Israel basks in warmth of friendship with Italy

[Herschel]

Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, basked in the warmth of his country's growing friendship with Italy on Tuesday as Silvan Shalom, his foreign minister, completed two days of frosty talks with his European Union counterparts in Brussels.

On the second day of an official visit to Rome, Mr Sharon held talks with Antonio Martino, Italy's defence minister, and was due in the evening to confer with Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister.

"Italy is today the best friend that we have in Europe," Mr Sharon told members of Italy's Jewish community at an informal meeting. "We have never had a country holding the EU presidency that has been as friendly as Italy today."

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Wonderful news. EU members undermining Israel should follow Italy's example. Hopefully America will look more favorably on Italy for it's proper position.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Friends like Berlusconi?

He's a crook and a yuppie fascist.

There are some people, perhaps, who would laud the Devil himself if he embraced their cause.

[bluesoul]

2. Even worse are

Fini and Bossi, right below him. I never thought such politicians (Mussolini successors) would ever gain so much power as they did. Beware with whom you make friends Israel...

[drewb]

3. Beware with whom you make friends "little" Israel...

That's what you meant isn't it?

[drewb]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SOS]

4. More wonderful news:

Ethiopians join outrage over Berlusconi comments
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By Tsegaye Tadesse
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ADDIS ABABA, Sept. 17 - Ethiopians, invaded by Italy in the 1930s, joined an outcry over Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi's assertion that Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini never killed anyone.
Memories are still raw in Ethiopia of an invasion ordered by the
Italian dictator in 1935, when his forces used mustard gas and other chemical weapons against troops defending the country then known as Abyssinia.
Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, the head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council showed invading Italians
holding up the severed heads of dead Ethiopian fighters for the camera.
Ê''Mr Mussolini may not have killed a person by his own pistol,
but thousands of innocent Ethiopians were annihilated by poison gas sprayed over Ethiopia during the 1935 Fascist invasion of Ethiopia,'' he said. Ê''I suggest that Berlusconi should refer to the historic documents in which the atrocities committed by the Fascist hordes are graphically depicted before he opens his mouth to support a dictator who is responsible for the death of millions.''
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