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.