The results obtained by Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan on his visit to Italy and the Vatican last week are unlikely to be affected by the collapse of the Italian government in the power struggle between the Christian Democrats and the Communists. Christian Democratic Premier Giulio Andreotti resigned yesterday after 17 months in office and three days after Dayan returned to Israel.
The resignation came after the Communists, Socialists and two other parties withdrew their parliamentary support, and the Communists demanded Cabinet seats in a coalition emergency government to combat Italy’s economic, social and terrorist problems.
President Giovanni Leone began talks today with party leaders and political elder statesmen to seek a new Premier, but political sources predicated he would probably ask outgoing Andreotti to form Italy’s 40th government since the 1943 fall of fascism.
A poll today in the magazine “Panorama” showed nearly 65 percent of Christian Democratic parliamentarians oppose any collaboration with the Communists. A possible face-saving solution for both Christian Democrats and Communists would be for the Communists to continue to support the Christian Democrats on agreed urgent legislation without the Christian Democrats acknowledging it.
SAW MANY COMMUNIST LEADERS
During his visit to Italy, Dayan told guests at a dinner given by Italian Foreign Minister Arnolds Forlani that Europeans should stop intervening on the Arab side in the Middle East dispute and should let the parties involved work out a peace agreement by themselves.
Dayan also said he believed Pope Paul VI had accepted the Israeli solution to the Palestinian question put forward by Dayan at their meeting last Thursday. This is based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and discussions between Egypt, Israel, Jordon and moderate West Bank and Gaza representatives. “I can’t say that we, the Vatican and Italy see exactly eye to eye but there was a friendly attitude by both and I hope we are understood better.” Dayan said.
Although the new Italian government is expected to be Christian Democratic, as all Italian post-war governments have been, Dayan was careful to include Italian Communist leaders in his rounds of talks.
He met at various times Communist central committee members Sergio Segre, who is Jewish, shadow foreign minister Giancarlo Pajetta and theoretician Giorgio Napolitano. They were fully briefed on Israel’s views. The Italian Communist Party record on the Middle East has been generally pro-Palestinian–but it has stayed free of an outright condemnation of Israel.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
