Israel Matzav

Monday, February 11, 2013

Why I'm not crying over Pope Benedict's resignation

'Nuff said.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Pope finds a Jew he likes

Pope Benedict XVI has found a Jew he likes. Unfortunately, it's radical symphony conductor Daniel Barenboim, who blackens the name of Jews and Israel wherever he goes.

The Catholic Church, which today is busy in fighting the Jewish and free existence of the State of Israel, could not have chosen a better performer than this unfeeling and egocentric "maestro", the cosmopolitan Jew and self proclaimed citizen of the world.

A week before his performance in Rome, Barenboim released an interview to Der Spiegel magazine, in which he attacked "the politicization of the remembrance of the Holocaust in Israel", along with "the alliance of the right and the Orthodox Jews that rules Israel today" and "Israel's strong lobby in Washington".

He not only dismissed the Arab hatred for Israel ("the Palestinians weren't primarily anti-Semitic. They just didn't accept their expulsion"), but Barenboim also refused to be labelled as an Israeli: "What is there to be proud of today? How can you be a patriot in a country that has occupied foreign territory for the last 45 years? One that isn't capable of accepting that there is also another account of the last 60 years."

And the ultimate one-dimensional historic encapsulation: "Yes, the Palestinians could have accepted the partition of Palestine on Nov. 29, 1947, and that was precisely what they didn't do, because they thought the partition was unjust. Why can't we accept that as a historic fact and turn the page? It's just inhuman".

Barenboim: Yes, the Palestinians could have accepted the partition of Palestine on Nov. 29, 1947, and that was precisely what they didn't do, because they thought the partition was unjust. Why can't we accept that as a historic fact and turn the page?

This is Barenboim, the Jewish anti-Semite.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Daniel Barenboim, Pope Benedict XVI

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Vatican getting into bed with Islam

Italian journalist Giulio Meotti reports that the Vatican has come out in favor of the 'Palestinian' agenda of 'de-Judaising' Jewish holy sites... and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

The Vatican already declared its support of waving a Palestinian flag over the Temple Mount in the heart of ancient Jerusalem. Next in line is Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem, Judaism’s third most holy site, which for millennia has served as a place of longing, pilgrimage and prayer for the Jewish people. In 1996, Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority began referring to the site as the “Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque,” and this is how UNESCO shamefully listed it in 2010.

Many Catholic groups worldwide already embraced the Palestinian myth. Pax Christi, one of the most famous Catholic organizations, on its website, repeatedly calls the Jewish site a “mosque.” Then there is the Bethlehem University of the Holy Land, the only Vatican-run educational institution in the area and whose founding can be traced back to the visit of Pope Paul VI in the holy land in 1964. The Catholic University recently launched a project about the Rachel’s Tomb. The document calls it “a historical religious site for followers of Christianity and Islam,” whose location is “on Palestinian lands.” The Vatican institution seems to ignore that all of Rachel’s Tomb belongs to Area C, which the Oslo Accords gave to Israeli jurisdiction. The very title of the Catholic project, “Rachel: An Alien in her Hometown,” suggests that the tomb is a spot hijacked by the Israelis. The tomb, the Catholic report says, “is also known by Muslims as the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque.” According to the Vatican university, the Jewish shrines are Arab treasures stolen by the Zionists and the Israelis are no more than invading colonizers.

...

The Palestinian-Vatican pact is part of a bigger scenario, in which the Catholic Church is adopting a tragic appeasement on Islam. As the brave Andrew Bostom explained, the Vatican embraced “groveling Islamophilia, accompanied by criticism of the U.S. ‘war on terrorism’ as an ‘injustice’ to Muslims, and constant scapegoating of Israel, often expressed with strident animus towards the Jewish State.”

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is known for having a pro-Islam position, has been appointed by Pope Benedict as the head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. In a letter addressing his “Dear Muslim friends,” Tauran asked for Islamic help to form an alliance against atheism. The Vatican promoted “Love of God, Love of Neighbor,” the first three-day forum with Islamic leaders. The Pope agreed to meet one of the most dangerous Islamists in the Western world, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan – the Swiss scholar who denies Israel’s right to life and who has been banned from entering the US because of his alleged association with extremists.

Bishop Mariano Crociata, secretary general of the Italian Episcopal Conference, announced that the Vatican is in favor of building new mosques in Europe. Then the European Bishops met with European Muslims in Turin (Cardinal Tauran was also present) to proclaim the need for the “progressive enculturation of Islam in Europe” (read it: the Islamization of the old continent).

Read the whole thing. Disgraceful.

Labels: Islam, Pope Benedict XVI, Rachel's tomb, Temple Mount, Vatican

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Vatican to reprieve society that brands Jews as 'Christ killers'

Longtime readers may recall Bishop Richard Williamson, the excommunicated British Bishop who was reprieved by Pope Benedict in 2009. Williamson is a member of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a group which propagates anti-Semitism that brands Jews as 'Christ killers.' Giulio Meotti reports that SSPX may be about to brought back into the Catholic Church under a special arrangement. He suggests that all Jews and Israel ought to be concerned about that prospect. Many people remember the name of Richard Williamson.

On the same day in 2009 that the Pope’s decree was signed lifting his excommunication, Bishop Williamson was shown on Swedish state television saying historical evidence “is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed” during World War II.

But even if Williamson is just a lunatic anti-Semite, the proto-Holocaust teachings of the Society and the agreement with the Vatican will have historical consequences on Christian relations with the Jews.

The entire Society propagates the worst kind of anti-Semitism.

Their US branch website demonizes “the international Jewry”, “the world wide Jewish empire”, “the Jews as the biggest capitalists”, the Jews as “the founders of Communism”, the Jews as “the enemy of man”. There is also “A defence of Inquisition”.

The South African website claims that “Jews are fulfilling their substitute-Messianic drive towards world dominion”.

The Irish branch calls the Jews “guilty of Deicide” and posits that they “must be baptized”.

The German site is also very clear: “The Jews of now are for sure guilty of the murder of God, as long as they don’t recognize Christ as God and are baptized to atone for the sins of their forefathers”.

The Belgian’s Society website defines the Jewish Messiah as “the anti-Christ of the Apocalypse”.

The Italian Society’s bulletin, La Tradizione Cattolica, calls Judaism “a false cult” and spreads hallucinatory material on “the Jew Karl Marx” and “the Jews sleeping in the shadow of death”.

If the Vatican, which is responsible for the faith of one billion people around the world, welcomes back the Society, it means that the Pope simply has made a strategic decision: enticing Catholic anti-Semites back to the fold is more important than the Church’s relationship with the Jewish people.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: anti-Semitism, Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Vatican making another drive for David's tomb

Giulio Meotti reports that the Vatican is once again attempting to gain control over Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, some of which, including King David's tomb (pictured) are also sacred to Jews.

The Vatican’s former arcibishop in Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, just promoted an appeal to the European Union and United States to “stop the Hebraization of Jerusalem”.

Two weeks ago Msgr. David-Maria Jaeger, who was recently appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to the Vatican’s highest court, talked in Washington about a current U.S. Supreme Court case over whether an American boy born in Jerusalem should add Israel after the name of the historic city on his U.S. passport. Jaeger said that the question about Jerusalem is not “whether it is the capital of Israel, it is a question of whether it is a part of a national territory”.

A few days earlier, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, gave a speech to greet the bishops of Europe and North America during their annual pilgrimage in Israel, in which Twal denounced “the Israeli right wing invading more and more of Jerusalem and trying to transform it into an only Hebrew-Jewish city, excluding the other faiths”.

Claudette Habesch, the Caritas general-secretary in Jerusalem, a Vatican NGO that works in social activities, just released an interview to Zenit news agency, in which he “christianized” the Palestinian Intifada against “what we call the Checkpoint of Humiliation”.

In September, Patriarch of Jerusalem Twal was at the White House for a meeting with the American administration as well as to support the PA statehood bid at the UN. Twal repeated Benedict XVI’s speech of May 13, 2009 in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, one of the most political speeches ever pronounced by Ratzinger during his pontificate. It was given in front of the most eloquent symbol of the conflict: the security wall between Israel and the PA areas.

On that day the Pope spoke specifically of an “independent Palestinian state”.

The Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, the Vatican’s powerful agency for worldwide pilgrimages, just organized a “marathon for peace” in Jerusalem to protest against the security fence near Bethlehem and to support "Palestinian political rights". The march began on the Mount of Olives, “where the Last Supper took place”.

On December 1st, several Christian and Muslim dignitaries met in Beit Sahour for a conference on “How to live together in a future Palestinian state?”. Patriarch Emeritus of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah and Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, also attended the event organized by Al-Liqa, a Vatican ecumenical center based in Bethlehem.

Sabbah said that “recourse to the UN for a Palestinian state is a step toward peace”. Last summer, Latin Patriarch Twal took part in a meeting in London with Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, in which the Vatican envoy denounced the “more than 550.000 Israelis living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank” and “the demography of Jerusalem changing rapidly with the sacred space being threatened”.

Read the whole thing.

Of course, this has come up before. But the difference is that right now there is an administration in Washington that would be all too happy to put the screws to Israel, and if that administration remains in power thirteen months from now, life may be difficult around here.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Jerusalem, Pope Benedict XVI

Sunday, October 02, 2011

The Vatican submits to political Islam

YNet publishes a deeply disturbing article by Italian journalist Giulio Meotti on the Catholic Church's submission to political Islam.

“The default positions vis-à-vis militant Islam are now unhappily reminiscent of Vatican diplomacy’s default positions vis-à-vis communism during the last 25 years of the Cold War,” writes George Weigel, a leading US writer about the Vatican. The Vatican’s new agenda seeks “to reach political accommodations with Islamic states and foreswear forceful public condemnation of Islamist and jihadist ideology.”

...

After Regensburg, the Vatican adopted an appeasement agenda. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is known for having a pro-Islam position, was appointed by the Pope as the head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Indeed, Dialogue with Iran’s mullahs is pivotal in the new Vatican agenda. Recently, a delegation of clergy members of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly visited the Vatican, meeting with top Catholic officials.

In June, the Vatican sent Archbishop Edmond Farhat, who is the official representative of Vatican politics, to Tehran to attend an “international conference on the global campaign against terrorism.” Last autumn, Vatican representatives met with Muslim leaders from around the world in Tehran for “a three-day interreligious dialogue.” In Tehran Cardinal Tauran praised Iran’s “spirit of cordiality” and “the friendly Ahmadinejad.”

Last month, the Vatican published a letter written by Tauran, addressing his “Dear Muslim friends.” In the letter, Tauran asked for Islamic help to form an alliance against atheism.

In 2008, the Vatican promoted “Love of God, Love of Neighbor,” the first three-day forum with Islamic leaders. The Pope agreed to meet one the most dangerous Islamist in the Western world, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan - the Swiss scholar who denies Israel’s right to life and who has been banned from entering the US because of his alleged association with extremists.

Last May, Bishop Mariano Crociata, secretary general of the Italian Episcopal Conference, announced that the Vatican is in favor of building new mosques in Europe. A month later the European Bishops met with European Muslims in Turin (Cardinal Tauran was also present) to proclaim the need for the “progressive enculturation of Islam in Europe.”

In Rimini, a seaside resort on the Adriatic coast, the Comunione e Liberazione movement, one of the most powerful in the Catholic Church, holds its massive annual “meeting” that usually draws some 700,000 people. The Catholic movement last month hosted the president of Al Azhar, the most important Islamic university in Cairo, and a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, despite the fact that for the first time the US Commission on Religious Freedom recommended that Egypt be placed on a list of the “worst of the worst” countries for persecution of Christians.

Between 2006 and 2011, the Church has decided to avoid battles with political Islam. And guess who is paying the price....

The State of Israel is easily expendable in the new pro-Islam policy. In January 2009, thousands of Muslims marched in front of Milan’s Duomo to protest against Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. They burned Israeli flags and chanted anti-Jewish slogans. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, John Paul II’s spokesman for 22 years, defended the “freedom of expression” of the Muslims who burned the Star of David.

Months later, Pope Benedict visited Bethlehem, where the Christian population has dropped from a majority to less than 20%. Benedict delivered a message of solidarity to the 1.4 million Palestinians isolated in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. He said nothing of the suffering of Gaza’s 3,000 Christians since Hamas took over that territory in 2007.

Benedict could have decried the bombings, shootings and other Islamist attacks against Gaza Christian establishments, the brutal murder of the only Bible-store owner of Gaza, or the regular intimidation and persecution of Christians there. Instead, the Pope stood beside Mahmoud Abbas as the Palestinian leader deceptively pointed to a concrete separation barrier in Bethlehem and blamed that barrier, as well as Israeli “occupation,” for the plight of Christians.

A few weeks later, the United Nations ran “Durban II” and on the first day of the conference, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the only head of state to attend, made a speech condemning Israel as “totally racist” and referred to the Holocaust as an "ambiguous and dubious question.” When Ahmadinejad began to speak against the Jews, all European Union delegates left the conference room. The Vatican delegation didn’t say a word.

But Israel is not the only victim. The Church has remained silent in the face of Islamic persecution of Christians - and not just persecution of the Copts in Egypt.

Over the past several years, Christians have endured bombings, murders, assassinations, torture, imprisonment and expulsions. The very roots of the Christian heritage in the Middle East are being extirpated. When last winter Christians were killed in Egypt, Cardinal Tauran and the Vatican foreign office requested to “avoid anger” and downplayed the Islamist role in the butchering.

In the summer of 2010, Bishop Luigi Padovese, Vatican vicar for Anatolia and president of the Catholic Episcopal conference of Turkey, was slaughtered by Islamic fanatics in Iskenderun on the eve of the Pope’s trip to Cyprus. Vatican diplomacy did its part to convince the Pope to immediately and preemptively rule out the idea that this was a “political or religious” murder.

Elsewhere, the number of Christians in Turkey declined from two million to 85,000; in Syria, from half the population they have been reduced to 4%; in Jordan, from 18% to 2%; nearly two-thirds of the 500,000 Christians in Baghdad have fled or been killed; in Lebanon, Christians have dwindled to a sectarian rump, menaced by surging Shiite and Sunni populations, and in Saudi Arabia Christians have been beaten or tortured by religious police.

It’s an ethnic cleansing of monumental proportions that makes it clear why the Vatican’s submission to political Islam, along with its religious anti-Israel stance, will be remembered as one of the greatest moral failings of the 21st Century.

Will the Church be silent if Europe goes Muslim too? Read the whole thing.

Labels: Christians in Muslim countries, Islamic Christian hatred, Muslim Jew hatred, Pope Benedict XVI

Monday, November 08, 2010

When will they start charging imams with inciting against Jews?

Israeli authorities have indicted the imam of a Nazareth mosque for incitement against Pope Benedict XVI and for supporting al-Qaeda and 'global jihad' (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

The indictment said Nazim Mahmoud Salim, who was arrested by police a month ago, led a group of about 2,000 worshippers, and had also preached at the flashpoint al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest shrine.

Salim is charged with inciting violence against Pope Benedict during his visit last year to Nazareth, the town of Jesus' boyhood in the heartland of Israel's minority Arab population.

In his sermons and on his website over the past decade, the indictment said, Salim preached "an ideological world view identical to that of global jihad" and wrote "publications that supported and identified with the terror organisation al Qaeda."

It said Salim's teachings inspired attacks against Jews and Christians, including the murder of one Jew.

At the time of Pope Benedict's visit to the Holy Land in May 2009, the indictment quotes Salim as saying in a sermon at al Aqsa: "The pope prepares himself at the gate of the Vatican and at the head of a crusade against the Islamic world ... we will expel the pope from Nazareth."

Pamela Geller comments:

This is what must start to happen. There have been close to 20,000 Islamic attacks (that have been documented) just since 911, each one with the imprimatur of a Muslim cleric. And no one will talk about that or address that.

Until now. We must monitor the mosques.

Well, yeah. But would he have been indicted if he hadn't incited against the Pope? Imams incite here against Jews every day (and especially on Friday) and I don't see any of them being indicted until now. Why does incitement against Jews alone apparently not matter?

Labels: incitement, militant Islam, Nazareth, Nazim Mahmoud Salim, Pope Benedict XVI