Making Deals with Terrorists
Over the weekend, my old friend Francesco Cossiga–former prime minister, interior minister, and president of Italy–published a bit of autobiography in the country’s leading newspaper, the Corriere della Sera. Here’s an English language account of what he wrote.
Cossiga confirms what many people have long known (I wrote about it at the time,when I was Rome correspondent for The New Republic), namely that Italy had made a deal with the Palestinian terrorists: the terrorists could come and go freely to and from Italy, and could even stage operations from Italy, but in exchange they would not conduct operations on Italian soil.
I have no doubt that other countries have made similar deals, and that they were happy with those deals for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the governments sympathized with the terrorists’ cause, which was the war against Israel. And second, it seemed to guarantee a certain degree of security at a time–the seventies–when there was a lot of terrorism in Western Europe.
The trouble was that the terrorists weren’t just Arabs; there was a broader network, which included Italians. And those Italians were operating against the very people who had made the deal with the Arabs.
Cossiga speaks with some bitterness about receiving a request from a Palestinian group, asking for the return of a missile that had been captured by Italian authorities from a far-left Italian group. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was working closely with Italian terrorists, which the PFLP confirmed in their request to the Italian Government.
Ironically, the man who probably worked hardest to negotiate the deal–the Christian Democrat Aldo Moro, a close friend of Cossiga’s–eventually fell prey to the Italian Red Brigades terrorists, who kidnapped and then murdered him. Cossiga was a man of honor, and resigned as interior minister shortly after Moro’s corpse was found in the center of Rome.
It’s a useful reminder about the limits of negotiations, don’t you think? Even when you get a deal with evil people, bad things are going to happen.
Why? Remember the old story about the crocodile and the scorpion. The scorpion begs for a ride across the river, and the croc keeps on saying, ‘no, you’ll sting me.’ The scorpion promises to be good, and the croc finally makes the deal. As they approach the far shore, the scorpion stings the croc.
“Why? Why? You promised,” says the croc.
“Because I am a scorpion.”
Although many of the sordid details of the Italian – Palestinian terrorist accord were not widely known, most Italians understood that Andreotti and Craxi had agreed to wink at Arab terrorist activities. Sadly, most Italians – whether Catholics or Communists – were also highly supportive of such an agreement, and felt it was morally just because the felt it unfair to risk anything for Jewish Israel. Indeed, Berlusconi’s break with Andreotti’s pro-Arab policies has always worried many Italians for fear that their country will be victimized by its more even-handed policies toward Israel. The question for the USA is what to do with such “allies” who lack any will to make any sacrifice in the war against terrorism no matter what the short- or long-term consequences.
Today is the anniversary of Cinema Rex in Iran where 700 people were burned to death by Khomeinists Islamist to advance their cause of Islamic revolt. World was blind folded to 9-11 pre-requisite event and fail to recognize the depth of Khomeinist hates for Western civilization. Then, million were murdered as a result of the revolt, war, and terrorism which followed. At that time, all western media that were / are actually against US way of life and mainly pro Marxist were supportive of Khomeinie and against a pro-US / pro-Western King. Now the pre-requisite of events to come is being played in Georgia and Western world have no guts to defend its values and the values it promoted in Georgia. As was the case with the Shah, it seems West tricked Georgian by its inability to defend Western values, as did tricked the former King of Iran.
kourosh: I have never heard of the Cinema Rex incident before. Can you comment more on that? I wish to learn more.