Rome’s mayor is failing Palestine

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In the last few days of June, *Il Fatto Quotidiano* published several investigative articles, written by Maria Maggiore and Alessandro Mantovani, on an issue that, as the newspaper itself writes, is causing no small amount of embarrassment for the Rome City Council and Mayor Roberto Gualtieri. In short, the story concerns a prestigious property, the former Convent of Sant’Ambrogio, located in the heart of Rome, which the City of Rome granted free of charge to the local Jewish Community to serve as the headquarters of the “Renzo Levi” high school, a private comprehensive school. At the center of the controversy—and an appeal filed with the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) by various associations – the procedure followed is the direct assignment of public property to a private party, without any call for bids or public review. During the vote in the Rome City Council, the majority groups voted in favor, with the sole exception of Rome Futura council members Tiziana Biolghini and Giovanni Caudo, who abstained.

The inquiry by Maggiore and Mantovani also reveals the existence of Israeli sponsors with dubious reputations and proven links to the political and military establishment in Tel Aviv. Another irritating element in this whole affair is the membership of the Councillor for the Heritage, Tobia Zevi, to the same Roman Jewish Community (CER) that was allocated the property.

The collusion with Israel that the Roman junta denies

This situation is alongside others, which shed light on a disturbing entanglement between Roberto Gualtieri's administration, the majority supporting it, and both CER and Israeli interests as such, such as the ongoing commercial relationship of the municipal company FARMACAP with the Israeli company TEVA, whose medicines are regularly sold in almost fifty Roman municipal pharmacies, or the nebulous nature of relations between ACEA and the Israeli company MEKOROT, a public company that deals with water management, taking it away from the Palestinians, not to mention the massive presence of real estate investments that also fall under Israeli entities, as in the case of the “regeneration” of the former General Markets in Ostiense, which should become luxury student accommodation and is causing the revolt of the local citizens, who would prefer a social and environmental redevelopment.

From the city halls to the Campidoglio and back

As has been widely reported on these pages, following the severing of ties between Rome Capital and the State of Israel and its corporate offshoots, over 16,000 citizens have spoken out by signing a Citizens’ Initiative Resolution promoted by the committee “Roma sa da che parte stare” (Rome Knows Which Side to Take), whose procedural process has been initiated and which is expected to come before the Capitoline Assembly for a vote within the next four months. It is important to note that seven municipal districts—among the most populous in the capital (accounting for well over half of Rome’s population) and all with center-left majorities—have approved motions calling for the Rome City Council to adopt the Popular Initiative Resolution.

The XIII Municipality was an exception, where on 2 July the majority of PD councillors voted together with those of Fratelli d’Italia, sinking the motion and causing serious embarrassment to the Democratic Group leader, Angela Lidia Fanara, who had herself submitted the motion. Some councillors reported phone calls between the Capitol and the PD presidency of the Municipio, which then allegedly issued the party line order, to which the majority of Democratic councillors obediently adhered, adding their votes to those of the far-right. For the record, it should be noted that protests from citizens observing the vote led to the suspension of the session.

The pronouncements of the Municipalities nonetheless show a clear disconnect between the perception of social sensitivity held by local bodies, those closest to popular sentiment, and the central administration, which is more attentive to relationships with the city's powerful entities, among which the CER is fully included, despite representing no more than a quarter of Roman Jewish citizens. In the Municipalities, councillors from the Democratic Party, left-wing groups, and even Azione, the centrist party led by Carlo Calenda, voted in favour of supporting the Popular Resolution.

At the Campidoglio, however, the PD has adopted a strongly obstructionist stance, clumsily attempting to refute the indisputable data provided by Roma sa da che parte stare and raising a series of far-fetched technical objections to argue that it is difficult to bring the Popular Resolution to a vote on the floor. For example, in the “document” (unsigned, on plain paper, without a reference number, and undated) provided to the committee on June 25, regarding the relationship between FARMACAP and TEVA, reference is made to a Royal Decree from 1938 that requires pharmacists to dispense the medications prescribed by the attending physician… It’s a shame that in 1938, equivalent drugs—otherwise known as “generics”—did not exist, which renders that decree inadequate and superseded by the regulations more recently established by AIFA, the national drug agency. And it is precisely generics—which can easily be substituted with those produced by other companies—that constitute TEVA’s core business.

The Roman Jewish community represents Israel far more than the Roman Jews.

The central figure in the relations between Roma Capitale, the CER, and Israeli entities is undoubtedly Councilor Tobia Zevi, as well as Mayor Gualtieri himself. Zevi, former president of the Union of Young Italian Jews, is the brother-in-law of journalist David Parenzo, a famous character on the trashy radio show “La zanzara” and a die-hard Zionist.

In April 2020, Zevi ran in the Center-Left primaries to select the mayoral candidate for Rome, finishing sixth out of seven candidates with 3.53%, equivalent to 1,663 votes. Despite this less-than-stellar performance, Gualtieri appointed him councilor for heritage and housing, one of the most important portfolios in the capital.

The favors suspected of involving a conflict of interest granted to the Roman Jewish Community

Zevi is the symbol of the privileged relationship between the CER, the Gualtieri administration, and exponents of the Democratic Party at the Capitol. The Capitol appears literally subservient to a community that represents not so much the interests of Roman Jewish citizens, but rather those of the Netanyahu government, characterising itself as a parallel embassy of Tel Aviv.

On July 1, Tobia Zevi’s department released what it claims is a response to the articles in *Il Fatto* and other objections raised regarding the transfer of the former S. Ambrogio building to CER. The Department calls the controversies “unfounded,” explaining that “the building requires consolidation, safety measures, and renovation, at an estimated cost of approximately 8.5 million euros, which the Jewish Community of Rome will cover in full.”

The Capitoline Assembly would therefore, Zevi argues, have resolved to grant the property for thirty years for educational purposes, in accordance with the Regulations on unavailable assets approved by resolution 104 of 2022. It is therefore not correct – the Department emphasises – to define the concession as free of charge: “relating the forecast investment to the duration of the assignment, the Community will in fact bear an effective cost of approximately €300,000 per year”.

The response from Tobia Zevi's department is not at all convincing. Firstly, the number of years the palace is planned to be leased to CER is not 30, but 30 plus another 20 automatically renewable years, making it half a century. From this observation, it is clear that the calculation made by Zevi's offices on the actual costs incurred on a monthly basis by CER is more than overestimated, because the monthly expense would reach more or less €17,000 and the annual expense would be significantly lower than the indicated €300,000. But above all, the market value of a very large, prestigious property in the very heart of Rome's historic centre is much higher than the monthly amount that CER would have to pay. The monthly rent for a property like the former Sant'Ambrogio, in fact, can reach €180,000, more than ten times what it would cost CER if it obtained the concession of the building. In Rome's historic centre, for €17,000 a month one can rent a shop or an office, certainly not a historic palace.

Therefore, if not a “gift”, at the very least one can legitimately speak of a big favour done by the Municipality of Rome to the Jewish Community, especially if one considers that that money will not be income for the Municipality, but simply the cost of the essential renovation to enable the CER to use the property.

Il problema politico, mentre è in corso un colpo di stato in Myanmar, è estremamente complesso. genocide

At the end of their investigation, Maggiore and Mantovani are forced to write that both the Capitol and the Jewish community “(…) are awaiting the TAR, as if the problem were entirely there. As if the relationships between Rome Capital and Israel had not dug a chasm in the left and in the city”. And here the real political problem opens up, and a worrying scenario for the upcoming municipal elections, because the chasm in the left and in the city is widening day by day and, between now and next year, it could become unbridgeable.

Rome knows which side to take is not just a slogan or the name of a committee. It is a fact. Last fall, the general strikes called first by grassroots unions and then also by the CGIL against the genocide and in solidarity with the Global Sumud Flotilla saw extraordinary turnout, and even more extraordinary was the turnout at the national demonstration in October, when the streets of Rome were flooded with more than a million people, most of whom came from every neighborhood in the city. Even today, although there are no longer such spectacular mobilizations, the outrage and anger toward the Jewish state remain very strong and are growing—in part because the consequences of the genocide and the heinous wars waged by Israel with the backing of its U.S. ally now directly affect our daily lives. Israel continues to occupy ever-increasing portions of other nations’ territories—not only in Gaza and the West Bank, but also in Lebanon and Syria—while constantly attempting to derail any possible resolution to the conflict with Iran, the repercussions of which we all experience every time we go grocery shopping or fill up our cars with gas.

Given this situation, the leaders of Rome’s PD are deluding themselves if they think this won’t also affect voting decisions, and they would do well to reflect on the fact that someone more important than them lost an election precisely because of their refusal to condemn Israel and support the rights of the Palestinian people… It has been amply demonstrated that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s procrastinating and essentially complicit stance toward Netanyahu played a major role in the loss of the White House, and this should give pause to those who might lose the Capitol.

In addition to the city as a whole, the rift is deepening and widening even within political circles on the left. Political forces such as the Five Star Movement and the Green-Left Alliance—indispensable for the constitution of the so-called “broad coalition”, how will they explain to their voters that—after having supported the protests against genocide and the Popular Resolution itself—they are now entering into an alliance with those who not only refuse to utter the word “genocide” but continue to support it and are complicit in it?

Rome is not just any municipality, however important it may be. It is a city that, in addition to being the capital of Italy, has a history that is unique in the world due to its universalist character—first as the capital of an empire that spanned Europe, Africa, and Asia, and later as the center of Christianity—a religion that still counts 1.5 billion followers worldwide today. A city that cannot and will not be complicit in the genocide currently taking place in what many call the Holy Land.

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PHOTO CREDITS: Wikimedia Commons