After 1700 years of ongoing harassment, forced conversions, massacres and pogroms, one was looking forward to a different relationship in the 21st century between the Jewish world and Catholicism.
The latest Papal visit has destroyed a great deal of the good work of Vatican II and those who laboured in the fields of building bridges. Each Papal visit to the Holy Land is filled with symbolic gestures and each move is calculated and orchestrated, and this visit was meant to embarrass and berate the Jewish State.
The visit by Pope Francis, with his two wingmen, Rabbi Abraham Skovka and Imam Omar Abboud, was all part of the effort to help set the stage for a most severe attack by the Vatican on the Jewish homeland.
Pope Francis chose first to visit with Abu Mazen who is in the midst of forming a National Unity Government between Fatah and Hamas (a recognized international terrorist organization). Also, His Holiness would fly directly into what he calls the Palestinian State and not the Palestinian Authority.
Pope Francis’ dramatic gesture at the security barrier was a paparazzi delight. It created an instant iconic photo that will be used by Islamists around the world. The Pope, dressed in his splendid white robe, accorded this security barrier the same status as the holy Western Wall of the Temple.
His hand and head were gently placed next to the anti-Semitic graffiti comparing the security wall, which has protected Israeli civilians from Islamist terrorists, as a wall that symbolized the Warsaw Ghetto wall. The Pope could not have chosen to insult the Jewish people with any greater gesture. What an insult to the victims of Nazism. What a mockery of history.