Lapid: Italy suspending defense agreement is ‘another embarrassing failure’ for PM

By Sam Sokol 14 April 2026, 4:15 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Opposition Yair Lapid leads a Yesh Atid faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, March 23, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Rome’s decision to suspend its security cooperation agreement with Israel “is another embarrassing failure by the prime minister and the nonexistent foreign minister,” declares Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, appearing to mock the performance of Gideon Sa’ar, after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced that her government had “decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defense agreement with Israel” in light of the situation in the Middle East.

“Meloni is not a left-wing-progressive European leader, she is in the right-wing-conservative camp and understands the need to fight terrorism,” says Lapid. “The government has failed to advance Israel’s interests even with people who are supposed to be our friends and natural allies.

“We will return, we will establish a government, and Israel will once again be the country everyone wanted to love.”

The 2003 memorandum of understanding signed under Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi set the stage for cooperation in defense and scientific research. The MOU was ratified by Italy in 2005, and is renewed automatically every five years.