Italian terror diplomacy

This Ha’aretz article offers an plausible explanation for UNIFIL’s Italian’s commanders astonishing hear, see, speak no evil statements to the Israeli press conference a few days ago:

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema offered Syrian officials a deal on his visit to Damascus earlier this month, according to Israeli sources. D'Alema told Syrian president, Basher al-Assad and Foreign Minister Walid Moallem that Italy would push for an end to Syria's international isolation in return for a guarantee that Hezbollah and other groups would not harm Italian troops in Lebanon.

Italy has headed the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon since February, and has some 11,000 soldiers stationed in the south, covering the Litani River region. A senior Israeli official said the information showed Italy was more concerned with the safety of its own troops than with the mission assigned to it by the UN, and was even prepared to make deals with Syria to that end.

According to the official, information on the deal offered to Syria undermine the suggestion Italy has made several times over the past two months of sending multinational peacekeeping forces to Gaza.

I have been wracking my head trying to come with an Italian of general of note in the last 100 years and I am drawing a complete blank. Who knows, if Italian troops were sent as part of an international deployment to the Gaza-Egypt border Hamas just might end up with the Vatican.