Jonathan Tobin
http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- IN recent years, a fierce debate has been waged by scholars and laymen alike about the alleged silence of the Vatican and Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust. Books and essays on this subject are being written and published seemingly every month.
But when historians come to write about what the Vatican said or did not say when a papal pilgrimage was used to promote an astonishing message of hatred and anti-Semitism, there need be no great debate about what actually happened. Pope John Paul II’s trip to Syria was seized upon by that country’s dictator as an opportunity to spread the worst kind of anti-Jewish libels to an international audience.
With the pope beside him, Syrian President Bashar Assad said that Muslims and Christians should join together against the Jews, “who try to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray the Prophet Mohammed.”
The pope said nothing to counter Assad’s vicious attacks on the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
The Vatican said nothing later in reply to Assad.
The European countries said nothing.
Nothing.
A HERO OF INTERFAITH DIALOGUE
The coming together of the 81-year-old pope with the 35-year-old
second-generation Syrian strongman is more than a little ironic.
No other person in the post-World War II generation has done as much to further good relations between Jews and Christians as John Paul II. The personal impact of this man on the Catholic Church with regard to improving its attitude toward Jews cannot be overestimated.
From the beginnings of his ministry in the ashes of war-ravaged Poland in the 1940s until now, John Paul has been a unique voice of reason. His statements acknowledging Judaism as a valid religion and not merely a fossilized entity that served only to give the world Christianity has a profound effect on the way Christians understand their faith and its relationship with Judaism.
Without his tireless efforts, it’s unlikely that the Vatican would ever have recognized the State of Israel and reconciled itself to a sovereign Jewish nation in the Land of Israel.
His visits to a Rome synagogue and to Israel itself were inspirational and historic events lending symbolic weight to the sea change in Catholic thinking that he represents. If it is possible to adopt a Holocaust-era phrase to a post-Shoah figure, then John Paul II is surely the most righteous of gentiles.
And yet, there he stood at the Damascus airport, an old, sick man barely able to read his prepared statement when Assad the younger cynically used him as nothing more than a prop.
When Assad raised the ancient canard of Christ-killer and threw in other invective aimed at delegitimizing Israel and the rights of Jews to live in peace and security, all the pope could muster was a feeble call for peace. Assad went uncontradicted, as did the mufti of Damascus, who used a later meeting with the pope at the historic Umayyad Mosque there to launch a similarly anti-Jewish tirade.
Just as bad was the Vatican’s decision to allow the Syrians to stage a propaganda event along their border with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. The pope journeyed to Kuneitra, a ruined city that saw terrible fighting in both the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars, where he prayed in the shell of a ruined church.
The significance of Kuneitra is that, contrary to the terms of the 1974 cease-fire accords with Israel, the Syrians have deliberately chosen not to rebuild the town. In an architectural replay of the cynical way in which Palestinian Arab refugees have been kept homeless so as to be an object of sympathy and a tool in the war against Israel, so has Kuneitra been kept in shards.
The result of the pope’s visit was an unprecedented propaganda triumph for the Assad regime. The young Assad, an immature version of his bloodthirsty paternal predecessor, was given both newfound legitimacy in the eyes of his people, as well as a place on the front pages of international newspapers.
It also gave Israel’s enemies aid and comfort as the Arabs were able to parlay the pope’s visit into yet another opportunity to get their message demonizing Israel across to a wide audience.
Now that the damage has been done, we can only wonder why this happened and how seriously this will impact the growing ties between the world Jewish community and the Catholic Church.
As to what lay behind both the trip to Syria and the pope’s silence, the answers are not very hard to discern.
The church’s priority here was in aiding the Christian minority within the Arab world. Christians are in genuine danger throughout most of the Middle East and the Muslim world.
In Egypt, Christian Copts are subjected to a campaign of ongoing terrorism that the government of Hosni Mubarak is unable to stop. In Indonesia, Christians and other non-Muslims are similarly threatened. In Sudan, black Christians in the south are the victims of both a war of terror and efforts by the Muslim majority to murder and enslave the Christian and animist population.
In other Arab countries, such as Syrian-occupied Lebanon, as well as territory under the control of the Palestinian Authority, Christians are being driven slowly driven out and marginalized within society.
Thus, the church has a genuine interest in appeasing Arab opinion and promoting better relations between Muslims and Christians. That’s why they saw the planned visit of the pope to a Damascus mosque (also a Christian shrine) as a chance to help Arab Christians.
But to do so at the expense of the church’s good name and the rights of Jews was a bad idea. The offense was further compounded by the Vatican’s arrogant dismissal of criticism of the pope’s trip.
Has the Catholic Church made a conscious decision to downgrade relations with Jews and Israel to facilitate a rapprochement with Muslims? It is probably premature to make that assertion. But it cannot be denied that serious damage has been done.
A LESSON FOR ISRAEL
This episode should also give pause to those who believe that all Israel must
do to achieve peace is to make more concessions, such as handing over the
strategic Golan Heights to Syria.
We should be under no illusions that “Dr. Bashar,” Israel’s friendly neighborhood opthamologist, was just kidding. He’s not. The conflict is driven by hatred for Jews, not a dispute over a piece of land.
As for the pope, silence in the face of such despicable attacks on the Jews is exactly what we would never have expected from John Paul II. Above all other contemporary world leaders, someone who survived the Nazi reign of terror in Poland knows the dangers that Assad’s statements represent. He knows that sometimes, evil words can lead to genocide.
It is, perhaps, understandable that this sad episode should happen during the pope’s declining years. He is too frail, too weak, and probably should never have even attempted the tour that took him on the path of the Christian Apostle Paul.
It’s hard to believe that this great man of courage would have let an Adolf Hitler-wannabe like Bashar Assad make a monkey out of him had he been in his prime. But that’s exactly what happened.
For the moment, it’s time to forget about whether or not the Vatican should
apologize for the inaction of Pius XII. Sadly, what we need now is an apology
for the silence of John Paul
JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. Let him know what you think by clicking here.
