldiers in Jenin in early August. Nabulsi was identified as being the son of a Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) colonel, and the Lions’ Den terrorist group said he was affiliated with them.
Along with organized groups and individuals such as Nabulsi, the army has also identified attempts by groups farther from Israel as trying to promote terrorist attacks in the West Bank and inside Israel.
There has also been a growing number of Palestinians belonging to the PASF who have taken part in attacks and then been killed by Israeli forces. On Wednesday morning, during the Israeli operation in Jenin, a member of the PASF, Ahmed Alawneh, was killed by an IDF sniper as he fired at the forces.
Two weeks ago, an IDF Maj. Bar Falach was killed in a firefight with two Palestinian gunmen near Jenin. Falach, 30, from Netanya, was the deputy commander of the Nahal Brigade’s elite reconnaissance unit. The two Palestinian gunmen who were killed by the force were identified as Ahmed Abed and Abdul Rahman Abed.
Ahmed Abed was an intelligence officer in the PASF.
The Lions’ Den on Wednesday called on PA President Mahmoud Abbas to instruct the PASF to join in the fight against Israel.
“The security forces have lions that roar, and we will be your soldiers,” it said in a statement. “The enemy understands only the language of fire.”
More than 1,500 Palestinians have been arrested, and security forces have focused on the northern West Bank and cities such as Jenin and Nablus, where most of the arrests have taken place. But despite the high number of arrests over the 200 days of the operation, the increase in shooting attacks has become a major source of concern for the IDF.
Despite the military attempting to crack down on weapons smuggling, sources have told The Jerusalem Post that the years without a strong barrier between Israel and the West Bank have allowed for a significant amount of weapons to flow into the hands of gunmen.
“There was a lot of smuggling; you can just imagine what went through,” one source said, adding that “now we have to fix those years of mistakes.”
Nevertheless, guns and automatic weapons continue to make their way into the hands of Palestinian gunmen via Hezbollah in Lebanon or smuggling routes in the Jordan Valley. Those weapons usually originate from Syria or Iraq. Other
weapons are stolen from IDF bases or other areas inside Israel.
But with the IDF cracking down on weapons smuggling, there has been a 300% to 400% increase in the price of ammunition and weapons. For example, a bullet for an M-16 used to cost NIS 3, but it now costs NIS 20.
The IDF has been entering Palestinian cities out of exasperation with what officials have described as a failure to maintain order by the PA. Despite the displeasure, the security coordination between the IDF and PA remains in place, and the military has seen an increase in PASF activity.
“Security cooperation with the PA is being tested right now. It’s in the interest of both sides,” the source said, adding that the defense establishment hopes to see the PASF act in Jenin’s refugee camp as well as in Nablus’s Balata refugee camp “after years of ignoring it.”
But with or without the PA, the defense establishment has stressed that security forces will continue to operate against Palestinian terrorists.
“It doesn’t matter if the PA does their work or not, we will do our job – whatever the time, no matter what,” the source said.
But neither the IDF nor the PA will be able to rid the camps of all the heavy weaponry or militant activity in one shot, the source said, adding, “It takes she did not speak about during her campaign.
According to Pacifici, one of the ways that Meloni displayed her attitude toward fascism was her support for Ester Mieli, a Jewish candidate for the Senate. Mieli used to be the spokeswoman for Rome’s Jewish community when Pacifici was president.
“The fact that Ester is a member of her party in the Senate shows that her actions are stronger than words,” he said, using the Yiddish word tachles to define Meloni, meaning she cares about the end goal and less about the talk.
“If you ask me if I think she is sincere, I hope the answer is yes,” he added.
But Pacifici said he was less worried about the new government that is expected to be formed in his country and more about the opposition.
“After the election, our problem isn’t with the new government but with the new opposition,” he said.
Pacifici mentioned one of the members of the progressive parties, Elly Schlein, the daughter of an American Ashkenazi Jew who is very critical of Israel. In 2014, she wrote on Twitter: “Enough, enough, enough. Gaza, death toll rises to 213 children killed on the beach from Israeli bombings.”
Schlein has been dubbed as the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) of Italy and is an independent candidate for parliament on the Democratic Party’s
Progressive Italy list.
Schlein would be “left of Meretz” in Israeli political terms, Pacifici said, adding that the fact she has a Jewish father makes her criticism of Israeli policies complicated for the local Jewish community.
He emphasized that he was “not speaking for the Jewish community,” but rather giving his own opinions on the current political situation. “I told Meloni that I wouldn’t vote for her since she still needs to prove that she will make the changes that she has promised. I told her I wish I could have voted for her.”
Pacifici said he approved of Meloni’s approach to the Russian-Ukrainian war, and “she has always shown support for the United States and of the Ukrainian people with regards to the current war. This is important since I am afraid we will face a European energy crisis, and we need a responsible leader to lead in this type of