-Analysis-
ROME — It would be a mistake to downplay the progress Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made on the Palestinian question. The proposed motion to recognize the State of Palestine, albeit tied to two currently impossible conditions (“the release of the Israeli hostages” still held by Hamas, and “the exclusion of Hamas from any governance of Palestine”), nonetheless abruptly shifts the Italian government’s previously erratic approach.
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The current circumstances give the move even greater weight. Meloni is speaking on a solemn stage, the United Nations. She does so in open contradiction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest declaration that “there will not be a Palestinian state,” and in opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that even mentioning recognition amounts to “rewarding Hamas after its atrocities.”
What is more, the Italian prime minister’s speech was followed by a move that caught even her own side off guard, including those on the right who until recently were mocking on television the idea of providing military escort for the ongoing flotilla of boats in support of Gaza.
This shift stems from at least three pressing circumstances. First, the need to defend the value of consistency, long upheld by the right, which in this case coincides with the historic stance of Meloni’s party in favor of a Palestinian state. That declaration of principle may have sufficed when the debate remained theoretical, but now that countries like France and the United Kingdom have turned it into a concrete political challenge, now that French President Emmanuel Macron has involved Saudi Arabia in a high-level conference on the matter, Meloni’s camp risked contradicting itself and facing a stinging accusation: how is it that while other European leaders are finally taking a stance, you remain motionless?
Even among government supporters, the “yes” vote reached a striking 73 percent
The second factor has to do with the overwhelming public support in Italy for recognizing Palestine. According to an Izi poll, nearly nine out of 10 Italians agree. Even among government supporters, the “yes” vote reached a striking 73%. Figures like that would sway any administration, and it matters little that the sentiment is largely tied to outrage at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the faint hope that a collective stance by nations might push Netanyahu’s government to rethink its plans.
Question of courage
For a leadership that has always claimed to embody popular sovereignty, those numbers are significant, and fears are growing that they could influence electoral choices, given the unexpected turnout at the pro-Palestinian demonstrations this past week.
But there is also a third element hovering over the debate, and that is the world’s judgment on the Gaza war once it can be assessed at a distance, when the final outcome and the toll in human lives and suffering are clear. At that point, states’ attitudes will be weighed: those who tried to do something and those who looked away, those who sought to uphold humanitarian law and those who chose to ignore it.
No government, no European leader, can risk having their legacy filed among the indifferent and the cowardly, least of all a prime minister who has made courage her defining trait.
