In light of the success of the first bilateral ICT - Italian conference of June 2007 on “The Threat of Terrorism on the Stability of the Middle East”, The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) held the Second ICT – Italian conference on 4 – 5 December 2008, under the sponsorship of the Italian embassy.

The conference was hosted by the Municipality of Raanana at the HaMishkan Center for Music and Arts.

Amb. Luigi Mattiolo, Italian Ambassador in Israel, Mr. Shabtai Shavit, ICT's Chairman of the Board of Directors and former head of the Mossad, and Prof. Alex Mintz, Dean of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, at IDC, Herzliya, opened the conference.

Three panels covered the main issues on the table in the region: the periphery as strategic threat (Iran, Pakistan, al-Qaeda); the international arena (US and Europe); and the Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian arenas.

Four Italian experts participated at the conference: Dr. Alessandro Politi, Director, Outpost for Strategic and Security Scenarios (OSSS) at the Nomisma think tank, Rome; Prof. Marco Lombardi, from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano; Dott. Antonio Maria Picasso, Middle East and Africa analyst for Ce.S.I.- Centro Studi Internazionali, Rome; and Dott. Diego Baliani, responsible for research on Middle East and Persian Gulf at the Military Centre for Strategic Studies (CeMISS) of the Italian Ministry of Defense.

Please click below to access an updated version of Dr. Diego Baliani's article titled "After Annapolis’ failure: The chances of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the light of Hamas’ control of Gaza" that was presented at the conference.

ICT was represented by Dr. Eitan Azani, Deputy Director, senior researchers Col. (ret.) Jonathan Fighel and Dr. Ely Karmon, and Fellow Researchers Brig. General (ret.) Amnon Sofrin and Col. (res.) Shlomo Mofaz. Also contributed to the conference Amb. Avi Primor, Director of the Trilateral Center for European Studies at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzlyia and Prof. Barry Rubin, Director of Global Research in International Affairs Center (GLORIA) at IDC.

The two days conference was a special opportunity for an exchange of views at a high professional level on the main terrorist threats and political challenges Israel and Italy will have to deal in the near future and opened the way for a continuous friendly strategic dialogue on the academic level between experts of the two countries.

ICT wishes to thank the Italian embassy in Israel, and especially Minister Counselor Davide La Cecilia and his team for helping the establishment of this academic event.