During his visit to Israel this week, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi affirmed his support of the Jewish State and condemned the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Ha’aretz reported yesterday. Renzi also encouraged renewed peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The Italian prime minister talked about his visit on Tuesday to Tel Aviv University together with a delegation of Italian scientists, and referred in that context to the calls for boycotts of Israel. “Whoever boycotts Israel doesn’t understand that he is boycotting himself and doesn’t understanding that he is betraying his own future,” Renzi said.

He also spoke of the peace process with the Palestinians, calling for the renewal of negotiations and insisting that “peace will only be possible with two states for two peoples, and only if security is guaranteed for both peoples, along with the Palestinians’ right to self-definition and the right of the nation-state of the Jewish people to security.”

In his speech to the Knesset, Renzi stressed the importance of extending recognition to Israel as a Jewish nation-state in order to achieve a peaceful resolution with the Palestinians. The Times of Israel reported:

“Peace means that the Palestinians will have their nation-state and the Jews will have their nation-state,” said Renzi. “Recognizing Israel means recognizing reality… The existence of the State of Israel is not a gesture of the international community after the Holocaust, but a fact that predates any international agreement by hundreds of years… Israel exists despite the Holocaust not by virtue of the Holocaust.”

Renzi added that “Israel’s security is Europe’s own security. We think it is possible to make compromises regarding Iran’s future, but impossible to make compromises on Israel’s security.”

The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the Italian premier for “his work fighting anti-Semitism and boycotts of Israel.”

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