Glenn Reynolds has been discussing Vatican anti-Semitism/coziness with Arab dictators/handshakes with Arafat, etc. Lots of good comments from his readers, see here and here.
I recently came across the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop's Statement on Israeli-Palestinian Violence. It is a sewer of moral equivalence, implying that Israel's use of force to pre-empt terrorists is just as bad as the terrorists who murder civilians in cafeterias. This same ditziness was regurgitated in a recent San Francisco Chronicle op-ed by a local Monsignor Eugene J. Boyle.
"It is clearer now than ever before that the status-quo is unacceptable. Israeli occupation cannot be sustained -- militarily or morally -- nor can the indiscriminate use of force in civilian areas. Palestinian attacks on innocent civilians cannot be tolerated -- both because they are morally indefensible and because they undermine the legitimate claims of the Palestinian people. The deadly cycle of action and reaction, suicide bombing, and aggressive attacks must be ended."True, the status-quo is unacceptable, but not because Israel is dismantling the genocidal monsters from Hamas. If anybody has any doubt which side the Monsignor is taking, notice on whose website his op-ed has resurfaced.
But what explains Catholic sympathy for Palestinian terrorists? Historical anti-Semitism notwithstanding (The Spanish Inquisition and Pius XII's appeasement of Hitler for starters), perhaps some in the Catholic hierarchy simply view Yassir Arafat as one of their own. [scroll down to #4]
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 04, 2003 06:57 AMWill someone explain to me what the "legitimate rights" of the Palestinians are? It is a term that is constantly used in their defense by their apologists, but I have never heard or read any full and coherent explanation about what these vaunted rights are supposed to be.
Posted by: snowball on March 4, 2003 11:47 AM
Snowball:
Palestinians have the right to make only bad decisions; to follow only bad leaders; the right to ignore peace and carry out a horific and offensive war against Israelis and Jews (particularly women). The 350,000 or so that have fled Israel since 1947 have demanded the right to be eternal refugees with neither jobs nor homes, supported by a UN system paid for by the West, not by Arabs (in contrast, the more than 1.2 million Jews that were uprooted from Arab states since 1947 work and live integrated into Israeli society). They've asserted the right to have a government, but without fair (or regular) elections. And they sometimes simultaneously claim the right to work in Israel as well as the right to destroy Israel (which very likely would have a negative effect on the job market).
In sum, Palestinians earned the right to die for their cause. I trust the IDF can assist them.
Posted by: Carl on March 4, 2003 12:13 PM