I've always liked this Pope. But when he expresses hope for a philistinian state he's lost me.
Bush was wrong about it too, so on that score, yeah, I'd "lump him in" with Arafat, Obama and you evidently.
Bless their hearts, sometimes even the Vatican is politically tone deaf.
Well, you weren't very persuasive in your argument in your choice of article to link. I had thought your point was that Barak Obama and Pope Benedict were the only two world leaders calling for the so-called "two state solution" in Israel, so I pointed out that President GW Bush had also done so. Your response was a convoluted article from the Times of London. Leaving aside the fact that the Times has a long history of taking every anti-Catholic position available, I could have found you a dozen articles that made a better case for the charge I assume you are grasping at.
The clear point that the Times is making is that some people in Israel think the Pope is an anti-Semite, and they may be right. The article says that the right-wing government was angered by "his call for a Palestinian homeland," but it fails to quote the man directly (in a long article). Even the Israelis would go along with a two-state solution if the right conditions were met. The press did the same thing with John Paul II, when he called for peace in Iraq and the MSM implied that he was calling Saddam Hussein an OK guy. For a Christian, the Pope's reaction to any diplomatic crisis is 100% predictable: He has WWJD tattooed on his eyelids. Sometimes he gets it wrong, but that's his only blueprint for any controversy. Obama might call for two states out of fundamental character weakness. The Pope always argues from the strength of his convictions. That's how he got to be Pope.
The rest of the article recycles several tired anti-Catholic prejudices (BTW, Jews can also be guilty of bigotry). The article implies that some Jews are mad that the Vatican is making Puis XII a saint. Interesting that some (unnamed) people feel that way, but it is a lie based on a falsehood. Only the Pope can make the decision on beatification (he has not). Elevation to sainthood takes miracles, which no Pope can supply. These days, if all sainthood required was a Pope's approval, Mother Theresa would already be a saint. And the myth that Puis XII somehow collaborated with the Nazis, or even did less than was in his power to end the Holocaust has been thoroughly debunked. Sixty years ago prominent Jews like Golda Meir and Alfred Einstein had already come out on the side of the Catholic Church concerning this controversy. I don't know if Puis XII was a saint, but the man has been completely exonerated to all but conspiracy theorists. Leave it to the Times to bring it up again here. I don't remember Israel's government doing so. Just like the Times reporting "some demanded the Pope be arrested" over supposed Jewish treasures hoarded by the Vatican. A pretty strong accusation, but the writer failed to identify the "some" or anything about the nature of the stolen treasures. I hope you see the pattern here.
I posted you to rebut a dumb point you made. I offered the facts, and took no side in the argument. That didn't stop you from making assumptions about me. I have no love for the Palestinians -and, yeah, that's the name they're going by these days. So unless you're prepared to start referring to the Italians as "Romans," you're just going to end up sounding ignorant and inconsistent to a lot of people. Calling them by their current name doesn't make you a sympathizer. That being said, I see nothing wrong with hoping for a day when they can be allowed to have their own state. I don't see that happening, but it's a nice thought. That was George Bush's thought, and the Pope's too. It does not lump any of us in, as you so simplistically did, with Arafat or Obama. If you fail to grasp the simple logic here, you have zero standing to pass judgment on any of us.