There was a time in America when politicians with national ambitions had to visit the three “I’s” if they wanted to advance to higher office.

That would be Ireland, Italy and Israel.

While it may not be as true during these turbulent times, it is good to know that Gov. Maura Healey has already visited two of them, Ireland and now Italy.

Healey, in her first trip abroad as governor, visited Ireland last year on a so-called trade mission. And now in her second foreign trip, has just returned from Rome following a conference on climate change and, along with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a meeting with Pope Francis.

Not bad for a cafeteria Catholic who is a strong supporter of abortion.

Could Israel be next?

Probably not, but you never know.

Her pro-Israel stand, mild as it was, in supporting the police on the handling of pro Hamas, anti-Israel and antisemitic protests at Emerson College and Northeastern University caught the attention of a lot of people.

After all, here was Healey, a progressive governor in one of the most liberal states in the nation, backing the cops, as Wu did, over the unruly college anti-Israel demonstrators.

“We have a right to protest in this country, including on college campuses,” she said. “It is also the case that there is a difference between protest and violence, and threat of violence and disruption of students’ access to safe education.”

To the dismay of the groaning live GBH radio audience at the Boston Public Library, Healey added, “It’s also the case that some of what we are witnessing does not represent that, does not reflect that.”

As soft as it was, her comment is a far cry from the remarks Healey made when she was attorney general in response to the riots following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis cop in 2020.

That was when anti-cop rioting, burning and looting of businesses broke out in largely Democrat run cities across the nation, including Boston.

Days after the May 25, 2020, Floyd murder hundreds of rioters descended on downtown Boston and burned, thrashed and looted businesses and stores, particularly on fashionable Newbury Street.

They even turned on the cops who were sent in to quell the riot, damaging and setting fire to police cruisers and turning downtown into a war zone.

Nine Boston cops were hospitalized and a dozen more were treated for injuries. Glass and debris littered the streets as store fronts were smashed open. More than 50 rioters were arrested.

The cost of the burning and looting was in the millions, and for months afterwards storefronts in downtown Boston were covered with plywood, giving the city the look of war-torn Belfast in the old days.

With smoke still rising over the city, Healey, who could see the destruction from her high-rise office in the nearby McCormack Building atop Beacon Hill, gave a Zoom speech justifying the riots in the name of “four hundred years of racism and oppression.”

Speaking to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Healey, the state’s top law enforcement officer, had members cringing when she said, “Yes, America is burning. But that’s how forests grow.”

Two years later Healey, running for governor, sort of walked back the comment, saying she used a poor choice of words to make her point, which was her hope that the country would emerge stronger.

Well, it did not sound that way at the time.

The damage caused by anti-Israel college protesters running amok at Emerson, Northeastern, Harvard, MIT or any other of the college campuses in the state has been negligible compared to the damage the race rioters caused in downtown Boston.

Yet, Healey—at least verbally– came down harder on the college campus protestors attacking Israel than she did on the looters and rioters that attacked, robbed and wrecked downtown Boston.

All of which has fellow progressives asking: What gives?

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

Police arrest pro-Palestinian demonstrators as the Emerson College Palestinian protest camp is cleared in Boston last month. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP, via Getty Images)