Rome, Italy - Foreign Minister Accused Of "Anti-Jewish Bias"

Rome, Italy - Conservative opposition politicians and Jewish leaders in Italy criticized Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema as displaying an anti-Israeli bias.
Sparking the complaints was a photograph, published in Italian newspapers, of the minister, his arm held by a man the caption described as a Hezbollah lawmaker, while he toured a bombed out neighborhood in Beirut.

D'Alema visited Lebanon and also went to Israel last month as part of Italy's diplomatic efforts. In an interview with Italian newsweekly L'Espresso, D'Alema was quoted as saying that, "now, rightly or wrongly, Hezbollah is perceived by a large swath of the Lebanese population as a kind of national resistance force after the disastrous political error (by Israeli) represented by this war."

The Foreign Ministry Wednesday evening defended D'Alema, saying the minister's inspection of the suburbs of Beirut was a "show of solidarity" with the victims of the conflict in Lebanon "in the same spirit in which he met in Jerusalem with the families of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers."

But a leader of the tiny Italian Jewish community in Rome, accused D'Alema of "going arm in arm with an enemy, not only of Israel, but of peace," the minister should have inspected damage done by Hezbollah missiles while he was in Israel.