MALTA’S FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE IRAN WAR: HAS IT BECOME CONFUSED AND CONTRADICTORY?
By Charlie Zammit
Malta is a leader in diplomatic contortions. One week it was quietly reinforcing its ties to Nato through joint maritime exercises in the Mediterranean. The next, senior parliamentaryfigures were at the head of a gays’ march through the capital’s streets, where participants waved Palestinian flags. Monthslater, the Maltese parliament solemnly reaffirmed the island’s “perpetual neutrality” in international affairs. Observers are left wondering what exactly Valletta thinks it is playing at.
The Nato dimension is not new. Since rejoining the Alliance’s Partnership for Peace programme, Malta has accepted training, shared intelligence and even offered its ports for Nato logistics. Successive governments have insisted this is purely technical cooperation and does not breach the constitutional ban on foreign military bases. Yet the opticshave always been awkward for a nation that proudly trumpets its non-aligned credentials.
Then came the spectacle in Republic Street. Political leadersmarched arm-in-arm with drag performers and transgender activists. The marchers carried placards spelling the country’s solidarity with Israel’s nemesis who for decades has vowed to destroy the Jewish state. Photographs showed Palestine flags proudly held by the participants. The event was billed as a celebration of LGBT rights but the prominent Palestinian symbolism turned it into an unambiguous political statement on the Middle East conflict.
A few months later the House of Representatives reaffirmedMalta’s neutrality and refusal to be drawn into foreign tussles. Neutrality was billed as a message of peace, when thousands upon thousands of Iranian citizens were shot dead by their own military complex. Are we still within Nato’s circle of influence? Do we have no shame left?
Why this sudden allergy to clarity? Malta is a small island in a dangerous sea. It depends on European Union funds, American naval goodwill and north African petroleum. Its parliamentarians are socially liberal on domestic issues, but a large part of the electorate remains culturally conservative. The result is a government desperate to keep every constituency happy: Brussels, Washington, the local LGBT lobby and those sympathetic to the Islamists who would toss gays from the rooftops if given the opportunity to do so.
The strategy convinces no one. Nato allies roll their eyes at Valletta’s selective neutrality. Maltese voters watch their politicians perform ideological gymnastics that solve nothing. A country that cannot decide whether it is a western security partner or a neutral and neutered island or an anti-Israel Mediterranean voice is fooling only itself.