September 15, 2005
Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has issued a public apology after a member of parliament belonging to his Forza Italia movement used anti-Semitic stereotypes last week. Guido Crosetto suggested that Jewish financial interests and “great Jewish and American Freemasonry” were behind a scandal involving the chief of the Bank of Italy, Antonio Fazio, who is under pressure to step down after being accused of discriminating against a foreign bank in a takeover battle. Crosetto’s statements drew sharp reaction from Italian Jewish leaders. An editorial Tuesday in the "Corriere della Sera" newspaper compared the comments to anti-Semitic propaganda in Germany and Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Responding to the editorial, Berlusconi said his party “apologizes publicly to whoever can be offended by these allusions, underlining at the same time that no one can put in doubt its fundamental nature that is liberal and an enemy of any intolerance.”
