Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman were right when they blamed the noxious anti-Israel incitement rampant in Europe for Saturday’s murderous shooting attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels and the assault and battery of two Jewish brothers outside their synagogue in a Paris suburb later that day.
Anti-Israel incitement is ubiquitous in Europe and is appearing in ever-widening circles of the Western world as a whole.
Until this week, the Catholic Church stayed out of the campaign to dehumanize Jews and malign the Jewish state.
Pope Benedict XVI was perceived as a friend of Israel, despite his childhood membership in the Hitler Youth. His opposition to Islam’s rejection of reason, eloquently expressed at his speech at the University of Regensburg in 2006, positioned him as a religious champion of reason, individual responsibility and law – Judaism’s primary contributions to humanity.
His predecessor Pope John Paul II was less willing to confront Islamic violence. But his opposition to Communism made him respect Israel as freedom’s outpost in the Middle East. John Paul’s visit to Israel in 2000 was in some ways an historic gesture of friendship to the Jewish people of Israel.
Both Benedict and John Paul II were outspoken champions of the Second Vatican Council and maintained doctrinal allegiance to the Church’s rejection of anti-Judaism, including the charge of deicide, and its denunciation of replacement theology.
Alas, the Golden Age of Catholic-Jewish relations seems to have come to an end during Francis’s visit to the Promised Land this week.
In one of his blander pronouncements during the papal visit, Netanyahu mentioned on Monday that Jesus spoke Hebrew. There was nothing incorrect about Netanyahu’s statement. Jesus was after all, an Israeli Jew.
But Francis couldn’t take the truth. So he indelicately interrupted his host, interjecting, “Aramaic.”
Netanyahu was probably flustered. True, at the time, educated Jews spoke and wrote in Aramaic. And Jesus was educated. But the language of the people was Hebrew. And Jesus preached to the people, in Hebrew.
Netanyahu responded, “He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew.”
Reuters’ write-up of the incident tried to explain away the pope’s rudeness and historical revisionism, asserting, “Modern-day discourse about Jesus is complicated and often political.” The report went on to delicately mention, “Palestinians sometimes describe Jesus as a Palestinian. Israelis object to that.”
Israelis “object to that” because it is a lie.
The Palestinians – and their Islamic and Western supporters – de-Judaize Jesus and proclaim him Palestinian in order to libel the Jews and criminalize the Jewish state. It seems like it would be the job of the Bishop of Rome to set the record straight. But instead, Francis’s discourtesy indicated that at a minimum, he doesn’t think the fact of Jesus’s Judaism should be mentioned in polite company.
Francis’s behavior during his public meeting with Netanyahu could have been brushed off as much ado about nothing if it hadn’t occurred the day after his symbolic embrace of some of the worst anti-Jewish calumnies of our times, and his seeming adoption of replacement theology during his homily in Bethlehem.
Consider first Francis’s behavior at the security barrier.
Reasonable people disagree about the contribution the security fence makes to the security of Israelis. But no one can reasonably doubt that it was built to protect Israelis from Palestinian terrorist murderers. And Francis ought to know this. Francis’s decision to hold a photo-op at the security barrier was an act of extreme hostility against Israel and the Jewish people.
As the former Cardinal of Buenos Aires, Francis may have heard of the November 2002 massacre at Kibbutz Metzer. Metzer was founded by Argentine communists in the 1950s. Metzer is located 500 meters from the 1949 armistice lines which made it an obvious beneficiary of the security fence. But true to its radical roots, in 2002 members of the kibbutz waged a public campaign against the planned route of the security fence. They feared that it would, in the words of Metzer member Danny Dovrat, “ignite hostility and create problems” with the kibbutz’s Palestinian neighbors.
Thanks to that concern, on the night of November 10, 2002, a gunman from the “moderate” US- and EU-supported Fatah terror organization faced no physical obstacle when he entered the kibbutz. Once there he killed two people on the street and then entered the home of Revital Ohayon and executed Revital and her two sons, Matan, 5, and Noam, 4 years old.
Fatah praised the attack on its website and pledged to conduct more assaults on “Zionist colonizers,” and promised to continue “targeting their children as well.”
Had he actually cared about the cause of peace and non-violence he claims to champion, Francis might have averred from stopping at the barrier, recognizing that doing so would defile the memory of the Ohayons and of hundreds of other Israeli Jewish families who were destroyed by Palestinian bloodlust and anti-Semitic depravity.Instead, Francis “spontaneously” got out of his popemobile, walked over to a section of the barrier, and reverentially touched it and kissed it as if it were the Wailing Wall.
The graffiti on the section of the barrier Francis stopped at reinforced his anti-Semitic position. One of the slogans called for the embrace of the BDS campaign.
Although the economic consequences of the campaign of economic warfare against Israel in the West have been negligible, BDS’s goal is not economic. The goal of the movement is to dehumanize Israelis and set apart for social ostracism anyone who refuses to embrace the anti-Jewish slanders that Jews have no right to self-determination and are morally inferior to every other religious, ethnic and national group in the world.
And that is nothing compared to the other slogan on the barrier. That one equated the Palestinians in Bethlehem to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. In other words, it denied the Holocaust.
By standing there, kissing the barrier with its Holocaust denying slogan, Francis gave Vatican license to Holocaust denial.
And that was just the beginning.
Pope Francis met with Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas at his presidential palace in Bethlehem. When Israel transferred control over Jesus’s birthplace to Abbas’s predecessor Yasser Arafat in 1996, Arafat seized the Greek Orthodox monastery next to the Church of the Nativity and turned it into his – and later Abbas’s – official residence.
Standing next to Abbas on seized church property, the pope called Abbas “a man of peace.”
Abbas returned the favor by calling for Israel to release all Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons. And the pope – who interrupted Netanyahu when he told an historic truth – said nothing.
At mass at the Church of the Nativity on Sunday, Pope Francis prayed with Latin Patriarch Fuoad Twal. In his sermon Twal accused Israelis of being the present-day version of Christ killers by referring to the Palestinians as walking “in the footsteps of the Divine Child,” and likening the Israelis to King Herod.
In his words, “We are not yet done with the present-day Herods, who fear peace more than war… and who are prepared to continue killing.”
Rather than condemn these remarks, Francis echoed them.
“Who are we, as we stand before the Child Jesus? Who are we, standing as we before today’s children?” the pope asked.
“Are we like Mary and Joseph, who welcomed Jesus and cared for him with the love of a father and mother? Or are we like Herod, who wanted to eliminate him?”
During his visit Monday to Jerusalem, Francis embraced the Palestinian mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammed Hussein. Departing from his scripted remarks which called for the pope to refer to the mufti and his associates as “dear friends,” Francis called them his “dear brothers.”
Hussein has been condemned by the US and the EU for his calls for the annihilation of Jews in the name of Islam.
In 2012, Hussein said it was the destiny of Muslims to kill Jews, who he claims are subhuman beasts and “the enemies of Allah.” He has also praised suicide bombers and said their souls “tell us to follow in their path.”
Francis didn’t condemn him.
Francis stridently condemned the anti-Jewish attacks in Brussels and Paris. And during his ceremonial visits to Yad Vashem, the Wailing Wall and the terror victims memorial he said similarly appropriate things. But all of his statements ring hollow and false in light of his actions.
Israelis and Jews around the world need to be aware of what is happening. Francis is leading the Catholic Church in a distressingly anti-Jewish direction.
yamit82 Said:
* * * * * * * * * Who loves you BABY ?????? connect the dots ************
Salomon Benzimra Said:
But you were specific in criticizing Glick’s use of “Israeli Jew” in ref to Jesus, “minor inaccuracy” that you say it was.
I just challenged your criticism as being technically correct but to (paraphrase my criticism) SO WHAT? Most people reading her article I presume to be intelligent enough to connect the dots and accept her phraseology as it was meant in context. Further I questioned your intellectual honesty showing that you criticized Glick for historical inexactitude but accepted without question that there ever was a Jesus to begin with; making the discussion of whether he was Israeli, Judean, Jewish or whatever mute. If Jesus never existed what does it matter whether he was a Judean, Israeli or Martian?
If the Palis want to claim him why should we care? Why do we want to claim him? Why do you specifically want to claim him?
Denigrate christianity? “We Jews are liberal enough to allow other religions their belief, but not so overly liberal that we credit them with the label “truth.”” Judaism considers christianity to be Avodah Zarah, (pagan worship). It is irrelevant for us how many believers or adherents subscribe to paganism, it’s still paganism just as 1.5 billion Hindus believe in a pagan polytheistic religion.
I think I was clear in using common usage of “Abrahm as a Jew” with Glicks using “Jesus and Israeli”. Most people are intelligent enough to connect the dots and context without trying to be historically correct or a bible critic except you.
In addition I never claimed Abraham and the patriarchs were actual historical figures any more than Job, Noah or Adam and eve. I was only comparing Glick’s usage of Israeli to others use of Abraham and the patriarchs as Jews… which I think is clear and obvious to most readers who read our comments. Therefor there is no dichotomy in my apprehension of Biblical figures. What I find “most revealing,” to put it mildly, is your inability to accept criticism and to misdirect the criticism back on me with erroneous and incorrect contextual assumptions and attributions of my comments.
@ yamit82:
You still don’t get it, do you? I usually avoid being overly explicit on the obvious, in my assumption that I am dealing with intelligent people who can connect the dots. Perhaps, my assumption was misplaced, in view of the comments you and your supporters wrote.
So let me be more specific:
In many of your statements, you denied the historical existence of Jesus (“I do not accept or believe there ever existed a jesus of Nazareth as depicted in the NT and believed by christians in most denominations”…”I believe he is a fictional character and not a historical one”…“Do you also have a source proving the existence of the historical jeezus?????”, etc.).
That’s fine: you are not the only one questioning the historicity of Jesus. There is nothing wrong with this kind of skepticism.
But then, you add: “I give no credence to [the Christians’] beliefs all unsupported outside of the NT and early christian authors. I hold it to be A Gross fiction inflicted on the world.”
The beliefs of two billion Christians around the world are not hinging on your (or my) “credence.” They believe what they believe based on their sacred scripture and their own vision of Jesus, regardless of whether or not their narrative is “supported outside the NT and early christian authors.” Isn’t that the approach followed by religious people of all faiths?
And so, after you cast doubt on the historicity of Jesus – which, as I said, is a legitimate debatable issue – and you denigrate the Christians’ beliefs as a “gross fiction,” you (inadvertently?) mentioned “Abraham and our patriarchs…and the children of Jacob” but this time without the slightest doubt on their historicity as presented in Genesis, going back up to 18 centuries before the advent of Christianity.
It is this dichotomy in your apprehension of Biblical figures that I found “most revealing,” to put it mildly. I hope you now understand why.
M Devolin Said:
BIG FEET????????????? BIG ***** ?????????
Salomon Benzimra Said:
Another dicha of Deborah: [ drum roll] ” If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your B.S.”.
‘You may want to uphold the notion that Jesus was an “Israeli Jew.”’
Who gives a f### what he was, even if he did exist? I know I don’t.
You’re discussing the ambiguous identity of Jesus, even in light of the fact that he just might have never existed, and you suggest that Yamit is making dissonant statements? Hilarious. Yamit is two steps ahead of you.
Salomon Benzimra Said:
I was not so much defending Glick as I was criticizing you. How Glick characterized jeezus is common practice amongst most christians and Jews because they have accepted blindly and most uncritically the christian narratives re: jeezus. I think I stated this more or less. While I supported Glicks characterization of jeezus as an Israeli Jew it does not mean that I agree either with the historicity of his national origins be they Judean or Israeli, as I believe he is a fictional character and not a historical one, so whether one uses the term Judean or Israeli is really Mute.
You note that her referring to jeezus as and Israeli Jew is a “minor inaccuracy” yet you chose to point it out and attempt to correct that”inaccuracy”… Apparently for you and for your own reasons it was important enough to bring it up and comment on it. Therefore it must not be such a “minor inaccuracy”, at least as far as you are concerned.
It would be irrelevant if in your criticism of Glick using “Israeli Jew” you had chosen not to correct her to “Judean Jew”. It means that you accept the christian narrative and it is why I interjected my criticism of your faulty understanding of the subject. It was you who made the point:
I don’t uphold that he is anything; neither Palestinian or Jew. You uphold the christian lie that he was Jewish not me. If the Palis want to adopt or claim him, I support them. Let them have him..A non people claiming a non person a non deity and a non messiah. That would be ironic…Think about what that would do to christian theology if Jeezus was not a Jew but a Pali Arab???? They might even adopt Mecca as a christian holy site… 🙂 There is nothing positive for Jews in accepting the myth that jeezus was a Jew.
No disconnect I used the Jewish Biblical narrative and the common vernacular use and interchangeability of “Jew and Hebrews” and “Jew and Israelite” to demonstrate the Glick’s use of Israeli Jews for jeezus is quite common when referring to biblical characters even though technically their use may not be historically or even Biblically accurate.
The disconnect seems to be yours when you seek to protect the purity of Messaging re: The Palis claims of Jeezus being a Palistinian yet you accept the myth of the christian narrative that jeezus was a Jew. What’s the difference?
The most important and the most difficult thing is that we respect each other. Shabbat Shalom. Robin
This exchange is revealing. Not so much because of your strenuous approval of Caroline Glick’s characterization of Jesus as an “Israeli Jew” (which I noted, at the outset, as a “minor inaccuracy”) but because of your argumentation – once we sort out the relevant parts of it – and your general train of thought:
You first asked me:
probably not realizing how irrelevant the historicity of Jesus is in the context of Glick’s article.
You then answer your own question by saying:
But in the same breath, referring to figures of the Hebrew Bible, you write, with total certainty:
Do you ever connect your various thoughts before writing? Don’t you find a dissonance in your last two statements quoted above?
??? ????
Have a peaceful Shabbat, Robin
“I hold it to be A Gross fiction inflicted on the world.”
I loudly concur, Yamit. Can everyone say “mountain of bullshit”?
Shabbat shalom to all my Jewish friends here.
Salomon Benzimra Said:
Wrong!!! Technically you are correct, there was no Israel or Israeli in the modern sense in the first century. The kingdom of Israel long gone, but Glick was using the term interchangeably for Jews, Judeans and members of remaining Israelite tribes at that time. I think her usage is understood and acceptable phraseology in our vernacular and does not detract from our discourse. Much like calling Abraham and our patriarchs Jews instead of Hebrews or the children of Jacob Jews instead of Israelites.
As for myself I do not accept or believe there ever existed a jesus of Nazareth as depicted in the NT and believed by christians in most denominations. I give no credence to their beliefs all unsupported outside of the NT and early christian authors. I hold it to be A Gross fiction inflicted on the world.
@ yamit82:
You may want to uphold the notion that Jesus was an “Israeli Jew.” To me, this is almost as insane as the Arab-promoted “Jesus was a Palestinian” mantra, implicitly denying his Jewishness and assigning to him a label that did not exist in the first century. Why should we feed this labelling paranoia?
@ yamit82:
I remember the day because I could not believe the Kotel was in Israeli control after I feare all was lost. I remember a female IDF Officer was the first through the Mandelbaum Gate. Her sur name was Zelinger which is on of my family names and I am always looking for relatives of my Grand-father.
Happy Jerusalem Day everyone. A great day in the annuls of Jewish history.
M Devolin Said:
Thanks Dev!!! YOU are the only one on this site to notice or mention this joyous and meaningful holiday. For me it says a lot about the “PRO ISRAEL” COMMENTATORS ON THIS SITE.
I think she got the name of the Patriarch wrong, I think his name is Tawil Fadicha 😉
@ robin@longhornproject.org:
Being “Progressive” and P,C. and pro- Palestinian is more important then being Jewish. It is the need to be accepted by the avent-guard.
In the past we have had Jews working with Nazi’s. Today we have Reform Jews supporting Hamas. I guess that is not important and should not be discussed anywhere. Keep it under the covers.
Salomon Benzimra Said:
I don’t think you’re reading Yamit82’s comment carefully. I fine his comments not only relevant but informative.
robin@longhornproject.org Said:
Wealthy does not mean generous.
Happy Jerusalem Day, Yamit.
The Pope should send from Rome to Israel the stolen Jewish artifacts that remain locked up in the idol-worshipping capital of the world: Rome. Then he should remain there never again bringing his hairy ass to the land of the Jewish people, Israel. How can someone so intellectually fucked ever have any business in the land of Israel? I almost hurled chunks when I saw the photographs. What a fucking idiot. And then he lays equal blame on the Jews for the impasse the Jew-hating Muslim terrorists have created in the Middle East. And then he offers to mediate “peace talks”! Make me puke! What an asshole. He should be more concerned with all the pedophiles his religion has created around the world.
Salomon Benzimra Said:
If you mean replication? Sorry about that!! I included two edit versions unintentionally either my fault or Ted’s software???
If you refer to the content I ,I would never have interjected but for your critique of Glick citing inaccuracies #’s 1 and 2.
I only showed I believe that it’s not Glick but you who are inaccurate.
Later you seem to be willing to give the Poop the benefit of doubt despite many posts and commentaries showing there is no doubt and I quoted from a few critical articles to balance your presumption of what you ascribe to reasonable doubt standard…(Meaning that I believe it’s misplaced by you and by others) re: the Poops motives and intentions.
This might be of interest for You, a bit dated but still relevant.
http://home.fau.edu/aberger/web/vaticanii.htm
Please share this! How do we allow this? How does anyone allow this, don’t they know that it is wrong? http://youtu.be/hMF12Ru–yw
Support the Israel Longhorn Project help put a stop to it now. http://longhornproject.org
The Israel Longhorn Project,
Robin Rosenblatt, Ex Israeli Soldier, Ex Israeli Police Officer, past Anti Terrorist Agent
Director – The Longhorn Project
Nonprofit 501(c) 3 #74-3177354
Address: 815 Hill Street, # 5
Belmont, CA 94002
Tel: 650.631.9270 / 03.722.6108
robin@longhornproject.org
http://longhornproejct.org
I need the funds for this project in the next two months. I am being evicted with no place to go. It will make it impossible to help Israel with this emergency.
Beth Am (Los Altos) the richest temple in the San Francisco Bay Area has ordered me not to speak to their members at their activities about the Israel Longhorn Project.
This Congregation is a supporter of Jstreet. They host Jstreet activities.
JStreet is a Jewish Con organization who Anti Semitic and intends to destroy Israel. JStreet has made contacts Hamas, an Arab terrorist organization. JStreet are Jewish Traitors for proof see the film JStreet.
The Reform Jews of Beth Am Los Altos, Ca have betrayed Israel.
Then a police office called me for the San Clara police Department; he may have been connected to one of members. He told me that I would be arrested charged with harassment. Harassment is sending many emails but I only sent 3 or 4 recently at the most. They had sent me a letter telling me to remove all the betham.org emails, which I did. Then the officer told me I made a telephone call to them. And I did, I was checking if I should come to their torah study group and bring the cheesecake, I made especially for my friends there. I was told that I could come but I was not allowed to speak about the Longhorn project to anyone. I got angry and called the main office of the congregation told them that they had betrayed Israel and were Jewish Traitors.
Under the Patriot Act the whole congregation could be arrested for supporting terrorism.
@ yamit82:
I hope you realize how irrelevant most of your comments are to the subject at hand.
Salomon Benzimra Said:
Like History?
In context there is no difference.
The NT is contradictory:(Examples:) one narrative has Mary and Joseph Traveling to Bethlehem from Nazareth and the other from Bethlehem to Egypt.
It does not need a rocket scientist to inform us that these verses are contradictory and hence irreconcilable
There is no objective reason why anyone especially a non christian should accept anything in the NT and the christian narrative as Historical, factual and as a divine revelation. Objectively it is none of these. Repeating them only lends support to their myths and lies.
Even his home town is an invention and fabrication: Jesus of Nazareth (a town which didn’t exist 2000 years ago). Josephus cataloged all the important locations in Galilee and never mentions Nazareth. He cataloged some pretty insignificant places! Then there is the so called “prophecy” of Matthew 2 stating that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy (which no one can find anywhere in the Jewish bible!) that he would be from Nazareth. 🙂
Your source for this statement???
Do you also have a source proving the existence of the historical jeezus?????
“The Vatican policy under the last two Popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, has been very simple: theological dialogue with the Jews and political sovereignty for the Palestinian Arabs.” “Talk is cheap, Pope Francis. If you were a “friend of the Jewish people”, as the Catholic media and some rabbis try to present you, you should have rejected the Judeophobic Palestinian propaganda; you should have refused to be pictured beneath images comparing Israel’s actions to Hitler’s and the Palestinian Arabs to Jesus; you should have refused to shake hands with the Muftis who want to annihilate the Jewish people.
After visiting the concentration camp of Mauthausen on June 25, 1988, Pope John Paul II said that the Jews “enriched the world by their suffering,” and their death was like the grain which must fall into the earth in order to bear fruit, in the words of Jesus who brings salvation.
One wonders whether being killed is the only role of the Jews in the eyes of the Papacy.
Now we have a new Pope who sees Israel as a baby-killer.” Read More: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15063#.U4ZcvaIk1Is
Beware the wolves in sheeps clothing!
Only power can reverse these trends.
Salomon Benzimra Said:
Why would anyone expect this from the leader of an organization which has been libeling, swindling, torturing and slaughtering Jews for 2000 years? Such an expectation is delusional and without any basis in factual historical behavior. I am sure that 500 years ago everyone also thought that this organization and its leader stood for truth and justice, especially since they also believed he was appointed by their god. I think the first mistake is to mistake hopes and dreams for reasonable expectations.
I am astounded by the amount of people who expect righteous results from the prime member and leader of an organization so intimately connected with the most evil behavior. Expecting different results from the same circumstances is one definition of insanity.
Rather than focusing on appearances, speeches, talk, etc one should look at facts. What sort of person belongs to such an organization knowing its history? What sort of person rises to the top of such an organization?
If a new nazi party were to appear and the leader stated “we have changed, not killing Jews this year”, would that be enough to suspend a reasonable suspicion?
Those without expectations are less disappointed, especially unreasonable expectatons.
Too many Jews need painful reminders that we are ‘a nation that dwells alone’. We never tire of chasing after hostile gentiles to seek their smile of approval as if that is the most important thing for us. We do not usually seek G-d’s approval when we trash His instructions. Instead of crying over EU hatred why not prepare to receive many more Jews who will need a refuge in Israel. The bigots in the EU will lose their Jews and Israel will gain while the EU only gains more hostile Muslims.
Who invited the enemy again?
Lets, for crying out loud, first and foremost identify the internal enemies that work for the Vatican, {Persky) or cow to it, Netanyahu, Livni, Lapid and the unJews, capos, renegades with them.
For decades the local trash sabotage our National interests but we point attention only against the foreign anti-Semites the unJews cavort with.
There are reasons to be concerned about the real position of Pope Francis, but I think Caroline Glick sees the whole picture in black and white. Maybe she knows something we don’t know?
A few minor inaccuracies:
1. Jesus was not “an Israeli Jew”. He was a Judean Jew if he was really born in Bethlehem or a Galilean Jew if he originated from Nazareth.
2. Jesus certainly spoke Aramean to the masses, as it was the vernacular at the time. Only learned rabbis (Jesus among them) could read, understand and speak Hebrew among themselves.
I don’t know what the Pope’s thoughts were at that moment. Maybe he was thanking God for all the lives the Wall saved? I don’t know. But that is as valid a possibility as any of the more nefarious alternatives that Glick assigns to him.
In any case, there is no doubt that the Pope should have been more forceful in restoring the truth and standing for justice. But the Pope is also a politician. When have we heard any straight talk from a politician?
The viper crawls out of his hole….