Posted on 07/27/2005 5:48:38 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
The Vatican has reacted sharply to a verbal attack on Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) launched by the Israeli foreign ministry.
In a harsh public statement released on July 25, the Israeli government expressed outrage that the Pope had not explicitly included Israel among the countries he listed as recent victims of terrorism. The Pope, during his public audience the previous day, had condemned all terrorism, but particularly mentioned the "execrable terrorist attacks" that had occurred in recent days in England, Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq.
The Israeli government statement charged that the Pontiff had deliberately failed to mention a suicide bombing in Israel on July 12-- an omission which, the foreign ministry said, "cries out to the heavens." The Pope's statement, the Israeli ministry continued, placed a "moral stain" on Church leadership, by "granting legitimacy to terrorist attacks on Jews."
(An analysis by the AsiaNews service characterized the Israeli government statement as an "unprecedentedly crude and violent" personal attack on the Pontiff. The AsiaNews report said that the foreign ministry appeared to have issued the statement in haste, and the Hebrew text was marred by errors in spelling and punctuation.)
Responding to the Israeli complaint later in the day on Monday, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls emphasized that the Pope condemned all forms of terrorism, and the suicide bombing that killed 5 Israelis in the town of Netanya on July 12 would certainly be included in that "general and unreserved" condemnation. Navarro-Valls noted that the Pope, during his Angelus remarks, had "referred expressly to the attacks "of these days," and listed only the most recent incidents. The bombing in Netanya took place 12 days before the Pope's audience, whereas the terrorist attacks on England, Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq has occurred within the past 72 hours.
"It is surprising that someone would have wanted to distort the Pope's intention," the director of the Vatican press office observed.
Navarro-Valls told reporters that the apostolic nuncio had already spoken with officials at the Israeli foreign ministry about the Pope's remarks. In its public statement released earlier in the day, the Israeli government said that it had summoned the nuncio to lodge a formal protest of the papal statement.
Later in the day, the Israeli foreign minister adopted a more conciliatory statement, saying that he thought the Pope's failure to include Israel on his list of recent terror victims was "mistake and not a deliberate omission."
Hey Israel...give me a break.
That was rather dumb of Israel...
Not on par with reselling our tech to the Chinese, but still pretty dumb.
Considering the avalanche of silence after each suicide attack inside Israel, Israel's hypersensitivity is understandable.
isreal is being really stupid attacking the Pope.
---"Hey Israel...give me a break.
Considering the avalanche of silence after each suicide attack inside Israel, Israel's hypersensitivity is understandable."---
In this particular case, they went overboard. It's probably because everybody is still measuring the new Pope.
I would prefer a less neutral stance from the Vatican sometimes, too. General rebuking of terrorism worldwide isn't a strong statement from the Holy See.
Eventually, they're going to have to stop speaking as if Islam isn't an influence on terrorism. They don't need to declare war in Vatican City, but they've got to stop pretending That Islam wants peaceful coexistence and nutjobs are hijacking the religion.
An over-reaction form the Israeli Foreign Minister...I'm glad he took a more 'conciliatory tone' later on. With all the violence in the world today, you can hardly fault the Holy Father for missing a few places...
Could the Israeli overreaction have something to do with the fact that the Pope is German?
It was merely an oversight on the Pope's part and was never meant to minimize the attacks Israel has faced.
The Israeli foreign ministry over-reacted.
of course, it is unlikely that the Vatican will forget it ever again.
This isn't the best way to go about getting sympathy.
Thanx to the MSM, I know more about Israel than I do about Montana.
Which is really surprising given the importance of Montana to so many religious people, and the effects of events there on the world at large.
A papal omission
Condemning terrorism ought to be a simple matter for the leader of the Catholic church.
Yet on Sunday, when Pope Benedictus XVI condemned recent terrorist atrocities in Britain, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey, conspicuously absent from the papal list was the renewed terrorism in Israel.
Even if near-daily shelling of civilians in southern Israel with rocket and mortar fire doesn't count for him, then surely the suicide bombing which took five lives in Netanya earlier this month was no less reprehensible than what happened in the countries the pope did see fit to mention.
The Vatican's response to Israel's official displeasure – its envoy in Israel, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry – only adds insult to injury. The Holy See's explanation was that the pope left out Netanya because he was only referring to the latest incidents.
Of course artificial cut-off points don't make the mass-murder of Israelis less objectionable. But even this excuse holds no water, since the Netanya massacre took place July 11, four days after the initial attacks on London's mass transit system. The attacks in Turkey and Egypt followed. Moreover, the human toll in Netanya was greater than the attack in Turkey.
There was no conceivable, let alone moral, rhyme or reason to omit Netanya.
In its original comments, the Israeli Foreign Ministry declared, unarguably, "We expected the pope would criticize terror against Jews when deploring terror that affected others."
The ministry also asserted, dramatically, that "the Pope's evasion cannot be interpreted as anything but justifying terror against Jews" and that "this can only strengthen the hands of radicals and offer them encouragement."
Whether the Pontiff's exclusion was a function of design or of a subconscious tendency to discount Jewish lives, that exclusion, and the lame attempt to whitewash it, add credence to the potent Foreign Ministry criticism. The inevitable signal being dispatched to terror kingpins is that their assaults on Jews, even if not condoned outright, nevertheless do not arouse the same moral indignation and emotional outrage.
The inclination, subliminally or otherwise, to isolate Jews in a separate category, isn't unique to the Vatican. But we expected better of a just-installed pontiff who has declared his desire to reach out to Jews and announced plans to visit the synagogue in Cologne during his upcoming journey to his native Germany. A pope, what is more, who was reportedly ready to take a tougher approach to the struggle with militant Islam than his predecessor.
Sadly, however, it almost appears that Benedictus XVI is falling short even of Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa who has reportedly and at long last accepted the UN's draft definition of terror, one that brooks no exception making Israel a legitimate target.
The Arab world has been aggressively sabotaging any UN attempt to at all agree on what terror is since 1996. The need to define terror received particular impetus after 9/11.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was finally forced to take on the Arab block. His terminology had emerged as the principal bone being thrown to Washington in response to its insistent demands for UN reform.
Annan badly needs this draft definition, a fact that forced him to abandon his organization's long-notorious tendency not to quite consider the slaughter of Israelis as terrorism. This was in line with the Arab dictate that Palestinians who indiscriminately kill Israelis be absolved from terrorist classification, thereby in a sense rendering Israelis legal prey.
Pressed by the Americans, Annan suggests a simple commonsense approach, whereby "any action intended to harm civilians or noncombatants with the purpose of intimidating people, or compelling governments or international organizations to act or abstain from action constitutes terrorism." Moreover "the targeting of civilians and noncombatants cannot be justified or legitimized by any cause or grievance."
This of course is merely a blueprint, which still must be approved by world leaders in the upcoming September summit. But it's a step in the right direction, even if hesitant, even if the product of coercion, even if only following 9/11 (as if all which preceded it mattered less) and even that belatedly.
We hope the new pope will find a way to unequivocally correct his mistake, if it is one.
Otherwise, he has placed the Vatican closer to London Mayor Ken Livingstone's implied justifications of terrorism than to the stated positions of the United Nations and even of the Arab League.
The Pope mentions London, Iraq, Egypt, and Turkey but not Israel? He is disturbed by terrorism in three Muslim Countries. Egypt's persecution of the Copts is Legendary. The Turks historical persecution of Christians is legendary. It still persecutes Christians. Iraq's treatment of Christians is worsening now that Hussein is gone. Yet. I have not heard of the Jews persecuting Christians in Israel. Yet the rocket and mortar attacks continue between suicide bombings in Israel. Just as the European media is silent, so goes the Pope. I can understand the Jews feeling left out. And they should speak up because apparently no one else will. I guess its just too bad you get tired of hearing about it.
Viva il Papa!!
~In hoc signo vinces~
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