Al Qaeda Threatens Rome, Berlusconi Personally Addressed

Debkafile ^ | July 25, 2005 | Diane Shalem

[ninenot]

Misconstrue all you wish.

In the meantime, enlightenment occurs:

AsiaNews has learnt that the unprecedented personal attack on Pope Benedict XVI launched by Israel's Foreign Ministry on Monday 25 July was meant as a smokescreen for the Ministry's decision to abandon the negotiations with the Holy See planned for the same day.

These negotiations, explicitly mandated by Israel's 1993 Fundamental Agreement with the Holy See - the international treaty that is the "magna charta" of all relations between the Jewish State and the Catholic Church - have the purpose of achieving a new treaty to confirm the Church's centuries' old tax exemptions and property rights, which have been eroded by the State since its establishment.

The negotiations began officially on 11 March 1999. However, in recent years Israel has been reluctant even to meet the Holy See to negotiate, and on 28 August 2003, the Israeli delegation abandoned the negotiations altogether, and only came back to the table a year later in response to pressure from the Church and the Government of the United States.

After agreeing to very few meetings in 2005, Israel agreed to meet on 19 July, only to cancel the meeting at the last moment, and have it transferred to 25 July.

Apparently Israeli officials feared the consequences of cancelling this meeting too at the very last moment, so they contrived to find fault with the papal Angelus address to cover up their non-compliance with their treaty obligation to negotiate with the Holy See.

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=3789

[mike182d]

Reading is a skill. Where did my post say it was an unjust war. The Pope spoke out against the war. It is what the Pope does. When you are a man of peace you usually speak out against. A lot of people followed the Pontiffs lead by voicing opposition to military action. http://www.americancatholic.org/News/JustWar/Iraq/papalstatement.asp http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-06-04-bush_x.htm He was a pacifist and he thought there were better ways to resolve this problem. On this issue I declare him to be wrong.

The Pope never said the Iraq War was an unjust war. He preferred peace, but nothing less would be expected of a Pope in today's era. This does not mean he was against the War itself, but preferred peace as much as possible.

However, "last resort" is nowhere to be found in the 2000 year old Catholic Tradition of Just War Theory and so this modern invention of fifty years ago is suspicious...

[satchmodog9]

I am still confused by your assertion that I claimed the Pope called the Iraq war unjust. Where in my post did you see the word unjust. I just stated the Pope and my goofy Priest were opposed to the war.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Someone needs a time out!

[AlguyA]

"hidden-agendas,"

As Henry Kissinger once noted about Richard Nixon,"Sometimes paranoids truly do have enemies."

And sometimes, it seems, its possible the Israeli government does have a 'hidden agenda.'

I would suggest you check out the article, " Israel's Attack on the Pope Is a Smokescreen for Abandoning Talks with the Holy See" over on the Religion forum.

The Israeli foreign minister is a liar.

[dervish]

"AsiaNews has learnt..."

How exactly have they "learnt" that. They are making an inference, a conclusion. And a biased one.

"Apparently Israeli officials feared the consequences of cancelling this meeting too at the very last moment, so they contrived to find fault with the papal Angelus address to cover up their non-compliance with their treaty obligation to negotiate with the Holy See."

The only thing "apparent" in this article is the blatant attempt to smear Israel's motives. It appears just as likely to me that Israel objected to the Pope's omission of Israeli terror and with a new Pope sought to protest the treatment sooner rather than later.

Considering that moral equivalency between Palestinian terror and Israeli response to terror is rampant around the world, that much of the world sees terror against Israelis as somehow different than other terror, I see that history as a reasonable explanation to Israeli objections early on in this new relationship.

[dervish]

That article is meaningless.

[txhurl]

If/should/when Islam get their comeuppance (I think it inevitable), I am so frightfully glad that we have the internet to show what was done and why.

To dissemble radical islam is going to require radical measures of Christianity, and this time around I at least can know nobody down the road will question why it was done.

Threatening the Vatican, for God's sake. Idiots.

[Windsong]

Good idea. Piss off close to a billion Catholics. That would be absolutely brilliant.

Er, you mean the same Catholics who follow the Pope? The same Pope who opposes war with Iraq? Contraception? Etc?

Those Catholics?

Laughable. The Catholics are not warriors.

[Rutles4Ever]

One of the nice things about Catholicism is that we're not beholden to a geographical spot on the globe. As long as some priest, somewhere in the world, in some dank cellar in China or somewhere in the nether reaches of Iceland is celebrating Mass, the Catholic Church is open for business.

So, yeah, the Vatican holds a lot of symbolic value, but it's not like the necessity of Jews and Muslims to call Jerusalem their capital...It's the ultimate portable Church.