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Signed in 2002 and entering into force in 2005, few Italian citizens will know what has resulted from a Memorandum of Understanding between Rome and Tel Aviv over military cooperation and ‘defense’. Concealed behind military secrets laws, it has been renewed every five years without much notice.
Set to expire on June 8th however, the current, highly-popular administration of President Georgia Meloni has signaled it will be renewed with as little public notice as possible, the Palestine Chronicle’s Italian managing editor, Romana Rubeo, reported yesterday.
A law firm—Studio Legale Piccione from the southern city of Bari, got wind of the re-authorization of the MoU and lodged a complaint with the Meloni government, noting how substantially different conditions between the states have become since October 7th, 2023.
Obtained by the Chronicle, the notice was addressed to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, and the President of the Republic, and called for the immediate suspension of the MoU.
Michele Carducci, Veronica Dini, Domenico Gallo, Ugo Giannangeli, Fausto Gianelli, Fabio Marcelli, Ugo Mattei, Luigi Piccione, Luca Saltalamacchia, and Gianluca Vitale were among the signatories, all trained in constitutional and international law.
“On June 8th, 2025, the Italian government will automatically renew the Memorandum of Understanding on military and defense cooperation with Israel,” said Fausto Gianelli, a prominent lawyer and one of the signatories, emphasizing the idea of the letter was raised in light of “the extremely grave situation currently unfolding in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem”.
“This will happen despite the catastrophic situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. We are witnessing a scenario in which the International Court of Justice acknowledged the plausibility of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. That same Court, in July 2024, declared the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and ordered its dismantling by September 17th, 2025,” he continued.
“In addition, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November 2024 against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
Roughly 60,000 people have been confirmed as dead resulting from Israeli military violence in Gaza, while the total of 10,000 missing, presumed buried under rubble has remained for many months without increasing relative to the amount of rubble being created every week through Israeli bombing. Additionally, a famine, which has been warned about for months, recently saw its first victims, as 29 Palestinian children and elderly were reported to have died from hunger-related illness.
Rubeo reports that the signatories also denounced the lack of transparency surrounding the agreement, which despite involving public expenditures, “is largely covered by military secrecy, making it virtually impossible for Italian citizens to know how public funds are being used”.
According to Gianelli, “the renewal of this agreement represents confirmation of Italy’s support for Israel’s war machine,” he told the Palestine Chronicle. The law firm’s notice references how the defense MoU includes cooperation on the import, export, and transit of military materials, training of armed forces, and “industrial procurement,” in other words, allowing for purchasing of arms and munitions between the nations.
Neither Corriere della Sera, nor La Repubblica, Italy’s two largest print newspapers, covered the news that the letter had been written, or that the MoU was being renewed.
The Meloni government has publicly stated its preference and the necessity for, the creation of a Palestinian state and an end to illegal settlements in the West Bank, positions that many of Europe’s heads of states have taken. However it has simultaneously taken no significant measure to pressure Israel into considering its position, and may in fact be tacitly fine with that, at least as long as it helps the government avoid being forced into making any concrete decisions that could affect voter sympathy or relations with Israel’s larger benefactors, the UK and US.
The 50th anniversary of the G7 was held in Italy in 2024, and it was during a press conference that Meloni was asked why the bloc hadn’t condemned the indiscriminate killing of tens of thousands of civilians. She replied that, “I think we have to remember who began that, and it wasn’t Israel, there was somebody who took civilians, women and children,” before stressing that they had to “work for peace”.
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PICTURED ABOVE: President Giorgia Meloni in pink welcomes the heads of the G7 nations on the 50th anniversary of the bloc in 2024 PC: European Union, © 2025 CC 4.0. Int.
