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March 3, 2000/26 Adar 1, 5760, Vol. 52, No.26
Jerusalem visit: Photo op for pope
JOSEPH AARON
Chicago Jewish News
When it comes to Jerusalem, I'm much more concerned about Pope John Paul II than I am about Palestine Liberation Organization Chief Yasser Arafat.
The pope will be visiting Israel in a couple of weeks and that has Jewish officials who make their careers pandering to Catholics, giddy with delight. It should be filling them, and all Jews who care about Jerusalem, with dread.
Just wait and see. The pope is going to say something while in Jerusalem that will make our hair stand on end. And the whole world will be watching.
I know I sound like a pope-basher, which I am not, though admittedly I have been critical on several occasions of this pope for what I believe to be very good reason. This pope has been, when it comes to Jewish concerns, a master at public relations and a disaster at being a true friend.
When it comes to the Jews, he has, in fact, been the photo-op pope. He's done things that look good. He's visited a shul in Rome, made a visit to Auschwitz, used the Hebrew word "Shoah" to refer to the Holocaust, had Hanukkah candles lit on a big menorah at the Vatican, met with all kinds of Jewish groups, said nice things here and there about the Jewish people. He's taken the Hollywood approach: find nice backdrops that look good on TV and utter a few clich‚s that look good in the newspaper.
He's won a lot of points, but he's failed to take on meaningful matters in a substantive way.
When a group of Poles placed hundreds and hundreds of crosses in front of Auschwitz, the Vatican said that was a local matter and it could not and would not do anything about it.
When Jewish groups asked the pope not to meet with former Austrian president Kurt Waldheim, a Nazi, he did anyway. When we asked him not to beatify Croatia's wartime archbishop, Alojzije Stepinac, who collaborated with the Nazi puppet regime that ruled Croatia during World War II, he did anyway.
When Jews the world over asked the pope not to make Edith Stein a saint, he did it anyway. Stein, you'll recall, was a woman born a Jew who converted to Catholicism, became a nun and died at Auschwitz. "Her baptism was by no means a break with her Jewish heritage," the pope said. Tell that to her Jewish mother, who was heart-broken by her action.
When the pope said he was putting Pope Pius XII on the fast track to sainthood, Jews howled in protest that the wartime pope, who did nothing to help Jews during the Holocaust and did much to aid and abet Hitler, should be so honored. John Paul went ahead and did that anyway.
Which brings us to the biggest substantive issue regarding Jews that John Paul has done absolutely nothing about. The Holocaust. Though he has talked around the edges of it, though he has said what was expected at Auschwitz, the fact remains that this pope has refused over and over and over again to apologize for what the Vatican did and did not do during the Holocaust.
He has refused to say those two words that would mean so much: "I'm sorry."
The leaders of most of the nations of Europe have said it, the heads of many American and European dioceses have said it. But the headman of the Catholics has not.
Indeed, when the Vatican issued what was touted as its big statement on the Holocaust, a document called "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah," the pope used it to strongly defend Pius XII and to completely absolve the Vatican of any responsibility.
Beyond that, the Vatican continues not to open its archives to a full examination by scholars into church actions during the Holocaust.
Still, every time he visits Poland, the pope makes sure to have a photo-op and sound bite at some Jewish place.
That's him, always willing to put on a show, but never willing, when it comes to tachlis (substance), to show he's a true friend of ours.
We're going to see how true that is in the coming weeks and months, as Jerusalem becomes the sensitive issue on the table in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. For in that, the pope is going to prove himself one big troublemaker.
Indeed, he's already started. Just last week, the Vatican and the PLO signed a landmark agreement that says unilateral decisions on Jerusalem would be "morally and legally unacceptable." It goes on to call for a "special statute for Jerusalem, internationally agreed" to safeguard "the proper identity and sacred character of the city and its universally significant religious and cultural heritage."
Unbelievable. For starters, what is the pope doing in the middle of the Jerusalem issue when the peace talks are at such at a critical point? And why aim a warning clearly directed at only one side? Most importantly, note that the pope is once again saying that Jerusalem should come under an international mandate, meaning no Israeli control, no Israeli sovereignty over any of the city.
Even Arafat doesn't go that far. Even he is only asking for about half the city, and agrees that at least half would be Israel's capital, at least half under Israeli sovereignty.
The pope wants it all, and wants Israel to have none. He wants an international city. Even now, when the Israelis and Palestinians are close to working it out themselves; even as they will end up agreeing to Israeli control over the entire city with but a small portion designated as the Palestinians' capital, adjacent to the Arab village of Abu Dis.
When Israel rightly criticized what the Vatican had done, the Vatican, in classic political double talk, said Israel shouldn't be upset since the document makes "no reference to the political situation of Jerusalem," only to the "religious aspect of Jerusalem."
Sure. There's nothing political about a statement calling for Jerusalem to be an international city, nothing political about signing an accord with Arafat, nothing political about the timing.
Fact is, this pope is going to make coming to an agreement on Jerusalem tougher than it needs to be. He'll make a strong case that the Vatican should have a say in its final status, making it all much more complicated and contentious. You watch what he says during his visit to Israel in a few weeks and see how he's going to try and get Christian opinion to interject itself into the issue, and not in a way favorable to Israel.
John Paul, though he looks eerily like my zaide (grandpa), is no friend of the Jews, not when it really counts. This statement on Jerusalem at this time really shows that.
In fairness, I must note that in his more than 20 years as pope, John Paul has substantively addressed one Jewish issue. He established diplomatic relations with Israel. Though it took him 16 years to do it and though he did it only after virtually the entire world had already done so, it was a good thing. If only he didn't undermine it by constantly saying that Israel's crown, Jerusalem, should be an international city and by consistently referring to Israel as "the Holy Land" which undermines much of what diplomatic relations did in recognizing that there is today a State of Israel.
And that is where John Paul soon will be. Listen carefully to what he says while there. For what he says could cause more problems for Israel in terms of Jerusalem than anything Arafat says.
Joseph Aaron is the editor/publisher of the Chicago Jewish News.
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