Things not well in pope land

[MSNBC photo of Cardinal Renato Martino]

Pope Benedict XVI is planning to visit Israel - er, was planning to visit Israel.

But things are not going well between the Vatican and the Jews. Well, partly because Cardinal Renato Martino, head poohbah for the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace, made a statement that upset the Israelis. Martino is "one of the Pope's closest aides," and therefore one might assume that his thoughts and words often reflect the thinking of the Pope.

Martino made a statement the other day in which he "compared Gaza to a concentration camp. The cardinal criticised Israel for killing civilians who had taken shelter at a UNrun school in Gaza."

"Defenceless populations are always the ones who pay," said Martino. "Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp."

Martino did, however, also condem Hama's rocket attacks on Israel and noted that Israel did have the right to defend itself.


All of this was just the latest chapter of a growing conflict between the Vatican and Italy's Jews. The latter are also upset about the pontiff's plans to beautify Pope Pius XII, who was the pope during WWII and has been accused of failing to protect Jews from the Holocaust.

The Vatican rejects that accusation and is demanding "the removal of a plaque attacking Pius XII at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem."


So, the long, sordid story of enmity between Jews and Christians continues; perhaps for another 2,000 years.


Oh, one more thing: Cardinal Renato is also the guy who told Catholics to stop giving money to Amnesty International because Amnesty International is now supporting abortion in cases of rape or where a mother's health is in danger.

Hamas hypocrisy

[Iraqi children killed by U.S. Marines]

Pundits around the world have called in to pronounce Israel guilty of over-reacting to the acts of Hamas. Protestors are marching in a number of cities, demanding the militant Israelis stop their attacks on Gaza.

While others, directly involved in this latest Israeli-Gazan violence, and much more knowledgeable than I, have defended the Israeli action with some cogency, I would raise a question with the naysayers: Where were all these protesters five years ago when the United States invaded Iraq setting off a conflagration which has left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead (many of which were civilians, including women and children), and millions more fleeing the country?

And how is it that we are treated to multiple photos of dead and dying Gazans but our media has conveniently forgotten to show us images of the havoc wreaked by our own forces in Iraq?


Israel has been under daily assault by Hamas for years. Israelis, for years, have lived with the threat, not only of rockets which appear suddenly and without warning over and over again, but also suicide bombers which turn Israeli marketplaces into bloody scenes of death.

Hamas denies Israel's right to exist, and in turn exists ONLY to drive Israel into the sea! Hamas is dedicated to the death of Israel. Hamas turns its resources into weapons and fires those weapons at Israel.


In 2003, the United States invaded a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us whatsoever! Iraq never attacked us! Iraq never attacked our allies. We attacked Iraq, leading to the destruction of the country, damage that has been been massive and pointless. Dead bodies, including those of women and children continue to litter the streets.

We not only do not see such things on the evening news, we are not allowed by our leaders to even view the caskets of our dead soldiers as they are brought back home for burial. Such sights might make people wonder if maybe God didn't tell Bush and company to take out Saddam.

Those who wish to protest what they feel is unnecessary war and gratuitous violence should head to Washington, D.C. and lead marches against the Bush administration and all of its subdivisions, which created the world's largest killing machine and which, for the past five years, has used that killing machine to extend American hegemony over the Middle East.

Unfortunately, that killing machine not only killed Iraqis who stood in the way of the Bushite dream, but is responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocents men, women and children.

Israel's response to Gaza attacks

[Hamas Gunman - AP Photo by Hatem Moussa]

Guest post by Bob Poris.

I have no way of knowing how the Israeli attacks against the Gaza terrorists will end, but it didn’t have to come to this.

Israel voluntarily withdrew from Gaza in 2005 as part of a "land for peace" deal that had been pushed upon it for decades. It left prosperous businesses intact for the Gazans to use to shore up its economy.

That's not what happened!

Instead of instituting programs and policies which would benefit the citizens of Gaza, Hamas turned Gaza into a front line military base in a long-term Islamist confrontation with Israel, backed by Iran. It has rejected any attempts to negotiate a two-state solution with Israel.

Hamas began a daily barrage of rockets into Israeli towns over a year ago! Over four thousand rockets have been fired into Israel since 2005! These rockets have narrowly missed blowing up Israeli children in kindergartens and giant fuel storage facilities in built-up areas of Southern Israel.

The various cease fires have been used by Hamas to smuggle more sophisticated rockets and weapons into Israel and to build up its forces to wage terror against Israel.

Israel’s attacks are not the result of the end of the last cease fire. They are a response to eighteen months of rockets being launched against Israeli cities and civilians by the elected governing body of Gaza and seven years of attacks from Gaza, and the ideology which fuels them.

What nation on earth would have waited so long for talks to stop a war waged against it? Why should Israel be asked to not react to the indiscriminate killing of its citizens over so many years?

Why indeed?