Posted on 12/30/2004 9:14:32 PM PST by ArrogantBustard
The following is a corrected version of a story that appeared on CWNews.com earlier this week, in which a crucial error in translation caused a serious misinterpretation of the news. CWNews apologizes for the error.
Vatican, Dec. 28 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican newspaper has denounced a decision by Sri Lanka to reject emergency aid offered by the Israeli government. Sri Lanka declined the Israeli aid because it would have been furnished by a military team.
Calling for "a radical and dramatic change of perspective" among people "too often preoccupied with making war," L'Osservatore Romano chastised the government of the stricken Asian nation for putting unnecessary restrictions on an Israeli offer to furnish medical help.
The Vatican paper observed that in what "should be a time for unconditional solidarity," some world leaders seem incapable of escaping a "small-minded approach that restricts their horizons." The suffering caused by the tsunami has created "a mass of deaths, across borders," L'Osservatore observed. The fact that the devastation swept across different societies, cultures, and nations should help to reinforce the universal perspective, the paper suggested.
fortunately, a few folks still believe in fact checking.
ping!
fortunately, a few folks still believe in fact checking.......
Get real. I wanted to e-mail them but they don't reveal any e-mail address. I figured it might be their fault and posted as much. I also said it might be L'Osservatore Romano or the Vatican's fault.
It could have been just plain ignorance that caused the mistranslation. Frankly the professional quality of journalists has been going downhill for decades. About all they learn these days is how to be politically correct.
But of course they were all delighted to go with this story, if for no other reason than to fan divisions between Catholics and Jews. I doubt if many will print a retraction.
ping
Thanks.
Apparently so.
RD
Disgusting.
" I don't have straight who first printed the mistranslation ... it appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Reuters and/or AP, at least one British outlet, and several New York papers. None of them appear to have bothered to check the original. Disgusting."
It was also "mistranslated" by at least one English language Catholic paper.
It's the lack of fact checking, the "pack journalism" as timpad put it, that disgusts me. I'm particularly disgusted by the "pack-journalism" mentality so many on this forum exhibited.
That would be Catholic World News ... they didn't mistranslate it ... they quoted a mistranslation they found in the Jerusalem Post (IIRC). At least CWN has had the decency to correct the record. We'll see if anyone else does. J Post? NY Post? NY Times? BBC? AP? Reuters? How 'bout it, folks?
You need to read this. So does Mona Charen.
That was the source of the mistranslation. The CWN news site. Everyone (JPost, Israel Insider etc.) else used them as source. That's how it appears
You have it the wrong way around. The CWS monitors the Vatican and is more likely to have someone who has translated in the past from Italian to English. As this article required.
The Jerusalem Post does not monitor the Vatican
Let's see if the anti-Catholic bigots on FR issue an apology. I won't hold my breath.
Guess you're not going to let it go, huh.
Thank you for posting this. I hope that this is, in fact, the correct translation.
If this latest article is the correct one, this points out both the advantages and disadvantages of the global news culture spawned by the internet.
If a serious newspaper like L'Osservatoro Romano chooses not to provide an English-language translation of its articles, someone else may do it for them. It is therefore in their interest to take the internet -- and the English-language audience -- seriously and provide an official translation so that the risk of this kind of error is minimized.
When mistakes happen, though, they can be corrected quickly, and the internet can act as a great self-correcting mechanism. I hope that the people who got into such a frenzy about the original article see this corrected one, which you have posted (and I hope that the corrected version is indeed the correct one). I will email the link to Yourish.
Happy New Year.
That's one of the funniest lines I've read in a long time.
There's a second thread on this topic, I pinged everyone over there before I found this one.
I deeply regret assuming the worst. I do have to say though, this is a HUGE mistake on the part of CNS. Sheesh.
Still, it would be wise of me not to leap to conclusions next time.
Not CNS, CWN. Catholic World News. Wow, that's a whopper of a screwup.
You have captured it perfectly.
How was it determined to be a mistranslation?
Is there a specific thread documenting it as a mistake?
Were there corrections by the media and admission of translation erroring?
The media feeding frenzy at it's worst. Again.
Good job. Isn't it funny how this thread gets only a tenth of the thread that triggered the Catholic-bashing pile-on? I'm sure it's just because all those fine folks were making merry over the weekend.
There are one billion Catholics on this planet. You should not be whining about being bashed as though you are some kind of oppressed minority. I witnessed such complaining even in Massachusetts which is overwhelmingly Catholic and where the political class is mostly Catholic. It's undignified.
You little act at FR would be more believable if your Catholic numbers were the same as Jews. Only 12 million on planet earth.
Has anyone other than CWN run a retraction/correction? CWN had the courage and intellectual honesty to admit and correct their error.
This is a repeating pattern: Old media commit or perpetuate an error. When the error is revealed as such they deny, obfuscate, or simply remain silent.
Several days have now passed since this error was committed; the old media again live down to their reputation.
Certainly not dennisw. Victimhood is his schtick, and he has a death-grip on it.
You whine about being a victim yet there are one million Catholics. Can you please explain how such a large group can fall victim? Is it ineptness? There are only 12 million Jews so they fall victim to real persecution. Unlike your Catholics. You are competitive with Islam as far as numbers. Up your birthrates and you might surpass them.
Well, that certainly puts me in my place. I don't know what I was thinking, objecting to campaigns of vilification against the Catholic Church. Obviously, some groups are more naturally suited to victimhood than others. How kind of you to appeal to my sense of goyisch dignity.
I know demographics are a matter of some concern in Israel. Remind me if you would about how the law views aborton in Israel, compared with its muslim neighbors.
Last time I checked, there were 6 billion people on the planet. 5 billion versus 1 billion makes us, indeed, a minority.
You might also reflect that the MSM is bitterly hostile to the Catholic Church. If you don't believe that, I suggest you reflect on the fact that the MSM is 100% on the "pro" side of the sexual revolution, and then read the words of your former co-religionist, Bernard Nathanson, who said that he and his co-conspirators deliberately framed their fight for abortion on demand as a fight against the Catholic Church. (Nathanson has since become a pro-life Catholic.)
All part of a plan you know.
Romulus, you can save the reply, my opinion of you won't change.
Yes, Bernard Nathanson is the King of the Jews, speaks for everyone. It's a plot. The Jews are taking over the Church. I learned that from Hutton Gibson.
Okay, whatever. Thanks for completely missing my point.
One more time, maybe you'll get it. The man who (with others) founded NARAL and spearheaded the fight for liberal abortion laws in New York State in the late 60's and early 70's said flatly that part of their propaganda campaign was to paint the Catholic Church as The Enemy.
Don't believe me? Read his book.
Oh, and stop with the ad hominem c--p of trying to paint me as an anti-Semite, because I'm not one. Someone who disagrees with another person isn't automagically an anti-Semite, just because the person he's disagreeing with is Jewish.
You picked out a Jewish abortion doctor, and held him up as representative of Jews, as abortionists, attacking Catholics.
How about if I hold up John Gacy, as a homosexual serial killer, representative of Catholics.
You're right, we've nothing to talk about.
Um, wrong. He wasn't just "a Jewish abortion doctor," he was the point man for the movement to liberalize abortion laws in the US The fact that he was Jewish is parenthetical. He could have been Presbyterian, or Buddhist, or whatever. Excuse me for including too many facts. (He certainly wasn't a faithful Jew then, or before, or since, according to his own testimony, but again -- that's also parenthetical.)
attacking Catholics
Sorry, I'm just telling you what he says in his book, that he and NARAL specifically targeted the Church as the enemy. He says so flatly.
Nathanson was hardly representative of Jews then, and I never said any such thing. He was, however, representative of abortionists -- he made it his job to be so.
Tell me, if someone mentions that Hitler was a practicing Catholic as an adolescent, is that person automatically claiming that Hitler is "representative" of all Catholics, and would I be justified to paint that person as an anti-Catholic bigot? Why not?
Um, wrong. He wasn't just "a Jewish abortion doctor," he was the point man for the movement to liberalize abortion laws in the US The fact that he was Jewish is parenthetical. He could have been Presbyterian, or Buddhist, or whatever. Excuse me for including too many facts. (He certainly wasn't a faithful Jew then, or before, or since, according to his own testimony, but again -- that's also parenthetical.)
attacking Catholics
Sorry, I'm just telling you what he says in his book, that he and NARAL specifically targeted the Church as the enemy. He says so flatly.
Nathanson was hardly representative of Jews then, and I never said any such thing. He was, however, representative of abortionists -- he made it his job to be so.
Tell me, if someone mentions that Hitler was a practicing Catholic as an adolescent, is that person automatically claiming that Hitler is "representative" of all Catholics, and would I be justified to paint that person as an anti-Catholic bigot? Why not?
Christians are 2 billion. Muslims are 1.3 billion. Catholics are 1 billion. If you want to be a real minority shrink the Catholic numbers down to 12 million like the Jews. You want to trade places with us (Jews) for a few centuries?
You might also reflect that the MSM is bitterly hostile to the Catholic Church.
I wouldn't say bitterly but they are not your friend.
I know that Nathanson is a fine man and is now Catholic.
At times the Catholic church does get vilified by the mainstream media of the United States. But you have great numbers and political influence in the United States so you should relax a bit and tone down your victimhood act. I'll bet Catholic numbers in Congress and our Senate are very healthy
We all know that Catholics go to the abortion clinics same as others. I am ashamed that so many of the prominent abortion doctors are Jewish but then Jews are well represented in all medical fields.
This was CWN's error, they should have corrected it.
They DID correct it ... I'm thrilled that some others did, as well. News outlets are morally responsible for what they publish, even if they didn't originate it. We on this forum very rightly castigated CBS "News" for their irresponsible handling of the National Guard Forgeries. Those (like CWN, WND and the two Jewish news outlets) are equally to be praised for handling this error correctly.
Either support this slur or else retract it.
..............
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1305949/posts
Why? He's peddling tendentious lies. The Vatican spent the war looking after the interests of millions of oppressed people. Not only Jews, but the poor and defenseless everywhere. The Vatican ran a massive program of aid to prisoners of war and their families, for example.
On January 26, 1940, the Jewish Advocate in Boston reported, “The Vatican radio this week broadcast an outspoken denunciation of German atrocities in Nazi [occupied] Poland, declaring they affronted the moral conscience of mankind”; Exiled Polish Cardinal August Hlond of Gnezo and Poznan had given the Vatican detailed reports about the Nazi persecution of the Church in Poland. On the Pope's orders, Vatican Radio broadcast the cardinal's reports. The front-page story quoted one Vatican Radio broadcast as saying, Jews and Poles are being herded into separate ghettos, hermetically sealed and pitifully inadequate for the economic subsistence of the millions designed to live there. This broadcast was also important because it gave independent confirmation of media reports about Nazi atrocities, which were previously dismissed as Allied propaganda.
On January 26, 1940 the Canadian Jewish Chronicle published a brief item about Jacob Freedman, a Boston tailor. Mr. Freedman was concerned about the fate of his sister and nephews in German-occupied Poland. He wrote the State Department and the Red Cross, but they were unable to provide any information. Mr. Freedman then sought Pope Pius XII's assistance. Several months later, Cardinal Maglione informed Mr. Freedman that his family were alive and well in Warsaw. “I don't know the words to express what I feel, that they should take an interest in us with all the other things in the world to worry them,”; said Mr. Freedman. “I think it's the finest, most wonderful thing.” According to Pinchas Lapide's 1967 book, Three Popes and the Jews, the Vatican Information Office helped tens of thousands of Jews locate missing relatives in Europe.
In March, 1940 Italy's anti-Semitic laws went into effect, and many Jews were dismissed from the government, universities, and other professions. In response, Pius XII appointed several displaced Jewish scholars, including geographer Prof. Roberto Almagia, to posts in the Vatican Library. The March 29 Kansas City Jewish Chronicle said that the Pope's actions showed "his disapproval of the dastardly anti-Semitic decrees."
On April 14, 1942, Rabbi Naftali Adler and Dr. Max Pereles, the representatives of thousands of Jewish refugees interned at the Ferramonti concentration camp in southern Italy, sent a letter of thanks to the Pope, who sent "an abundant supply of clothing and linen" to the children at the camp, and took care of the prisoners' other needs. "This noble and generous gift proves anew what the whole world knows and admires that Your Holiness is... also the paternal guardian and promoter of the ideal of humanity for all mankind."
In 1942, Croatia's Jews were being brutally persecuted by the Nazi-installed dictatorship. On August 4, Chief Rabbi Miroslav Freiberger of Zagreb, Croatia's capital, sought more assistance from Pius XII. Already, the Vatican's unofficial diplomatic representative in Croatia, Msgr. Joseph Marcone, who was acting on Cardinal Maglione's instructions, and Archbishop Alois Stepinac opposed the anti-Jewish persecutions. In his letter, Chief Rabbi Freiberger appreciated ”the limitless goodness that the representatives of the Holy See and the leaders of the Church showed to our poor brothers.” (Actes, VIII, p. 611). Throughout the war, the Chief Rabbi continued to express his gratitude to the Vatican for helping Croatian Jews.
Msgr. Valerio Valeri, the papal nuncio in France, protested the 1942 deportations of French Jews with Marshall Henri Philippe Petain and Prime Minister Pierre Laval in August. The nuncio's intervention became publicly known by the end of the month. On August 28, the California Jewish Voice said, “Pope Pius XII has asked the Papal Nuncio at Vichy to protest to the Laval Government against 'the inhuman arrests and deportations' of Jews in France... Previously, reports from Geneva had indicated that the Pope had tried, though vainly, to use his good offices in Slovakia to prevent deportations and other cruelties.”
The Voice's account is confirmed by the Actes. On October 31, 1941, Cardinal Maglione had given Msgr. Valeri and Pierre Cardinal Gerlier of Lyon a blank check to “tone down” the practical application of the anti-Semitic laws, which would include any deportations. In April 1942, the Vatican protested the deportations of Slovak Jews with a note to the Slovak Government.
Although Msgr. Valeri actually made the protest, the Jewish press understood that he was acting on behalf of Pius XII. In a September II editorial, the Jewish Chronicle in London said, "The Pope's action is also a striking affirmation of the dictum of one of the Pope's predecessors that no true Christian can be an anti-Semite".
In his 1942 Christmas message, the Pope condemned the treatment of ;hundreds of thousands who, without any fault on their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or a progressive extinction." The Pope's defenders argue that this was a clear reference to the Holocaust. The Pope's detractors insist that he didn't go far enough, and should have condemned the Nazis by name. But the Nazis understood the Pope very clearly. In a manner never known before the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order”. complained a January 22, 1943 report by the Reich Central Security Office. “Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice towards the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals. (Anthony Rhodes, The Vatican in the Age of Dictators (1973), pp. 272-273).
In late 1942, Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog of Jerusalem sought the Pope's intervention to rescue Jews from the Nazis. On February 12, 1943, the Vatican's reply to Chief Rabbi Herzog was noted on the front page of the California Jewish Voice.”The Vatican this week cabled Chief Rabbi Herzog, assuring him that it is doing everything possible for all the victims of Nazi persecution, including the Jews,” the article said. The Jewish Chronicle in London and the Australian Jewish News also reported the Vatican's assurance to the Chief Rabbi.
On April 16, 1943, the Australian Jewish News published a brief article about Cardinal Gerlier, who had strongly opposed the deportations of French Jews, and was sheltering Jewish children. The article quoted the cardinal as saying that he was obeying Pius XII's instructions by continuing to oppose France's anti-Semitic measures.
On September 24, Alex Easterman, the British representative of the World Jewish Congress, contacted Msgr. William Godfrey, the apostolic delegate in London. Easterman informed him that about 4,000 Jewish refugees from Croatia were safely evacuated to an island in the Adriatic Sea. ”I feel sure that efforts of your Grace and of the Holy See have brought about this fortunate result,” Easterman wrote. (Actes, IX, pp. 488-489).
On October 16, 1943 the Nazis seized about 1,000 Roman Jews and deported them to Auschwitz. On October 29 Jewish Chronicle in London reported the Vatican's response to the arrests: ”The Vatican has made strong representations to the German Government and the German High Command in Italy against the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Italy...”
On Pius XII's orders, Cardinal Maglione made an immediate protest with Germany's Ambassador. Bishop Alois Hudal, the Rector of the German Catholic Church in Rome, protested the arrests of Jews with the German Military Governor of Rome. Along with the Vatican's protests, 4,700 Jews disappeared into Rome's convents, monasteries and the Vatican itself. The remaining 2,300 Jews were able to find shelter elsewhere because Vatican protests brought the round-ups to an end.
By 1943, the Vatican's many rescue efforts on behalf of Jews were being universally acknowledged. In the fall of 1943, the Jewish communities of Chile, Uruguay, and Bolivia sent letters to Pope Pius XII, and thanked him for assisting Jews (Actes, IX, pp. 498, 501-502, and 567).
The 1943-1944 American Jewish Yearbook said that Pius XII ”took an unequivocal stand against the oppression of Jews throughout Europe.” In his February 18, 1944 letter to Msgr. Amleto Cicognani, the apostolic delegate in Washington, D.C., Rabbi Maurice Perlzweig, the political director of the World Jewish Congress, wrote that “the repeated interventions of the Holy Father on behalf of Jewish Communities in Europe has evoked the profoundest sentiments of appreciation and gratitude from Jews throughout the world.” (Actes, X, p. 140).
Two important Jewish leaders who worked with the Vatican to save Jews also expressed similar sentiments. “The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very foundations of true civilization, are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in this most tragic hour of history, which is living proof of divine Providence in this world” Chief Rabbi Herzog declared on February 28 (Actes, X, p. 292). In his April 7 letter to the papal nuncio in Romania, Chief Rabbi Alexander Shafran of Bucharest wrote, “It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the Supreme Pontiff, who offered a large sum to relive the sufferings of deported Jews... . The Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance... (Actes, X, pp. 291-292
The many tributes to Pius XII began in July, 1944. “It is gradually being revealed that Jews have been sheltered within the walls of the Vatican during the German occupation of Rome,” reported the July 7 Jewish News in Detroit. A July 14 editorial in the Congress Weekly, the official journal of the American Jewish Congress, added that the Vatican also provided Jewish refugees with kosher food.
On July 21, the Vatican received telegrams from the National Jewish Welfare Board and the World Jewish Congress. The National Jewish Welfare Board expressed its gratitude to the Pope for “the aid and protection given to so many Italian Jews by the Vatican...” (Actes, X, pp. 358-359). The World Jewish Congress also acknowledged the Vatican's “noble humanitarian work” ; on behalf of Hungarian Jews. (Actes, X, pp. 359).
The deportations of Hungarian Jews horrified the Allied and neutral nations. The American Jewish Committee and other Jewish groups organized a rally in Manhattan's Madison Square Park on July 31 to mobilize public opinion against the deportations. In his address, Judge Joseph Proskauer, the Committee's president, declared, “We have heard... what a great part the Holy Father has played in the salvation of the refugees in Italy, and we know from sources that must be credited that this great Pope has reached forth his mighty and sheltering hand to help the oppressed of Hungary.” (Speech obtained from American Committee Library in Manhattan).
During the following months, Rabbi Stephen Wise, the president of the American Jewish Congress, Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz of the British Empire, composer Irving Berlin, Congressman Emmanuel Cellar of Brooklyn, the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and the World Agudas Organization also lauded Pius XII for helping endangered Jews. At the time, Rabbi Wise also condemned Christian indifference toward the extermination of Jews. With Rome liberated, the Pope frequently greeted Allied soldiers. During one meeting, he blessed a Jewish soldier from Palestine in Hebrew. In the Congress Weekly (October 20, 1944), Elias Gilner found great significance in this event. Gilner wrote that the Pope's blessing “becomes a memorable act, a far-flung message of good-will, an expression of the Christian spirit at its highest.”
The tributes to Pope Pius XII from Jews continued after the war in Europe ended. On April 22, 1945, Moshe Sharrett, the future Foreign Minister and Prime Minister of Israel sent a report of his meeting with the Pope to the Executive of the Jewish Agency. Sharrett wrote that “my first duty was to thank him, and through him, the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews, to save children, and Jews in general.” (Lapide, pp. 225-226)
On October 11, the World Jewish Congress donated $20,000 to Vatican charities. According to the New York Times (October 12, 1945), the gift was “made in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecution.” Although the current leaders of the World Jewish Congress have a much different view of the Vatican's wartime actions, they never retracted that recognition.
During a St. Louis conference on the plight of displaced Jewish refugees on March 17, 1946, William Rosenwald, the chairman of the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees, Overseas Needs and Palestine, said, “I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Pope Pius for his appeal in behalf of the victims of war and oppression. He provided aid for Jews in Italy and intervened in behalf of refugees to lighten their burden.” (New York Times, March 18, 1946.) The previous week, the Pope granted Mr. Rosenwald an audience. According to Mr. Rosenwald, the Pope said that Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees should be allowed to resettle in the United States.
In an article for Commentary (November 1950), French scholar and Holocaust survivor Leon Poliakov discussed the Vatican's conduct during the war. Poliakov suggested that the Vatican during the Holocaust retreated to its medieval tradition of protecting Jews from state persecution. “There is no doubt that secret instructions went out from the Vatican urging the national churches to intervene in favor of the Jews by every possible means,” Poliakov wrote. In fact, according to Volumes VI, VIII, IX, and X of the Actes, these instructions were sent to the Vatican's many diplomatic representatives.
Still, Poliakov was troubled because he believed that Pius XII's public statements were too vague. But Poliakov conceded the argument that “public protests would have brought no help to the victims, and might have produced contrary effects.” He cited the tragic case of Holland where the protests against the deportations of Jews by the Dutch Catholic bishops in 1942 led to the arrest of Catholic Jews, who were previously spared for deportation by the Nazis.
In 1955, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, which was composed of Jewish refugees from many nations, toured Italy. The Orchestra performed a concert at the Vatican on May 26, 1955. According to the Jerusalem Post (May 29, 1955), “Conductor Paul Klecki had requested that the Orchestra on its first visit to Italy play for the Pope as a gesture of gratitude for the help his Church had given to all those persecuted by Nazi Fascism.”
Pope Pius XII died on October 8, 1958. Many Jewish organizations and newspapers around the world mourned his passing, and recalled his wartime efforts to rescue Jews. At the United Nations, Golda Meir, Israel's Foreign Minister, said, “When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict.” The Zionist Record (October 17) in South Africa published Meir's moving eulogy along with tributes from Jewish organizations to the late Pope. “Adherents of all creeds and parties will recall how Pius XII faced the responsibilities of his exalted office with courage and devotion,” declared the Jewish Chronicle in London on October 10. “Before, during, and after the Second World War, he constantly preached the message of peace. Confronted by the monstrous cruelties of Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, he repeatedly proclaimed the virtues of humanity and compassion.”
In the Canadian Jewish Chronicle (October 17), Rabbi J. Stern recalled that Pius XII “made it possible for thousands of Jewish victims of Nazism and Fascism to be hidden away...”; In the November 6 edition of the Jewish Post in Winnipeg, William Zukerman, the former American Hebrew columnist, wrote that no other leader “did more to help the Jews in their hour of greatest tragedy, during the Nazi occupation of Europe, than the late Pope.”
Representatives of the World Jewish Congress, American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, Synagogue Council of America, New York Board of Rabbis, the Anti-Defamation League, Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, Rabbinical Council of America, National Council of Jewish Women, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations also gracefully eulogized Pope Pius XII. The Chief Rabbis of London, Rome, Jerusalem, France, Egypt, Argentina and many other Jewish newspapers also paid tribute to the late Pope.
"Never forget," my ass. There are a great many ungrateful wretches, lusting for evil-minded propaganda so long as it serves their victimhood-driven ideology.
Because he explained that he meant the Vatican could have done more. Which they could, as could have most nations and organizations. Argue with yourself, I'm not interested.
"Never forget," my ass. Selective forgetfulness is a policy for some folks.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1310082/posts
To: malakhi
Moving back is one thing; ethnic cleansing is another. Anyway, as I've already posted on this thread, the state of Israel has conceded Christian rights. They have admitted in a solemn declaration that they have no exclusive right to the land. Yet in practice, they deny this.
298 posted on 12/29/2004 3:56:49 PM CST by Romulus (Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?)
To: malakhi
If Israel is engaging in 'ethnic cleansing', it has done a mighty poor job of it.
A "mighty poor job" indeed. Percentage-wise, they have run off far more of the Christians than the muslims. Lacking its most peaceful element, the indigenous communities have more readily embraced radical violence, with tragic results for the Jewish people. A great many innocent lives have been lost. If it had been their intent for this land of Jewish refuge to more dangerous for Jews than any other place on earth, they could not have succeeded any better.
309 posted on 12/29/2004 4:11:21 PM CST by Romulus (Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?)
Well, I'm indebted to you for resurrecting laboriously-compiled content from a thread that should never have been pulled. Thank you.
But you still have not documented the charge that I've called Jews "a bunch of whiners". Nor can you, for I have never done so.
So you may not have used the exact word whiners. You used words that say as much. You rattle on about Jewish victimhood. Is this supposed to impress me or other Jews?
Bottom line: It would be so amusing to see how you would conduct yourself if there were only 12 million Catholics in this world.
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