A Chance for Italy to Distinguish Itself

A new president has just taken office in Italy, but since the country only makes news when something bad or sexy—or both—happens, most readers north and west of the Alps probably won’t have heard of the country’s new head of state. His name is Sergio Mattarella, a Sicilian politician who previously served as a constitutional-court judge following a series of ministerial posts, and his first words and actions on assuming the largely ceremonial role have already set him apart from most of his European counterparts.

Upon taking office, Mr. Mattarella went immediately to pay his respects to the victims of the infamous Ardeatine Caves massacre of March 1944, where Nazi occupation forces murdered 335 Italians in reprisal for a partisan operation in Rome that killed 33 German soldiers. The Italian victims included 75 Jews, many of whom were rounded up on the streets of the old ghetto.

Like his predecessor, Giorgio Napolitano, Mr. Mattarella has an arch-traditional political background, coming from the left wing of the now-defunct Christian Democratic Party. (Mr. Napolitano was once a member of the Communist Party.) But nothing in Mr. Mattarella’s biography suggested the new president would so quickly make a public embrace of Italy’s Jews.

Later, Mr. Mattarella gave a speech in which he called upon the international community to put “all its resources” into the fight against terrorism. “Our country has paid many times . . . the price for hatred and intolerance,” the president said. “I want to recall just one name: Stefano Taché, killed in the cowardly terrorist attack on the Rome Synagogue in October 1982. He was 2 years old. He was our baby, an Italian baby.”

It’s hard to imagine another European head of state giving such a speech. Mr. Mattarella’s words undoubtedly reflect the sentiments of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, a Catholic who greatly aided the Jewish community of Florence when he was the mayor there. At every sunset, Mr. Renzi would have the Florentine synagogue illuminated in lights.

When it comes to politics and culture, Italy has long led the way for the rest of the Continent, from the Renaissance to fascism to Eurocommunism, that ferment within the Communist Party in the 1970s that spread to France and Spain. Italian initiatives can indicate forces of change that are harder to see elsewhere.

At the same time, Italy’s tiny Jewish population of 35,000—compared to a half million Jews in France, despite the similar size of the two countries’ total populations—is decidedly more secure than its more numerous coreligionists in France and England. Having less confidence in their national government, Italian Jews undertook their own self-defense beginning after World War II. There has also never been a mass anti-Semitic movement in Italy, thanks in part to popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and now Francis, who have all been supporters of the Jews.

But it’s not just in its treatment of Jews that Italy is proving itself to be rather un-European. The country has also been generous in supporting Western antiterrorist activities in the Middle East, especially on the side of the Kurds in their war against Islamic State. In August, Rome sent 30 tons of weapons and ammunition to Kurdistan, along with several hundred training personnel and advisers. During a Feb. 11 visit to Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, Adm. Luigi Manetelli, Italy’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, further promised to deliver a military helicopter, 300 additional trainers, and a new shipment of machine guns and other weapons.

And as the Germans and the French continue to capitulate to Russia’s adventurism in Ukraine, Italian jets in January intercepted Russian warplanes over northern Europe and escorted them out of European Union territory.

To be sure, Italian leaders can also be very disappointing. Federica Mogherini, for instance, currently the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, has been every bit as accommodating to Russia and Iran as her predecessor, Catherine Ashton.

But given how many European leaders historically have sidestepped the issue of anti-Semitism and have been gingerly avoiding confrontation with Vladimir Putin , it’s refreshing to see at least one European country willing to face the major problems of our times.

Mr. Ledeen is a scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.