Italy's Mideast Strategy
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
TAKING ON WASHINGTON Italy's Mideast Strategy BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome The announcement on October 11 that American fighter planes had overtaken the Egyptian airliner returning the Palestine...
...A valid challenge to his stewardship is unlikely to arise until the dominant Christian Democratic party decides the time has come to replace Craxi with one of its leaders...
...A third factor accounting for Rome's embracing the Arabs concerns oil...
...In this sense, the orientation of the present Socialist Prime Minister and the Christian Democratic (DC) Foreign Minister, Giulio Andreotti, is nothing new...
...Indeed, the initial gratification and relief that for once the good guys had scored a resounding success were palpable...
...Some noted Communist intellectuals joined in, though they were soon rebuffed by parly headquarters...
...all they can do, though, is voice objections and call for a more balanced approach...
...These "minor parties" have several times tried without success to form a compact bloc that would constitute approximately 10 per cent of the national vote...
...The urge to expand Italian influence and play a mediating role in the Mediterranean has been felt by most of their predecessors, and while that may well be wishful thinking, the desire remains strong...
...Efforts to develop a special relationship with PLO chief Yasir Arafat stem not only from the hope of fostering peace in the Middle East but also from the wish to limit the importation of violence into Italy...
...Yet even before the Achille Lauro piracy, acts of Arab terrorism in Rome had raised popular doubts about the soundness of the government's appeasing rationale...
...As the rapid resurrection of the government and the results of the polls have indicated, the Prime Minister's position is stronger than ever...
...Actually, Rome's handling of the entire Achille Lauro incident has to be seen in the light of its overall Middle East policy to be fully understood...
...Others argued that, despite the urgent American request that Abbas be held, Italy did not have sufficient legal ground to retain him...
...Still, a large percentage of Italy's oil comes from the Middle East and nobody knows what the future may bring...
...Sit vio F. Si nk;ai t ia regularly reports for The New 1 i aim r from Italv...
...Thus the situation existing before Spadolini's unpopular pullout, which was dictated as much by wounded pride as by principle, was re-established...
...Meanwhile, as Spadolini learned to his embarrassment, the Christian Democrats appear determined to keep playing the role of staunch defenders of the status quo...
...special antiterrorist forces in their attempt to remove the Palestinian hijackers from the plane and take them to the United States...
...Angered by his not being consulted about important decisions that were being made during the peak of the Achille Lauro crisis, including the release of Abbas, Spadolini withdrew his party's support from the coalition, forcing the government to resign...
...The wave of nationalism that swept Italy was sharply reflected in the slogans that suddenly surfaced: "Allies but not servants," "W e are not nato's Bulgaria," "Italy is not a banana republic...
...The Italians soon learned of the Reagan Administration's arrogant demands, and of the aggressiveness displayed by the U.S...
...He was right, it was felt, in refusing to surrender the prisoners, for doing so would have meant renouncing national jurisdiction over crimes committed on board an Italian ship, and setting a dangerous as well as undignified precedent...
...That widespread pro-American reaction did not last long, however...
...Several editorialists accepted the Craxi regime's contention that it having made a commitment to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to set him free, reneging would have exposed Mubarak to the bullets of Arab extremists...
...A bland compromise document was drafted acknowledging the Defense Minister's right to be consulted, and Craxi's resignation was rejected by President Francesco Cossiga...
...anti-Americanism, yes—nationalism, no...
...Until recently, Arab governments and militant organizations left Italy relatively immune from violence...
...This opinion was heightened by the feeling that some aspects of the Abbas affair were unclear to the point of suggesting outright deviousness...
...True, the opec oil cartel no longer has the clout it had in 1973, at the time of the Yom KippurWar...
...Inherent weakness and ideological sclerosis are the major causes of their limited influence and steady decline...
...At the moment, it does not appear that a move of this kind will be made before the DC national congress, scheduled for next spring...
...Even Italy's most pro-U.S...
...Few doubted the action was of questionable legality, but except for the extreme Left no one criticized Prime Minister Bettino Craxi's decision to authorize the landing at Sigonella, thereby condoning whatever breach of international law the U.S...
...According to a third poll, taken by the SWG Institute, 47 per cent of the Italians thought the American attitude was offensive and humiliating...
...Only the three small parties in the government coalition—the Republicans, the Social Democrats and the Liberals—disagree...
...As a result, irritation and resentment replaced elation...
...Questionable as Craxi and Andreot-ti's pragmatic pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian policies may seem to some people, especially outsiders, they have the support of the Christian Democratic-Socialist bloc that controls the majority of votes in Parliament...
...The second factor has to do with terrorism...
...The first one is geopolitical in nature...
...He thought and said that there was enough on the terrorist leader to slap him in jail and keep him there: American "colonialism" and Abbas' guilt were two totally different issues...
...TAKING ON WASHINGTON Italy's Mideast Strategy BY SILVIO F. SENIGALLIA Rome The announcement on October 11 that American fighter planes had overtaken the Egyptian airliner returning the Palestine Liberation Organization hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro to the PLO and forced it to land at Sigonella, anato base in Sicily, was greeted with enthusiasm by the Italian public...
...The man on the street, by contrast, eschewed diplomatic and legal subtleties...
...The extent of their impotence was demonstrated by the signal failure of the Republican leader, Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini, to force the government to revise its controversial Mid-eastern policy...
...action may in fact have involved...
...Polls taken by two weekly magazines that are hardly starry-eyed about Craxi, Espresso and Panorama, showed the majority of Italians approving the way the Prime Minister handled the hijacking crisis and stood up to Washington...
...It views itself as the big local power, and sees the opportunity for developing a more dynamic foreign policy in the Mediterranean than in Western Europe or within the European Community...
...One week later the differences were patched up, at least outwardly...
...Sitting as it does on the Mediterranean, Italy has had strategic and economic ambitions in the area since the early days of the country's unification, in the second half of the 19th century...
...On the other hand, the public was troubled by the release of Mohammed "Abu" Abbas, head of the Palestine LiberationFront, an ultra-militant PLO component, and the person suspected of sending the terrorists on their mission...
...Craxi had made no concessions on his Arab policy, and the Defense Minister could claim that some important matters had been clarified...
...and anti-Soviet newspaper, Milan's II Giornale, condemned what it saw as "American rascality," "provocative actions" and intolerable "overbearingness...
...For reasons of their own the Communists share the government's views...
...A number of factors have contributed to the careful cultivation of a warm relationship with the Arab world...
Vol. 68 • October 1985 • No. 14
