A week has passed since the Italian newspaper Il Reformista published an article which has been picked up by the English language and Hebrew language Israeli media.
“Italian media on Friday published documents that appeared to confirm long-held accusations that Italy had agreed on a deal not to interfere with Palestinian terror attacks on Jewish targets and had failed to prevent a 1982 assault on a Rome synagogue in which a 2-year-old boy was killed.
The documents showed that Italian intelligence had clear information on the planned attack on the synagogue but did not stop it, and police even reduced security around the Rome house of worship.
The allegations have been known since 2008, when former Italian prime minister and president Francesco Cossiga told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth that Italy had “sold out its Jews” and signed a deal that allowed Palestinian terror groups a “free hand” to operate against Jewish and Israeli targets in Italy in exchange for not attacking other Italian interests.”
A translation of the 2008 interview with Cossiga can be found here.
The Times of Israel goes on:
“According to the reports, the deal with the Palestinians had been signed as far back as 1973 by Prime Minister Aldo Moro with Arafat’s PLO and George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who promised not to conduct terror attacks on Italian soil in exchange for Italy allegedly pledging its political support for the Palestinians.”
That deal was known as ‘Lodo Moro’.
Remarkably, the BBC’s Rome correspondent has so far shown no interest in informing the corporation’s audiences of this new information concerning what the BBC once described as “Italy’s worst post-war anti-Semitic act”.
Nothing “remarkable” about the BBC’s correspondent following orders to gloss over a typical Italian deal that could show both the PLO and Italy in a bad light.
As my cousin used to reply to everything said to him – “What Do You Expect ?”