In Gaza, the Vatican Raises the White Flag
Hamas
denies Israel's right to exist. But for pontifical diplomacy, the
Jewish state is wrong to defend itself with force. The custodian of the
Holy Land reveals the thinking behind the Church's policy in the Middle
East
Article courtesy of www.chiesa
ROMA,
January 4, 2009 – During the days of the Christmas celebrations,
Benedict XVI spoke out repeatedly against the war centered on Gaza.
But his words have fallen on deaf ears. Failure isn't new to the
authorities of the Holy See, every time they address the question of
Israel.
In more than three years of pontificate, Benedict XVI has
introduced innovations in relations between the two faiths, Christian
and Jewish. These innovations have come at the risk of misunderstanding
and opposition, both among Catholics and among Jews.
But in the meantime, little or nothing seems to have changed in Vatican
policy toward Israel.
The only change – and it's a marginal one – is in tone. Until a
couple of years ago, with Cardinal Angelo Sodano as secretary of state
and Mario Agnes as director of "L'Osservatore Romano," the criticism of
Israel was incessant, heavy-handed, sometimes shameless. Not any more.
With Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretariat of state has softened
its tone, and under the direction of Giovanni Maria Vian,
"L'Osservatore Romano" has stopped launching invective and has made
more room for religious and cultural debate.
But the general policy has remained the same. Of course, the
authorities of the Catholic Church do not defend the existence of
Israel – which its enemies want to annihilate, and is ultimately at
stake in the conflict – with the same explicit, powerful determination
with which they raise their voices in defense of the "nonnegotiable"
principles concerning human life.
This has been seen in recent days. The authorities of the Church,
and Benedict XVI himself, have raised their voices in condemnation of
"the massive violence that has broken out in the Gaza Strip in response
to other violence" only after Israel began bombing the installations of
the terrorist movement Hamas in that territory. Not before. Not when
Hamas was tightening its brutal grip on Gaza, massacring the Muslims
faithful to president Abu Mazen, humiliating the tiny Christian
communities, and launching rockets every day against the Israelis in
the surrounding area.
About Hamas and its vaunted "mission" of wiping the Jewish state
from the face of the earth, about Hamas as an outpost for Iran's
expansionist aims in the Middle East, about Hamas as an ally of
Hezbollah and Syria, the Vatican authorities have never raised the red
alert. They have never shown that they see Hamas as a deadly danger to
Israel and an obstacle to the birth of a Palestinian state, in addition
to its being a nightmare for the Arab regimes in the area, from Egypt
to Jordan to Saudi Arabia.
In the December 29-30 issue of "L'Osservatore Romano," a front-page
commentary by Luca M. Possati, checked word by word by the Vatican
secretariat of state, claimed that "for the Jewish state, the only
possible idea of security must come through dialogue with all, even
those who do not recognize it." Read: Hamas.
And in the same issue of the Vatican newspaper – in a statement
also approved by the secretariat of state – the Latin patriarch of
Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, after decrying Israel's "disproportionate"
military reaction, reiterated the same concept: "We must have the
humility to sit at the same table and listen to each other." Not a word
about Hamas and its prejudicial refusal to accept the very existence of
Israel.
But "L'Osservatore Romano" gave no emphasis to the statements made
during that same period of time by the head of Germany's government,
Angela Merkel, according to whom "it is the legitimate right of Israel
to protect its civilian population and to defend its territory," and
the responsibility for the Israeli attack on Gaza belongs "clearly and
exclusively" to Hamas.
Affirming this, the German chancellor broke from the chorus of
condemnation that came, right on cue, from many state departments – and
from the Vatican – after Israel exercised its right of self-defense by
force. In Italy, the expert in geopolitics who gave the greatest
emphasis to Angela Merkel's position, in the newspaper "La Stampa," was
Vittorio E. Parsi, a professor of international politics at the
Catholic University of Milan and until a few months ago a leading
commentator for "Avvenire," the newspaper of the Italian bishops'
conference. In "Avvenire," Parsi had written two years ago, at the time
of the war in Lebanon, an editorial entitled "Israel's reasons," in
which he stated:
"The bitter reality is that, in the Middle East, Israel's presence
is believed to be 'temporary', and the guarantee of the Jewish state's
survival lies – as unpleasant as it may be to say this – in its
military superiority."
The problem is that the "temporariness" of the state of Israel is
an idea shared by a significant part of the Catholic Church. And it is
this idea that influences Vatican policy on the Middle East, that traps
it in outdated, ineffective options, and prevents it from grasping new
developments, although they have become so evident in recent days.
These include the extremely strong and increasing aversion to Hamas on
the part of the main Arab regimes and even of the Palestinians in the
Occupied Territories, objectively closer to the views of Israel than
the Vatican is.
* * *
The concept of the "temporariness" of Israel, and its influence in
the Catholic Church, is explored in a book-interview recently published
in Italy, with the Custodian of the Holy Land, Franciscan Fr.
Pierbattista Pizzaballa.
Fr. Pizzaballa, in office since 2004, is, together with the nuncio
and the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, one of the most authoritative
representatives of the Catholic Church in Israel. And he is also the
one who expresses himself most freely.
So, given that Christians are only 1 percent of the population in
the Holy Land, and almost all of them are Palestinian, Fr. Pizzaballa
recalls that "until a few decades ago, Christians were the leaders in
the struggle for Arab resurgence" in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria. Today,
they "no longer matter at all, politically, in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict," in which the Islamist elements have much more influence. But
the Christians have maintained the "refusal to accept Israel" that
persists in a large part of the Arab world.
One proof of this rejection, Pizzaballa adds, was the opposition to
the fundamental agreements and to the exchange of diplomatic
representatives established in 1993 between the Holy See and the state
of Israel:
"It has not been easy for the local Church to accept this
transformation. The Christian world of the Holy Land is predominantly
Arab-Palestinian, so agreement was not such a given. And this made the
action of the Holy See even more courageous. I remember very well the
problems, the fears, the comments that were far from enthusiastic. It
seemed almost a betrayal of the views of the Palestinians, because on
the Palestinian side Israel's history has always been seen as the
negation of its own cause."
And again:
"In February of 2000, there was the agreement of the Holy See with the
Palestinian Authority, which calmed the fears a little."
But one fundamental idea remained:
"When it is said that if it were not for Israel there would not be
all of these problems, it seems almost as if Israel were the source of
all of the difficulties of the Middle East. I don't think that's true.
It is a matter of fact, however, that Israel has still not been
accepted by an overwhelming majority of Arab countries."
* * *
If Israel did not exist, or if in any case it did not act as it
does... It must be kept in mind that such thoughts do not circulate
only among Arab Christians, but also among leading representatives of
the Catholic Church who live outside of the Holy Land, and in Rome.
One of these, for example, is Jesuit Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, an
Egyptian by birth, one of the Islamologists most respected at the
Vatican, who two years ago, in a "decalogue" for peace in the Middle
East, wrote:
"The root of the Israeli-Palestinian problem is not religious or
ethnic; it is purely political. The problem dates back to the creation
of the state of Israel and the partitioning of Palestine in 1948 –
following the persecution systematically organized against the Jews –
decided by the great powers without taking into consideration the
populations present in the Holy Land. This is the real cause of all of
the wars that followed. In order to remedy a grave injustice committed
in Europe against one third of the world's Jewish population, Europe
itself, supported by other powerful nations, decided to commit and
committed a new injustice against the Palestinian population, which was
innocent in the slaughter of the Jews."
Having said this, Fr. Samir maintains in any case that the
existence of Israel is today a matter of fact that cannot be rejected,
independently of its original sin. This is also the official position
of the Holy See, which has long been in favor of two states, Israeli
and Palestinian.
There remains another reservation, at the Vatican, about the
acceptance of Israel. Not about the existence of the state, but about
its actions. This reservation is expressed in the most varied forms and
on all sorts of occasions, and consists in repeating, every time a
conflict erupts, the judgment that the Arabs are the victims, and the
Israelis are the oppressors. Even Islamist terrorism is traced back to
this basic cause:
"Many problems that are now attributed almost exclusively to
cultural and religious differences have their origin in countless
economic and social injustices. This is also true in the complex
history of the Palestinian people. In the Gaza Strip, human dignity has
been trampled on for decades; hatred and murderous fundamentalism are
nourished."
These remarks – the latest from the Vatican authorities – come from
Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the pontifical council for
justice and peace, in an interview with "L'Osservatore Romano" on
January 1, 2009.
Not a word about the fact that Israel withdrew from Gaza in the
summer of 2005, and that Hamas seized power there by force in June of
2007.
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