ROME/GAZA, 11 February 2004 — Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei will ask his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi to condemn Israel’s controversial West Bank barrier when he begins a two-day visit to Italy and the Vatican, a Palestinian official said as Protestors from the Popular Resistance Committees, many of whom were armed and masked, marched through the centre of Gaza City. The protesters demanded the release of four members on trial over the killing of three Americans in an attack on a diplomatic convoy as the US Embassy expressed its unhappiness over the case.
But the West Bank barrier was once again to the fore as Qorei is to inform Berlusconi of the “serious situation” caused by the barrier in talks in Rome late yesterday, said Nemmer Hammad, the Palestinian representative in the Italian capital.
Berlusconi, in contrast with his European Union colleagues, conspicuously avoided outright condemnation of the barrier during a visit to Rome in November by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who referred to Italy as Israel’s closest ally in Europe.
Berlusconi said at the time only that he had “obtained explanations” on the controversial building project. This was in sharp contrast to the emphatic EU plea to Israel to “stop and reverse the construction of the so-called security fence inside the occupied Palestinian territories”.
Berlusconi’s kid-glove treatment of Sharon at a time when Rome was presiding over EU affairs led Arab League chief Amr Moussa to boycott a Euro-Mediterranean conference hosted by Italy in December.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini sought to quell criticism from Arab states in an interview with Corriere della Sera coinciding with Qorei’s visit. “(We have) reinforced our relations with the Arab world at the same time as with Israel,” he told the daily, adding that Rome “will not abandon its traditional friendships, will not abandon its traditional commitment to the Mediterranean”.
He also praised Qorei as a “moderate who sincerely wants peace”.
The visit to Italy and the Vatican is the second leg of Qorei’s tour of six European capitals, designed to increase international pressure on the Jewish state.
The Palestinian leader’s visit comes just two weeks before the International Court of Justice in The Hague is scheduled to begin hearings on the legality of the barrier. The Palestinian prime minister will also meet the leaders of Italy’s main political parties today, as well as the heads of the foreign affairs committees of both houses of Parliament. Early tomorrow, he will have an audience at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II, who late last year condemned the Israeli barrier as “a new obstacle to peace” and declared that the Middle East did “not need walls but bridges”.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, dozens of members of a fringe Palestinian armed faction demanded the release of four members on trial over the killing of three Americans. Former minister and current MP Imad Al-Faluji told the protesters that the trial of the four, which began on Saturday, was “political” and also called for their release.
“We are in favor of the law, a state of rights and justice and we will not witness such injustice in silence,” said Faluji. “These prisoners should be freed as they are innocent and have not admitted any link” to the Oct. 15 attack.
One member of the faction told the crowd that a commission of inquiry set up by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had already concluded that the four were not involved in the attack. The appearance of the four men — Naim Abu Ful, 42, Bashir Abu Laban, 41, Mohammad Al-Dsuki Kamel Hamad, 22, and Ahmad Abdel Fatah Al-Safi, 23 — in a closed military court on Saturday came just days after a spat between the US State Department and Arafat’s top security advisor over the case.
