Rvw of "The Popes Against the Jews: the Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism"

The Popes Against the Jews: the Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism
by David I. Kertzer. Published by Knopf.

Just what role, if any, did the Roman Catholic Church play in the development of anti-semitism during the modern era? This is a serious question, because the answer to it also helps us answer the question of what sort of culpability the Roman Catholic Church has for the eventual Holocaust and deaths of millions of Jews.

Although David Kertzer is certainly not the first historian to tackle the Vatican's role in the Holocaust, he does approach the issue from an unusual perspective. Usually, when people address this issue, they focus on the years immediately surrounding World War II, and only look at the Vatican's actions which related directly to Germany and the Holocaust.

Kertzer, however, takes a much broader view and attempts to find out just what sort of ideological responsibility the Vatican has. After gaining access to large amounts of previously unavailable Vatican material, he delves into the role the Vatican may have played in the development of modern anti-semitism, an ideology which played a large role in the eventual attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews.

The Vatican has attempted to try and deal with its ideological responsibility in this area, and in 1998, it isued the report "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah," which was supposed to exonerate the Church of complicity in the Holocaust. The thesis of this report is essentially that the Holocaust grew out of "an anti-Judaism that was essentially more sociological and political than religious."

In this way, the Vatican can take responsibility for the obvious and ancient religious prejudice while refusing to take responsibility for the modern racial and social prejudices which have come to be labeled anti-semitism. But is this distinction accurate? According to Kertzer, this report is "not the product of a Church that wants to confront its history," because the distinction created simply does not exist.

There are a number of key ideas which Kertzer describes as characterizing modern anti-semitism:

There is a secret Jewish conspiracy; the Jews seek to conquer the world; Jews are an evil sect who seek to do Christians harm; Jews are by nature immoral; Jews care only for money and will do anything to get it; Jews control the press; Jews control the banks and are responsible for the conomic ruination of untold numbers of Christian families; Jews are responsible for communism; Judaism commands its adherents to murder defenseless Christian children and drink their blood; Jews seek to destroy the Christian religion; Jews are unpatriotic, ever ready to sell their country out to the enemy; for the larger society to be properly protected, Jews must be segregated and their rights limited.

All of these developed largely due to a fear of modernity. Socially, the Jews were the group which benefited from modernity in some of the largest and most obvious ways. Because of this, at least in part, they became identified with modernity unlike any other group, and thus they became the scapegoat of modernity.

This explains why the anti-semitism in Catholic literature actually increased during the 19th century, rather than decreasing or remaining constant. Anti-semitism became a vital component of Catholic identity during these years, because it was the easiest way to communicate anti-modernism. As such, it was a new development rather than vestiges of medieval attitudes.

The characteristics listed above all share another important thing in common: all but a couple were very prominent in the beliefs and writings of the Roman Catholic Church, especially during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is because of this fact, exhaustively documented in Kertzer's book, that it is impossible to exhonerate the Church from responsibility for having helped develop the ideology behind the Holocuast.

The Vatican has tried to argue that their anti-Judaism was never "racial," but this can be demonstrated as false:

...the Church was in fact involved in the development of racial thinking about Jews. Nor was this new. Views of biological differences between Jews and Christians, although contradicting other important aspects of Christian theology, have a long history in the church. These helped prepare Catholics in the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth for further developments in racial thinking, some of which came into open conflict with Church teachings on the oneness of humankind.

A good example of someone who explicitly used race when condemning the Jews was a French priest named Ernest Jouin who wrote during the 1920s, "From the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity." According to the Vatican, this is the sort of attitude which it rejected and condemned - yet Jouin was never criticized for his anti-semitic diatribes.

In fact, Pope Benedict XV made a point of praising Jouin's work. Shortly after Jouin published the first French edition of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Pius XI praised him in a private audience because he was "combating our mortal enemy." It is worth noting that Pius XI has been seen in a very favorable light regarding the suffering of the Jews, but in a report of his while he was examining the situation in Poland following World War I, he stated, "One of the most evil and strongest influences that is felt here, perhaps the strongest and the most evil, is that of the Jews."

The Vatican has also tried to argue that in their anti-Judaism, they never portrayed the Jews as "irredeemable." This would be an important difference, because acceptance of it would cause people to move away from attempted conversions and toward expulsion or extermination as a "solution" to the "Jewish problem." But again, it is a difference that does not really exist:

Given the level of hostility against the Jews inculcated by the Church, popular commitment to the official Church position that Jews could be transformed from evil to good through the baptismal waters proved increasingly difficult to maintain. It strained credulity to imagine that a people so demonic could so easily be changed, that the person who until yesterday was Jewish could today be one of us.

The fact of the matter should now be clear: fascist anti-semitism in the twentieth century was a direct ideological outgrowth of Catholic anti-semitism of the nineteenth century. The connection is so close that many of the fascist anti-semitic policies and programs are direct inheritances from Vatican policies.

The chapter on Austria from the time of Pope Pius IX in the mid 19th century through the early 20th century is particularly interesting. For most of the book, Ketzer focuses on the actions of the Vatican in the areas where they had political control, because it is here that the responsibility of others can be factored out. Indeed, Ketzer is able to demonstrate that Jews had more rights and freedoms in many other places in Europe than they did while under the direct control of the Vatican.

But Austria, and particularly Vienna, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries is an especially important time period, because it was here that Adolf Hitler developed his political and social views towards the Jews. As Ketzer describes the situation, the papal nuncio, Monsignor Antonio Agliardi, enthusiastically supported the aggressively anti-Semitic political leader Karl Lueger, head of the nationalist Christian Socialist party, even though the Austrian church hierarchy itself was disturbed by Lueger's extremism.

The Vatican's attempt to make a distinction between its older, "religious" anti-semitism and the more recent "political" anti-semitism is not a new development. On the contrary, it first started just prior to World War II, when a few religious leaders started to realize that the anti-semitism they helped create might get out of their control.

As a result, they tried to tell people that there was a difference between the "good" anti-semitism promoted justly by the Church and the "bad" anti-semitism promoted by self-serving politicians and hate-mongers. But how could anyone really tell the difference? A good example of this comes from a pastoral letter written by the leading churchman of Poland, August Cardinal Hlond, in which he describes the Jews as "the vanguard of atheism, the Bolshevik movement and revolutionary activity." He added, however, that "one may not hate anyone. Not even Jews."

***Was Card. Hlond's statement factually correct? Did the facts that Hlond stated cause problems in the countries affected by them? Did NO ONE have a right to protest acts that were antithetical to the indigenous values? Does the community have the right to protest ideologies that it abhors, particularly when they are imposed from outside the community? ***

It must be remembered, of course, that the Vatican did not cause the Holocaust. It must also be remembered that even during the times when Catholic anti-semitism was at its worst, there were many Catholics who did not accept it. But if we can remember that, the Vatican should also be expected to remember just what responsibility - ideological and actual - it does bear. Instead, the truth is hidden or denied, which ultimately leads to victimizing the Jews all over again.

*** Jews must be expected to remember just what responsibility - ideological and actual - they do bear. Instead, the truth is hidden or denied, which ultimately enables Jews to subvert other communities all over again. ***

WE REMEMBER: A REFLECTION ON THE SHOAH Vatican, 1998

COMMISSION FOR RELIGIOUS RELATIONS WITH THE JEWS

WE REMEMBER: A REFLECTION ON THE SHOAH



At a press conference on March 16, 1998, Cardinal Cassidy, President of the Holy See's Commission For Religious Relations With the Jews, presented for publication the document, We Remember: A Reflection On The Shoah. Joining him in the presentation were Bishop Pierre Duprey, Vice President of the Commission, and Father Remi Hoeckmann, O.P., its Secretary.

We publish here Cardinal Cassidy's presentation of the document, along with Pope John Paul II's letter to the Cardinal about the document, and the text itself.



Presentation by Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy



The Holy See has to date published, through its Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, two significant documents intended for the application of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate, n. 4: the 1974 Guidelines and Suggestions; and the 1985 Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Catholic Church.

Today it publishes another document, which the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews has prepared at the express request of His Holiness Pope John Paul II. This document, which contains a reflection on the Shoah, is another step on the path marked out by the Second Vatican Council in our relations with the Jewish people. In the words which His Holiness wrote in his letter to me as President of the Commission, it is our fervent hope "that the document [...] will help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices".1

It is addressed to the Catholic faithful throughout the world, not only in Europe where the Shoah took place, hoping that all Christians will join their Catholic brothers and sisters in meditating on the catastrophe which befell the Jewish people, on its causes, and on the moral imperative to ensure that never again such a tragedy will happen. At the same time it asks our Jewish friends to hear us with an open heart.

On the occasion of a meeting in Rome on 31 August 1987 of representatives of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, the then President of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, announced the intention of the Commission to prepare an official Catholic document on the Shoah. The following day, 1 September 1987, the participants in this meeting were received at Castel Gandolfo by His Holiness Pope John Paul II, who affirmed the importance of the proposed document for the Church and for the world. His Holiness spoke of his personal experience in his native country and his memories of living close to a Jewish community now destroyed. He recalled a recent address to the Jewish community in Warsaw, in which he spoke of the Jewish people as a force of conscience in the world today and of the Jewish memory of the Shoah as "a warning, a witness, and a silent cry" to all humanity. Citing the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt as a paradigm and a continuing source of hope, His Holiness expressed his deep conviction that, with God's help, evil can be overcome in history, even the awesome evil of the Shoah.

We can read in the Joint Press Communiqué which was released at that time, that the Jewish delegation warmly welcomed the initiative of an official Catholic document on the Shoah, and expressed the conviction that such a document will contribute significantly to combating attempts to revise and to deny the reality of the Shoah and to trivialize its religious significance for Christians, Jews, and humanity.

In the years following the announcement, the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews engaged in a process of consciousness raising and of reflection on several levels in the Catholic Church, and in different places.

In the Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate, n. 4, published on 1 December 1974, the Holy See's Commission recalled that "the step taken by the Council finds its historical setting in circumstances deeply affected by the memory of the persecution and massacre of Jews which took place in Europe just before and during the Second World War". Yet, as the Guidelines pointed out, "the problem of Jewish- Christian relations concerns the Church as such, since it is when "pondering her own mystery" (Nostra Aetate, n. 4) that she encounters the mystery of Israel. Therefore, even in areas where no Jewish communities exist, this remains an important problem".

Pope John Paul II himself has repeatedly called upon us to see where we stand with regard to our relations with the Jewish people. In doing so, "we must remember how much the balance [of these relations] over two thousand years has been negative".2 This long period "which", in the words of Pope John Paul II, awe must not tire of reflecting upon in order to draw from it the appropriate lessonsÓ3 has been marked by many manifestations of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, and, in this century, by the horrifying events of the Shoah.

Therefore, the Catholic Church wants all Catholics, and indeed all people, everywhere, to know about this. It does so also with the hope that it will help Catholics and Jews towards the realization of those universal goals that are found in their common roots. In fact, whenever there has been guilt on the part of Christians, this burden should be a call to repentance. As His Holiness has put it on one occasion, "guilt must always be the point of departure for conversion".

We are confident that all the Catholic faithful in every part of the world will be helped by this document to discover in their relationship with the Jewish people "the boldness of brotherhood".4

***

1 The letter of His Holiness is dated 12 March 1998.

2 Cf. Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Catholic Church (24 June 1985).

3 Speech delivered on the occasion of the visit of His Holiness to the Synagogue of Rome (13 April 1986), 4: AAS 78 (1986), 1120.

4 Pope John Paul II in his address to the Diplomatic Corps on 15 January 1994.

LETTER OF POPE JOHN PAUL II



To my Venerable Brother
CARDINAL EDWARD IDRIS CASSIDY

On numerous occasions during my Pontificate I have recalled with a sense of deep sorrow the sufferings of the Jewish people during the Second World War. The crime which has become known as the Shoah remains an indelible stain on the history of the century that is coming to a close.

As we prepare for the beginning of the Third Millennium of Christianity, the Church is aware that the joy of a Jubilee is above all the joy that is based on the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God and neighbour. Therefore she encourages her sons and daughters to purify their hearts, through repentance of past errors and infidelities. She calls them to place themselves humbly before the Lord and examine themselves on the responsibility which they too have for the evils of our time.

It is my fervent hope that the document: We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, which the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews has prepared under your direction, will indeed help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices. May it enable memory to play its necessary part in the process of shaping a future in which the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah will never again be possible. May the Lord of history guide the efforts of Catholics and Jews and all men and women of good will as they work together for a world of true respect for the life and dignity of every human being, for all have been created in the image and likeness of God.

From the Vatican, 12 March 1998.

JOHN PAUL II

COMMISSION FOR RELIGIOUS RELATIONS WITH THE JEWS

WE REMEMBER: A REFLECTION ON THE SHOAH



I. The tragedy of the Shoah and the duty of remembrance

The twentieth century is fast coming to a close and a new Millennium of the Christian era is about to dawn. The 2000th anniversary of the Birth of Jesus Christ calls all Christians, and indeed invites all men and women, to seek to discern in the passage of history the signs of divine Providence at work, as well as the ways in which the image of the Creator in man has been offended and disfigured.

This reflection concerns one of the main areas in which Catholics can seriously take to heart the summons which Pope John Paul II has addressed to them in his Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente: "It is appropriate that, as the Second Millennium of Christianity draws to a close, the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal".(1)

This century has witnessed an unspeakable tragedy, which can never be forgotten: the attempt by the Nazi regime to exterminate the Jewish people, with the consequent killing of millions of Jews. Women and men, old and young, children and infants, for the sole reason of their Jewish origin, were persecuted and deported. Some were killed immediately, while others were degraded, illtreated, tortured and utterly robbed of their human dignity, and then murdered. Very few of those who entered the Camps survived, and those who did remained scarred for life. This was the Shoah. It is a major fact of the history of this century, a fact which still concerns us today.

Before this horrible genocide, which the leaders of nations and Jewish communities themselves found hard to believe at the very moment when it was being mercilessly put into effect, no one can remain indifferent, least of all the Church, by reason of her very close bonds of spiritual kinship with the Jewish people and her remembrance of the injustices of the past. The Church's relationship to the Jewish people is unlike the one she shares with any other religion.(2) However, it is not only a question of recalling the past. The common future of Jews and Christians demands that we remember, for "there is no future without memory".(3) History itself is memoria futuri.

In addressing this reflection to our brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church throughout the world, we ask all Christians to join us in meditating on the catastrophe which befell the Jewish people, and on the moral imperative to ensure that never again will selfishness and hatred grow to the point of sowing such suffering and death.(4) Most especially, we ask our Jewish friends, "whose terrible fate has become a symbol of the aberrations of which man is capable when he turns against God",(5) to hear us with open hearts.



II. What we must remember

While bearing their unique witness to the Holy One of Israel and to the Torah, the Jewish people have suffered much at different times and in many places. But the Shoah was certainly the worst suffering of all. The inhumanity with which the Jews were persecuted and massacred during this century is beyond the capacity of words to convey. All this was done to them for the sole reason that they were Jews.

The very magnitude of the crime raises many questions. Historians, sociologists, political philosophers, psychologists and theologians are all trying to learn more about the reality of the Shoah and its causes. Much scholarly study still remains to be done. But such an event cannot be fully measured by the ordinary criteria of historical research alone. It calls for a "moral and religious memory" and, particularly among Christians, a very serious reflection on what gave rise to it.

The fact that the Shoah took place in Europe, that is, in countries of long-standing Christian civilization, raises the question of the relation between the Nazi persecution and the attitudes down the centuries of Christians towards the Jews.



III. Relations between Jews and Christians

The history of relations between Jews and Christians is a tormented one. His Holiness Pope John Paul II has recognized this fact in his repeated appeals to Catholics to see where we stand with regard to our relations with the Jewish people.(6) In effect, the balance of these relations over two thousand years has been quite negative.(7)

At the dawn of Christianity, after the crucifixion of Jesus, there arose disputes between the early Church and the Jewish leaders and people who, in their devotion to the Law, on occasion violently opposed the preachers of the Gospel and the first Christians. In the pagan Roman Empire, Jews were legally protected by the privileges granted by the Emperor and the authorities at first made no distinction between Jewish and Christian communities. Soon however, Christians incurred the persecution of the State. Later, when the Emperors themselves converted to Christianity, they at first continued to guarantee Jewish privileges. But Christian mobs who attacked pagan temples sometimes did the same to synagogues, not without being influenced by certain interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people as a whole. "In the Christian world—I do not say on the part of the Church as such—erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged culpability have circulated for too long, engendering feelings of hostility towards this people".(8) Such interpretations of the New Testament have been totally and definitively rejected by the Second Vatican Council.(9)

Despite the Christian preaching of love for all, even for one's enemies, the prevailing mentality down the centuries penalized minorities and those who were in any way "different". Sentiments of anti-Judaism in some Christian quarters, and the gap which existed between the Church and the Jewish people, led to a generalized discrimination, which ended at times in expulsions or attempts at forced conversions. In a large part of the "Christian" world, until the end of the 18th century, those who were not Christian did not always enjoy a fully guaranteed juridical status. Despite that fact, Jews throughout Christendom held on to their religious traditions and communal customs. They were therefore looked upon with a certain suspicion and mistrust. In times of crisis such as famine, war, pestilence or social tensions, the Jewish minority was sometimes taken as a scapegoat and became the victim of violence, looting, even massacres.

By the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Jews generally had achieved an equal standing with other citizens in most States and a certain number of them held influential positions in society. But in that same historical context, notably in the 19th century, a false and exacerbated nationalism took hold. In a climate of eventful social change, Jews were often accused of exercising an influence disproportionate to their numbers. Thus there began to spread in varying degrees throughout most of Europe an anti-Judaism that was essentially more sociological and political than religious.

At the same time, theories began to appear which denied the unity of the human race, affirming an original diversity of races. In the 20th century, National Socialism in Germany used these ideas as a pseudo-scientific basis for a distinction between so called Nordic-Aryan races and supposedly inferior races. Furthermore, an extremist form of nationalism was heightened in Germany by the defeat of 1918 and the demanding conditions imposed by the victors, with the consequence that many saw in National Socialism a solution to their country's problems and cooperated politically with this movement.

The Church in Germany replied by condemning racism. The condemnation first appeared in the preaching of some of the clergy, in the public teaching of the Catholic Bishops, and in the writings of lay Catholic journalists. Already in February and March 1931, Cardinal Bertram of Breslau, Cardinal Faulhaber and the Bishops of Bavaria, the Bishops of the Province of Cologne and those of the Province of Freiburg published pastoral letters condemning National Socialism, with its idolatry of race and of the State.(10) The well-known Advent sermons of Cardinal Faulhaber in 1933, the very year in which National Socialism came to power, at which not just Catholics but also Protestants and Jews were present, clearly expressed rejection of the Nazi anti-semitic propaganda.(11) In the wake of the Kristallnacht, Bernhard Lichtenberg, Provost of Berlin Cathedral, offered public prayers for the Jews. He was later to die at Dachau and has been declared Blessed.

Pope Pius XI too condemned Nazi racism in a solemn way in his Encyclical Letter Mit brennender Sorge,(12) which was read in German churches on Passion Sunday 1937, a step which resulted in attacks and sanctions against members of the clergy. Addressing a group of Belgian pilgrims on 6 September 1938, Pius XI asserted: "Anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Spiritually, we are all Semites".(13) Pius XII, in his very first Encyclical, Summi Pontificatus,(14) of 20 October 1939, warned against theories which denied the unity of the human race and against the deification of the State, all of which he saw as leading to a real "hour of darkness".(15)



IV. Nazi anti-Semitism and the Shoah

Thus we cannot ignore the difference which exists between anti-Semitism, based on theories contrary to the constant teaching of the Church on the unity of the human race and on the equal dignity of all races and peoples, and the long-standing sentiments of mistrust and hostility that we call anti-Judaism, of which, unfortunately, Christians also have been guilty.

The National Socialist ideology went even further, in the sense that it refused to acknowledge any transcendent reality as the source of life and the criterion of moral good. Consequently, a human group, and the State with which it was identified, arrogated to itself an absolute status and determined to remove the very existence of the Jewish people, a people called to witness to the one God and the Law of the Covenant. At the level of theological reflection we cannot ignore the fact that not a few in the Nazi Party not only showed aversion to the idea of divine Providence at work in human affairs, but gave proof of a definite hatred directed at God himself. Logically, such an attitude also led to a rejection of Christianity, and a desire to see the Church destroyed or at least subjected to the interests of the Nazi State.

It was this extreme ideology which became the basis of the measures taken, first to drive the Jews from their homes and then to exterminate them. The Shoah was the work of a thoroughly modern neo-pagan regime. Its anti-Semitism had its roots outside of Christianity and, in pursuing its aims, it did not hesitate to oppose the Church and persecute her members also.

But it may be asked whether the Nazi persecution of the Jews was not made easier by the anti-Jewish prejudices imbedded in some Christian minds and hearts. Did anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians make them less sensitive, or even indifferent, to the persecutions launched against the Jews by National Socialism when it reached power?

Any response to this question must take into account that we are dealing with the history of people's attitudes and ways of thinking, subject to multiple influences. Moreover, many people were altogether unaware of the "final solution" that was being put into effect against a whole people; others were afraid for themselves and those near to them; some took advantage of the situation; and still others were moved by envy. A response would need to be given case by case. To do this, however, it is necessary to know what precisely motivated people in a particular situation.

At first the leaders of the Third Reich sought to expel the Jews. Unfortunately, the governments of some Western countries of Christian tradition, including some in North and South America, were more than hesitant to open their borders to the persecuted Jews. Although they could not foresee how far the Nazi hierarchs would go in their criminal intentions, the leaders of those nations were aware of the hardships and dangers to which Jews living in the territories of the Third Reich were exposed. The closing of borders to Jewish emigration in those circumstances, whether due to anti-Jewish hostility or suspicion, political cowardice or shortsightedness, or national selfishness, lays a heavy burden of conscience on the authorities in question.

In the lands where the Nazis undertook mass deportations, the brutality which surrounded these forced movements of helpless people should have led to suspect the worst. Did Christians give every possible assistance to those being persecuted, and in particular to the persecuted Jews?

Many did, but others did not. Those who did help to save Jewish lives as much as was in their power, even to the point of placing their own lives in danger, must not be forgotten. During and after the war, Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks for all that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius XII did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives.(16) Many Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity have been honoured for this reason by the State of Israel.

Nevertheless, as Pope John Paul II has recognized, alongside such courageous men and women, the spiritual resistance and concrete action of other Christians was not that which might have been expected from Christ's followers. We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbours and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest. For Christians, this heavy burden of conscience of their brothers and sisters during the Second World War must be a call to penitence.(17)

We deeply regret the errors and failures of those sons and daughters of the Church. We make our own what is said in the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate, which unequivocally affirms: "The Church ... mindful of her common patrimony with the Jews, and motivated by the Gospel's spiritual love and by no political considerations, deplores the hatred, persecutions and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any source".(18)

We recall and abide by what Pope John Paul II, addressing the leaders of the Jewish community in Strasbourg in 1988,stated: "I repeat again with you the strongest condemnation of anti-Semitism and racism, which are opposed to the principles of Christianity".(19) The Catholic Church therefore repudiates every persecution against a people or human group anywhere, at any time. She absolutely condemns all forms of genocide, as well as the racist ideologies which give rise to them. Looking back over this century, we are deeply saddened by the violence that has enveloped whole groups of peoples and nations. We recall in particular the massacre of the Armenians, the countless victims in Ukraine in the 1930s, the genocide of the Gypsies, which was also the result of racist ideas, and similar tragedies which have occurred in America, Africa and the Balkans. Nor do we forget the millions of victims of totalitarian ideology in the Soviet Union, in China, Cambodia and elsewhere. Nor can we forget the drama of the Middle East, the elements of which are well known. Even as we make this reflection, "many human beings are still their brothers' victims".(20)



V. Looking together to a common future

Looking to the future of relations between Jews and Christians, in the first place we appeal to our Catholic brothers and sisters to renew the awareness of the Hebrew roots of their faith. We ask them to keep in mind that Jesus was a descendant of David; that the Virgin Mary and the Apostles belonged to the Jewish people; that the Church draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree on to which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles (cf. Rom 11:17-24); that the Jews are our dearly beloved brothers, indeed in a certain sense they are "our elder brothers".(21)

At the end of this Millennium the Catholic Church desires to express her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age. This is an act of repentance (teshuva), since, as members of the Church, we are linked to the sins as well as the merits of all her children. The Church approaches with deep respect and great compassion the experience of extermination, the Shoah, suffered by the Jewish people during World War II. It is not a matter of mere words, but indeed of binding commitment. "We would risk causing the victims of the most atrocious deaths to die again if we do not have an ardent desire for justice, if we do not commit ourselves to ensure that evil does not prevail over good as it did for millions of the children of the Jewish people ... Humanity cannot permit all that to happen again".(22)

We pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people has suffered in our century will lead to a new relationship with the Jewish people. We wish to turn awareness of past sins into a firm resolve to build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Judaism among Christians or anti-Christian sentiment among Jews, but rather a shared mutual respect, as befits those who adore the one Creator and Lord and have a common father in faith, Abraham.

Finally, we invite all men and women of good will to reflect deeply on the significance of the Shoah. The victims from their graves, and the survivors through the vivid testimony of what they have suffered, have become a loud voice calling the attention of all of humanity. To remember this terrible experience is to become fully conscious of the salutary warning it entails: the spoiled seeds of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism must never again be allowed to take root in any human heart.

16 March 1998.

Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy
President

The Most Reverend Pierre Duprey
Vice-President

The Reverend Remi Hoeckman, O.P.
Secretary

TYPIS VATICANIS MCMXCVIII

(1) Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 10 November 1994, 33: AAS 87 (1995), 25.

(2) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Speech at the Synagogue of Rome, 13 April 1986, 4: AAS 78 (1986), 1120.

(3) Pope John Paul II, Angelus Prayer, 11 June 1995: Insegnamenti 181, 1995, 1712.

(4) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Address to Jewish Leaders in Budapest, 18 August 1991, 4: Insegnamenti 142, 1991, 349.

(5) Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 1 May 1991, 17: AAS 83 (1991), 814-815.

(6) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Address to Delegates of Episcopal Conferences for Catholic-Jewish relations, 6 March 1982: Insegnamenti, 51, 1982, 743-747.

(7) Cf. Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Notes on the correct way to present the Jews and Judaism in preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church, 24 June 1985, VI, 1: Ench. Vat. 9, 1656.

(8) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Speech to Symposium on the roots of anti-Judaism, 31 October 1997, 1: L'Osservatore Romano, 1 November 1997, p. 6.

(9) Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Nostra Aetate, 4.

(10) Cf. B. Statiewski (Ed.), Akten deutscher Bischöfe über die Lage der Kirche, 1933-1945, vol. I, 1933-1934 (Mainz 1968), Appendix.

(11) Cf. L. Volk, Der Bayerische Episkopat und der Nationalsozialismus 1930-1934 (Mainz 1966), pp. 170-174.

(12) The Encyclical is dated 14 March 1937: AAS 29 (1937), 145-167.

(13) La Documentation Catholique, 29 (1938), col. 1460.

(14) AAS 31 (1939), 413-453.

(15) Ibid., 449.

(16) The wisdom of Pope Pius XII's diplomacy was publicly acknowledged on a number of occasions by representative Jewish Organizations and personalities. For example, on 7 September 1945, Dr. Joseph Nathan, who represented the Italian Hebrew Commission, stated: "Above all, we acknowledge the Supreme Pontiff and the religious men and women who, executing the directives of the Holy Father, recognized the persecuted as their brothers and, with effort and abnegation, hastened to help us, disregarding the terrible dangers to which they were exposed" (L'Osservatore Romano, 8 September 1945, p. 2). On 21 September of that same year, Pius XII received in audience Dr. A. Leo Kubowitzki, Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress who came to present "to the Holy Father, in the name of the Union of Israelitic Communities, warmest thanks for the efforts of the Catholic Church on behalf of Jews throughout Europe during the War" (L'Osservatore Romano, 23 September 1945, p. 1). On Thursday, 29 November 1945, the Pope met about 80 representatives of Jewish refugees from various concentration camps in Germany, who expressed "their great honour at being able to thank the Holy Father personally for his generosity towards those persecuted during the Nazi-Fascist period" (L'Osservatore Romano, 30 November 1945, p. 1). In 1958, at the death of Pope Pius XII, Golda Meir sent an eloquent message: "We share in the grief of humanity. When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out about great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace".

(17) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Address to the New Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Holy See, 8 November 1990, 2: AAS 83 (1991), 587-588.

(18) Loc. cit., no. 4.

(19) Address to Jewish Leaders, Strasbourg, 9 October 1988, no. 8: Insegnamenti 113, 1988, 1134.

(20) Pope John Paul II, Address to the Diplomatic Corps, 15 January 1994, 9: AAS 86 (1994), 816.

(21) Pope John Paul II, Speech at the Synagogue of Rome, 13 April 1986, 4: AAS 78 (1986), 1120.

(22) Pope John Paul II, Address on the occasion of a commemoration of the Shoah, 7 April 1994, 3: Insegnamenti 171, 1994, 897 and 893.



Other Statements

LETTER OF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE LATIN-RITE DIOCESE OF JERUSALEM

The Holy Father wrote a Letter to the Latin-rite Diocese of Jerusalem to mark the 150th anniversary of Pope Pius IX's reorganization of that see. The Pope called on Catholics to prepare in every way to celebrate the coming Holy Year. Here is a translation of those paragraphs of his letter pertaining to relations with the Jews.



É By its presence in the same territory as the Islamic and Jewish communities and through the exchanges it has with them, the Latin community has been prepared over time to understand the importance of interreligious dialogue in the spirit desired and recommended by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Daily life presupposes continuous contact with believers of other religious traditions, for the human, spiritual and moral development of peoples. It is obvious that respectful dialogue and joint, fraternal collaboration among all society's members can be a vigorous appeal for this same understanding to be achieved in other countries.

É Regarding the ties with those who belong to the Jewish religion, it should be recalled that Jews and Christians have a common heritage which links them spiritually (cf. Nostra aetate, n. 4). Both are a blessing for the world (cf. Gn 12:2-3), to the extent that they work together so that peace and justice prevail among all people and all individuals and do so in fullness and in depth, according to the divine plan and in the spirit of sacrifice which this noble project can demand.

They are all called to be conscious of this sacred duty and to fulfil it, through honest and friendly dialogue and by collaboration for the benefit of man and society; I am certain that this readiness to do God's will for the world will also be a blessing for our different communities and enable us to cry out with the psalmist: "Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky" (Ps 85 [84]: 10-11).

November 28, 1997

General Audience

January 14, 1998



To the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors the Holy Father said:

I welcome the members of the Bsnai Bsrith Anti-Defamation League, and I express the hope that your visit will help to strengthen the co-operation of recent years.

Pastoral visit to Cuba

January 21-26, 1998

Address OF JOHN PAUL II
to the Jewish Community

January 25, 1998



On the morning of Sunday, January 25, the Holy Father met representatives of the Cuban Council of Churches at the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana. During the course of his address, the Pope also specifically spoke to the Jewish community.

1. On this memorable day, I am very pleased to meet you, the representatives of the Cuban Council of Churches and of various other Christian communities, accompanied by members of the Jewish community in Cuba, which participates in the Council as an observer. I greet all of you with great affection and I assure you of my happiness at this meeting with those with whom we share faith in the living and true God. This auspicious occasion prompts us to say before all else: "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity" (Ps 132:1).

4. I also wish to address a particular greeting to the Jewish community represented here. Your presence is an eloquent expression of the fraternal dialogue aimed at a better understanding between Jews and Catholics, and which, promoted by the Second Vatican Council, continues to be ever more widespread. With you we share a common spiritual patrimony, firmly rooted in the Sacred Scriptures. May God, the Creator and Saviour, sustain our efforts to walk together and, encouraged by the divine word, may we grow in worship and fervent love of him. May all of this ever find expression in effective action for the benefit of each and every person.

5. To conclude, I wish to thank each one of you for your presence at this meeting, and I ask God to bless you and your communities and to keep you in his ways so that you may proclaim his name to the brethren. May he show you his face in the midst of the society which you serve, and may he grant you peace in all your undertakings.

Havana, 25 January 1998
Feast of the Conversion of St Paul

Apology NOT Accepted, So Jews Can Continue Killing Palestinians

Vatican's "Reflection on the Shoah" http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_16031998_shoah_en.html

also, find article describing Vatican's "bad antisemitism" and "good antisemitism." "Bad" = "Jews killed Christ." Church has abjured that meme; in remarks regarding his book on Jews & Capitalism, Abe Foxman answered a question about Catholic church's movement on "supercession" problem. Jewish people get all worked up that Catholic church has taken control of god/salvation, etc. Sometime in the last days of Feb 2011, Benedict did make some statement about Church's acknowledgement that Jews did NOT kill Jesus; I guess that called mollifying. sheesh. Now, can Jews admit that they are killing Palestinians, and stop doing so?

and a Jewish response and remonstrance to "Reflections:" Antisemitism, Christianity, and the Catholic Church: Origins, Consequences, and responses.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3244/is_2_47/ai_n29191611/pg_6/?tag=content;col1

Antisemitism, Christianity, and the Catholic Church: origins, consequences, and responses
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3244/is_2_47/ai_n29191611/
Journal of Church and State, Spring, 2005 by Peter M. Marendy
For approximately 1,900 years, the relationship between Jews and Christians had been marked by anger, hate, and suspicion, particularly in Europe. The primary cause of this lamentable phenomenon was the commonly held Christian belief that Jews were responsible for the death of Christianity's founder, Jesus Christ. This charge of deicide was both extremely inflammatory and an unfair accusation--inflammatory because it provided religious and secular authorities with a justification for marginalizing and persecuting Jews and unfair because it condemned all Jews in perpetuity for the actions of a very small number of their ancestors. It formed the basis of the Catholic Church-sponsored anti-Judaic or Christian anti-semitic (1) prejudices, which consigned most European Jews to a second-class existence.
Until recently, historians have typically distinguished between this religious form of anti-semitism and the racist oriented modern anti-semitism, which came to prominence in the late nineteenth century. This essay aims to challenge this distinction by demonstrating that these forms of anti-semitism are more closely linked. Furthermore, it will argue that without the historical background of the religious and social prejudice towards Jews shaped by Christian anti-semitism, the development and success of a racially inflected modern anti-semitism in Europe would have been improbable. The most significant aspect of this thesis is that it challenges the accuracy of the Roman Catholic Church's official position on this issue represented in the Vatican document We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah. (2) It will achieve these goals by first defining the concepts of anti-Judaism and anti-semitism. The essay will then provide all overview of the New Testament origins of Christian anti-semitism, particularly focusing on the problems created by uncontextual readings of prominent anti-Jewish statements found in the Gospels of Matthew and John. After this overview, the essay will provide a detailed analysis of prominent manifestations of Christian anti-semitism in the classical era and the Middle Ages, and reveal the close links between it and modern anti-semitism. Lastly, this study will conclude by examining the merits of the Catholic Church's attempt since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) (3) to atone for its role in the marginalization and persecution of Jews.
The terms "anti-Judaism"--also known as "Christian anti-semitism"--and "anti-semitism" refer to different, although closely related phenomena: prejudicial and discriminatory beliefs about Jews and Judaism. Anti-Judaism was "long-standing sentiment ... of mistrust and hostility" (4) held by Christians against Jews because the former, except for the apostles and very small communities of Christian Jews, rejected Jesus Christ's teachings and were purportedly responsible for his crucifixion. In contrast to this theologically based prejudice, the concept "anti-semitism," which was invented by the German journalist Wilhelm Marr in the 1870s, (5) refers to a racially based prejudice against Jews which denigrates and demeans them principally because of their ethnicity rather than their faith. Literally speaking anti-semitism means "opposed to Semites," (6) which technically also includes Arabs and other semitic peoples. However, in practice, anti-semitism refers only to an opposition or hatred of Jews and or Judaism. (7)
The origins of anti-Judaism or Christian anti-semitism (8) can be traced back to the growing estrangement between the early Christian communities and the Jewish leaders of formative Judaism (9) in the Roman Empire of the first century of the common era. According to a traditional reading (10) of the Gospels found in the New Testament, this hostility was a product of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other Jewish groups' attacks and plots against Jesus, and more specifically, their stubbborn refusal to accept his teachings about the Law and the Kingdom of God. (11) For instance, in the Gospel of Matthew (27:23-25), the charge of deicide--possible one of the most damaging and enduring calumnies against Jews by Christians--finds its roots in the alleged response by the "Jews" to Pilate's claim of innocence, "Let Him be crucified! ... His blood be upon us and on our children." Likewise, a literal reading of the usually virulent anti-Jewish rhetoric found in the Gospel of John has also encouraged and justified the historical marginalization and demonization of Jews. For instance, the author of this Gospel records Jesus denouncing a group of Jews with the words, "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do" (Jn 8.44). (12) However, modern biblical scholarship, which among other things, recognizes the vital importance of the contextual nature of these and other New Testament writings, clearly demonstrates that the above literal readings of Matthew's and John's Gospels distorts their meanings. Therefore, for the sake of atoning for past mistakes, preventing them from being committed again, and building a new relationship with Jews, today's Christians must utilize and promote contextual readings of the Gospels.
As pointed out above, the Gospel of Matthew contains anti-Jewish rhetoric, which, if read uncontextually, produces an uncharitable picture of ancient Jewish communities. (13) In contrast, a contextually aware interpretation demonstrates that Jesus' anti-Jewish rhetoric actually reflects the animosity of Matthew's community towards the local Jewish leaders of formative Judaism with whom it is in conflict. Matthew's community predominantly consisted of Jewish Christians who kept the Law, but in a manner that was faithful to those values taught by Jesus--justice, mercy, and faithfulness. (14) However, this respect for the Law and the Gospel writers' "extensive use of the Old Testament ... in order to connect Jesus to the history of Israel and to portray him as the embodiment of Jewish hopes [and] its stress on Jesus as one who comes not to destroy but to fulfil the Jewish law," (15) did not prevent conflict with the local leaders of formative Judaism. To the contrary, the author of Matthew was keen to differentiate and protect his community from what he believed were the false teachings of the scribes and Pharisees. (16) For example, the Gospel of Matthew makes the observation that because these Jewish leaders do not support Jesus' "new interpretation" of the law, they are not righteous (17) Furthermore, Matthew's desire to discredit those Jews who made life difficult for his community in Antioch (18) motivated him to present all the different Jewish groups as one homogenized, united force against Jesus and to insidiously exaggerate the conflict between Jesus and Jewish leaders by projecting his contemporary problems with the Scribes and Pharisees of Antioch into the world in which Jesus inhabited. (19)
The Gospel of Matthew is not the only New Testament source that has engendered anti-Jewish sentiment. Comparatively speaking, the Gospel of John is even more anti-semitic than any other Gospel. Despite its rebel as the "spiritual Gospel" because of its "uplifting and challenging" portrait of Jesus as the Divine Word, and its "overall Jewish 'feel,'" (20) this Gospel presents a very negative picture of Jews living in Palestine during the life of Jesus. Some examples of this representation of Jews are: it is claimed that the Jews wanted to persecute, and kill Jesus (Jn 5:16-18). because, he healed on the Sabbath anti equated himself to God; they do not follow anything in the Torah (Jn 7:19-24); they are potentially violent towards him when they take up stones to hurl at him (Jn 8:59 & 10:31); and they bear responsibility for Jesus' death because the chief priests and police shout out to Pilate who finds him innocent to "Crucify him! Crucify him!" (In 19:6) (21) Traditionally, Christians have interpreted these and other anti-Jewish rhetoric as evidence that virtually all Jews in the time of Jesus were against him and his followers and used this as an excuse to persecute for nearly two millennia. However, a contextual reading reveals that these negative representations, like those of the Gospel of Matthew highlighted above, are not an accurate reflection of Jesus' relationship with the Jewish leaders of his day; instead, they are a comment on the struggle between John's community and the local Jewish authorities who had recently being excluding Christians from some synagogues. (22) Thus, the Gospel of John can be considered a polemic and apologetic against a group of local Jews who "refuse[d] to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God" which presents Jesus and his followers as separate from "the Jews" (23) and Judaism, (24) not a manifesto to individually and collectively denigrate and persecute Jews.
Unfortunately, this historical-critical approach to the New Testament did not exist until the late seventeenth century, but even then the Catholic Church shunned it until Pope Plus XII in 1943 sparked a renewal of biblical studies with the encyclical, Divinio afflante Spiritu. (25) Consequently, distorted representations and beliefs about Jews stemming from the New Testament became a popular and durable component of Catholic theology from the classical era to the mid-twentieth century.
In the classical era, many prominent theologians and church leaders revealed their disdain for Jews and their religion by attacking "Judaisers" (26) and reiterating the charge that Jews were responsible for Jesus' death. For instance, in an attempt to counter Marcion's radical proposition to reject the Hebrew Scriptures as part of his wider campaign to distance Christianity from its Jewish roots, (27) church fathers such as Justine Martyr (100-165), Tertullian (160-225), and Origen (185-254) disclose their anti-semitism by, shifting the:
[r]everence for the Jewish tradition [found in the Hebrew scriptures] onto the Church while simultaneously demeaning the Jews as unworthy of the fruits of their own religion: because the Jews had rejected Jesus and the prophets, the entitlements of Judaism should now be transferred to Christianity. (28)
This demeaning theological depiction is also evident in the writings and speeches of Saints Melito of Sardis, Jerome (ca. 342-420), John Chrysostom (347-407), and Augustine of Hippo (354-440), who, in the name of apologetics, reveal their explicit distaste or hatred of Jews. In addition, the late second century bishop Melito of Sardis, who, fearing the prosperous Jewish community of Sardis which "undermined Christian claims to have replaced and perfected Judaism," was the first Christian to explicitly charge the Jews with "deicide." (29) In the Homily on the Passover, Melito of Sardis further demonstrates a prejudice against Jews with this interpretation of the "historical record":
Listen, as you tremble in the face of him on whose account the earth trembled. He who hung the earth in place is hanged. He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place. He who made all things fast is made fast on the tree. The Master is insulted. God is murdered. The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand. (30)
Approximately a century later, the renowned biblical scholar, St. Jerome, despite a personal relationship with a prominent rabbi similarly harbored a low opinion of Jews which p evident in the declaration, "If it is requisite to despise individuals, and the nation, so do I abhor the Jews an Inexpressible hate." (31)
Arguably two of the most influential classical Christian scholars and church leaders who harbored anti-semitic views were St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine of Hippo. St. John Chrysostom revealed his antipathy for Jews in his intemperate attacks against Jews and Judaisers expressed in his Eight Homilies against the Jews in 387. (32) For example, in Homily 1, Chrysostom describes the Jews as "pitiable and miserable" because they rejected "so many blessings from heaven." (33) He also supported the popular belief of deicide with the observation that Jews crucified "him whom the prophets had foretold." (34) Even more strikingly, he disparagingly claims that not only were Jews "dogs," (35) but incredulously they:
[s]acrificed their own sons and daughters to demons. They refused to recognize nature, they forgot the pangs, of birth, they trod underfoot the rearing of their children, they overturned from their foundations the laws of kingship, they became more savage than any wild beast. (36)
Despite the attempts of supporters to minimize their impact, (37) these attacks are unmistakably anti-semitic. A study of some of St. Augustine's works reveals that he shared a similar hatred for Jews. (38) According to Brackman, Augustine believed Jews were "filled with bitterness and gall like that they gave Jesus on the cross" and that the guilt for Jesus' death is an inherited trait. (39) While Augustine's "witness theory" (40) arguably qualifies this teaching, and thus seems to soften its impact, its ambivalent nature towards Jews became a "warrant for some Christians to express their attitudes in violent and inflammatory ways" and "encouraged inconsistency in subsequent church actions and policies." (41)
The consequences of the anti-semitic teachings of various church leaders and scholars, otherwise known as the "Adversus Judeos" tradition, (42) were highly damaging to Jewish-Christian relations in Europe. They were highly damaging because they formed the basis of the growing body of anti-Jewish law in the late antiquity that increasingly infringed on liberties Jews had enjoyed for hundreds of years within the Roman Empire, especially after Christianity was established as the official state religion in 380. (43) For instance, when the Theodosian Codes were instituted many church anti-Jewish proscriptions, such as the prohibition against the intermarriage between Jews and Christians, (44) were given an official status by the Roman state. Furthermore, when the Justinian Codes (or Corpus Juris Civilisus) came into force in 534, Jewish privileges were eroded even further. (45) As a result of the state's imprimatur of these church based anti-Jewish proscriptions, religious authorities could now more effectively promote their anti-semitic beliefs whereas previously they had to rely on a much less threatening moral authority to convince people of their purported merits. (46)
The passage of anti-Jewish laws in late antiquity greatly contributed to the spread and entrenchment of Christian anti-semitism in the emerging medieval society. While theologically there was more continuity than change in the church's negative attitude towards the Jews between these eras, (47) historical evidence strongly indicates Christian anti-semitism took on a more violent and hateful dimension. (48) Transparent examples of this successful spread and hardening of anti-semitic attitudes within Christian communities can be found in sixth- and seventh-century Spain. For instance after the Arian Visigothic King Reccared I (586-601) converted to Catholicism, the previously "peaceful" life enjoyed by Jews was soon undermined (49) when the third Council of Toledo (50) prohibited Jews and Christians from intermarrying, and prohibited Jews from holding public office or owning Christian servants. (51) A more extreme attack against Jews was made by King Sisebut who decreed in 613 that, "all Jews who refused compulsory baptism must leave Spain," which, reflecting the church's evermore ingrained anti-semitism, was lauded by the much admired Bishop Isidor of Seville as a "heroic deed." (52) Even compulsorily baptized Jews--who were often suspected of insincerity--were not immune From persecution. In 633, the fourth Council of Toledo declared these Jews were in bondage to the church thereby robbing them of even more dignity and freedom. It was not until the Arabs and Berbers invaded and conquered Spain in 711 that both Orthodox and compulsorily baptized Jews were spared from an increasingly oppressive anti-semitic milieu. (53)
The above examination of Jewish persecution in Spain clearly demonstrates that a significant segment of the Catholic Church was directly involved in fomenting anti-semitism and the violent persecution of Jews in the early medieval period. One church leader who greatly contributed to this spread of Christian anti-semitism in the medieval period was Agobard, archbishop of Lyon. According to Fredrick Leer, Agobard's anti-semitic prejudice was linked to a fear that because Christians could not match the Jews' missionary skills, the latter would become more influential and threaten the Carolingian Empire's Christian foundations. Agobard expressed this fear of Jewish improvement when he lambasted Emperor Louis for providing Imperial protection to the Jews in the letter De insolentia Judaeorum because tie claimed it "made the Jews insolent, so that they dared to abuse Christ quite openly." (54) The archbishop's anti-semitic worldview is also revealed in a pastoral letter he coauthored with two other bishops titled De judaicis Superstitionibus within which they demanded the prohibition on Christian and Jews from eating together and the immediate cessation of synagogue building. (55) Abogard justifies these discriminatory demands by arguing in this letter:
It is unworthy of our faith that a shadow should fall on the children of Light through their intercourse with the sons of Darkness. It is also unseemly that the Church of Christ, who should conduct immaculate and unblemished to her heavenly bridegroom, be defiled by contact with the unclean, senile and corrupt synagogue. It is strange to see the immaculate virgin, the promised Bride of Christ, seated at table with a whore. (56)
In addition, he describes Jews as "Sons of Devils" and instructs Christians to remember that, "the Jewish prophets themselves branded their race for all time as a sinful, useless race, as children of profligacy ... they are the descendants of the princes of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah." (57) Therefore, it is obvious Abogard and his supporters were in no doubt who was the church's and Christian Europe's major enemy--the Jews.
Bishop Abogard's transparent preudice towards Jews is only one of countless other historical examples of the church's keen support of Christian anti-semitism. One good example of this support was the inclusion during the ninth century of the anti-semitic petition Oremus er pro perfidis judaeis in the Good Friday prayer at the expense of the relatively benign, although patronizing, passage Pro Judaeis no flectant. (58) This petition along with similarly themed prayers and sermons were used in the church for centuries to propagate anti-semitic prejudice to the faithful and create a giant rift between Christian and Jewish communities. Evidence that this kind of preaching was successful in poisoning Christians' minds about Jews is starkly illustrated in the promise made by the leader of the First Crusade, Godfrey Bouillon, to "leave no single member of the Jewish race alive," (59) and the massacres and forced conversions of Jews in Rouen, Orlens, Limoges, Mainz, and Rome. (60) Also, the reason for the appalling massacre of tens of thousands of Jews in 1096 C.E. by unruly and fanatical Crusaders traveling through Europe--despite explicit orders from Emperor Henry IV to his knights not to attack Jews and the protection provided by some bishops--is inexplicable without the build-up of predujice and bitterness in Europe achieved by nearly one thousand years of anti-semitic teaching by the church. (61) Even Pope Callixtus II's (1119-1124) papal bull Sicut Judaies, which was an official attempt boll the church to curtail violence against Jews, (62) openly denigrated Jews for their "obstinacy" in remaining faithful to Judaism. (63)The evidence presented above strongly supports the thesis that there is a very close link between the spread of Christian anti-semitism in medieval Europe and Catholic Church tradition. However, there is evidence that religious prejudice was not the sole reason for this growing marginalization and persecutions of Jews by Christians throughout the Middle Ages. This essay will sup, port this argument by demonstrating how five historical developments from the Middle Ages indicate that race was also a factor, if only a small one, in the marginalization and persecution of Jews. These events include, the accusation of the ritual murder of St. William of Norwich (1144) and its link to the blood libel; the anti-Jewish cannons of the church's Fourth Lateran Council (1215); the anti-semitic preaching and boycotts against Jews led by the Franciscan order; and the virulent anti-semitic ravings of Martin Luther (1543).

The accusation of ritual murder, the blood libel, and charge of host desecration formed a potent nexus of calumnies against Jews commonly heard in medieval Europe. (64) The accusation of ritual murder was first recorded in 1144 and involved the myth that a group of local Jews in Norwich murdered a Christian child named William, an apprentice skinner, for the purpose of mocking Christ's crucifixion and acquiring Christian blood as a curative for hemorrhoids of which all Jews allegedly suffered from as punishment for Christ's death. (65) According to Thomas of Monmouth s biased account, (66) after a group of local Jews tricked William to go with them to a house, he was bound, tortured, stabbed, and fixed to a cross while rioting in a "spirit of malignity." (67) While no Jew was directly harmed-because of the murder, (68) ritual murder accusations and blood libels against Jews quickly spread to other areas in England and throughout Europe often resulting in cruel murders and massacres of Jews. (69) Also, a key element of this evidence was based on the belief that there was a secret worldwide Jewish network, which met every year to determine the place where the next ritual murder of a Christian child was to take place. This is an important observation because as Marc Saperstein, quoted by Carrol, explains, "earliest recorded account of Jewish ritual murder ... is embellished with the suggestion of an international Jewish conspiracy ..."--an idea which would become a key element of Nazi modern anti-semitism. Unsurprisingly, despite the Emperor Frederick II's and Pope's Innocent IV's rejection of the ritual murder allegations against Jews, (70) charges of ritual murder continued to be made into the twentieth century (71) and cults were even established to venerate some of its victims. (72)

The Fourth Lateran Council's (1215) anti-Jewish decrees are further evidence that Christian anti-semitism had a racial component. The anti-Jewish decrees required Jews to wear a special emblem to help prevent Christians from inadvertently mixing with them and restricted their movements during Holy Week. (73) While the second of these does have a clear connection to traditional religious prejudice, the first restriction suggests that influential people in the Catholic Church considered close or actual physical contact with Jews a threat to a Christian s health which is reminiscent of the biological character of modern anti-semitism. Also, Pope Innocent III's claim in the Lateran decrees that the Jews "unscrupulous use of money power ... had reversed the natural order--the free Christian had become the servant of the Jewish slave ..." [my emphasis] (74) also demonstrates that factors other than religion contributed to Christian anti-semitism in the second half of the Middle Ages. The Franciscan's organization of boycotts and creation of "piety funds to undercut the Jews and drive them out of business" in parts of Italy is further proof that Christian anti-semitism was not solely motivated by religious issues. (75) Likewise, Martin Luther's anti-semitic diatribe, The Jews and Their Lies of 1543, cannot be solely blamed on a religious prejudice against Jews. His advice to Christians is particularly baneful and it is difficult not to see parallels between it and future Nazi anti-semitic rhetoric. For instance, he recommends people, "set fire to their synagogues or schools ..." and proposes, "their houses also be razed and destroyed...." (76) According to lames Carol the ultimate aim of such measures was to make Germany juderein or free of Jews, (77) which history tells us was a major policy of Hitler's Nazi regime. (78) However, while this evidence demonstrates that Luther targeted Jews as a distinct group for ridicule and violence, his prejudice was largely based on supersessionist claims of religious superiority over Judaism as opposed to the racism of modern anti-semitism. The investigation of Christian anti-semitism's development from the New Testament era to the end of the Middle Ages ha-s presented compelling evidence that it was a key part of the Catholic Church's teaching and tradition. It also demonstrated that anti-Jewish hatred. and persecution could not be blamed solely on religious blot This essay intends to further strengthen these observations by examining t e role of the Catholic press in perpetuating anti-semitism during the second half of the nineteenth century. It is an important task because its results will challenge the notion propounded by the Catholic Church in the Vatican document, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shaoh, that there is no direct relationship between Christian and modern anti-semitism.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, newspapers and periodicals became an increasingly important medium for shaping Europe's public, opinion, for various reasons such as greater press freedoms and unproved literacy rates. (79) According to David I. Kertzer the Catholic Church hierarchy learned the value and power of the modern press during the notorious Edgardo Mortara affair (80) and thus almost certainly would have been encouraged by the rapidly growing numbers of Catholic periodicals and newspapers between 1870 and 1900. (81) Some prominent examples include: the Assumptionist religious order's French publication La Croix, the Vatican owned newspaper L'Osservatore romano, and the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica. (82) Even a. cursory study of their output of the late nineteenth century uniquivocally demonstrates they pursued anti-semitic agendas. For instance, La Croix, which has been described by the historian Stephen Wilson as "the most important mouthpiece of Catholic anti-semitism," (83) shamefully contributed to the poisonous political environment during the infamous Dreyfus Affair in France by publishing anti-semitic drivel. (84) However, while La Croix anti L'Osservatore romano (85) played a significant part in the spread of anti-semitism in the modern era, La Civilta Cattolica is more significant because of its close connection with the Vatican and its blatant propagation of both traditional and racial anti-semitism. (86)

La Civilta Cattolica's support for anti-semitism is readily apparent in many of its issues. In its early years of publication, this journal stereotyped "Israelites" as materialistic and often described them as "rough and inclined, to idolatry, immoral, and liable to pejury, murder, theft, adultery." (87) Furthermore, in an 1853 issue, it stated that the collective suffering of Jews for deicide was a fact,

And in conformity with Catholic dogma responsibility toward God is not limited to the person but extends to the family, to the city, to the people, to all humanity. It was because of the transgression of a single person that humanity was subjected to the infection of that guilt that we call original and to the weight of the punishment that follows it. The curse of Ham still afflicts his race, the descendants of the ancient Jews still bear the mark of the wrath of God carved on the forehead. (88)Moreover, as Jose David Lebovitch Dahl observes, in the 1850s La Civilta Cattolica described Judaism as a "false sect of superstition" which is "pernicious" because of its obscene" Talmud and, along with Freemasonry and spiritism, was an "act of the devil, against God." (89) Eventually, this singular hatred of Jews led one of its contributors to absurdly conclude that Jews were assisting "the devil's destruction of the church and Europe." (90) Also, the La Civilta Cattolica's polemical campaign against the Risorgimento (91) blurred the distinction between traditional and modern anti-semitism by describing its political enemies as the "Jewish-liberal party" and arguing that Jews should never have the same legal rights as Christians because they are an "essentially foreign" element whose membership in a disciplined and invincible international Jewish army or "republic" prevents them from assimilating and becoming "real European citizens." (92)

The penchant of La Civilta Cattolica for blurring this distinction between old and new forms of anti-semitism and more generally disseminating racist anti-semitism in Europe is particularly-evident after 1880. For example, Kertzer observes that the journal, "kicked off its long campaign against Jews in December 1880 with a series of thirty-six fiercely anti-semitic articles" in which, among other anti-semitic nonsense, it was recommended that governments introduce "exceptional laws for a race that is so exceptionally and profoundly perverse" for the benefit of their citizens' well being. (93) One of the most influential and perfervid anti-semites to contribute material to this journal was Father Giuseppe Oreglia di Stefano. In his contributions to La Civilta Cattolica, Father Oreglia leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that he hates Jews and laments the turn of events which allowed them to exercise the same political rights as other Italian citizens. Some common themes to appear in his anti-semitic creeds include: the Jews were happier when they lived in ghettoes, which allowed Christians to live more peaceful lives; Jews were prevented from becoming wealthy in the former papal lands through job restrictions so they would not be "too despised"; Jews were always regarded as foreign people "and [were] never considered to have the right of either native-born or naturalized citizens"; and it is imperative that special laws be introduced to curtail the Jews because "if this foreign race is left too free, it immediately becomes the persecutor, oppressor, tyrant, thief, and devastator of the countries where it lives" [my emphasis]. (94) The last of these themes is particularly significant-because Father Oreglia explicitly identifies and attacks Jews as a race rather than as a religious group. Oreglia makes this racial distinction even more clearly in this passage from an 1880 article:

Oh how wrong and deluded are those who think that Judaism is just a religion, a people, and a nation! While it is certain that others can be, for example, both Catholic and either Italian, French or English ... or Protestant and a member of whatever country or nation ... it is a great error to believe that the same is true of the Jews. For the Jews are not only Jews because of their religion ... they are Jews also and especially because of their race [my emphasis]. (95) When these thoughts are combined with his warning that secularized Jews who, as the principal nucleus of the ascendant sects, conspire to exterminate all of Christian society and dominate the universe, it is plain that La Civilta Cattolica made a significant contribution to the growth of modern anti-semitism. (96)

There can be little argument that the above analysis paints an insalubrious picture of the Catholic Church hierarchy's predisposition towards Jews and Judaism over nineteen hundred years of history. However, there is historical evidence which indicates that a far more tolerant and respectful attitude about Jews existed among at least some members of the church immediately before and during World War II. For instance, the encyclical Mit brenneder Sorge (1937) by Pius IX is invariably cited by defenders of the church's record in relation to Jews and the Nazis as a clear example of its true disposition about anti-semitism. (97) Jacques Adler's study of Vatican Radio broadcasts during World War II also reveals some convincing evidence that the church under the leadership of Pius XII did not support anti-semitism and the Nazi persecutions of Jews it inspired, therefore challenging the view that this pope committed a "sin of omission." (98) For example, although Pius XII did not explicitly refer to the Jews in his Christmas message to the College of Cardinals in 1942, Adler argues that the church's revulsion about Nazi atrocities against Jews was expressed on the Vatican radio directed towards France which had official church support. Specifically, he says that, "until the end of 1942 Vatican radio was allowed to express the church's opposition to Nazi ideology and conduct a campaign in defence of those persecuted for racial reasons." (99) Furthermore, Adler asserts that these broadcasts inspired Catholics to resist Nazi rule and protect Jews and other persecuted minorities. (100) Intriguingly, some church supporters are citing, the unpublished encyclical Humani Genris Unitas (The Unity of the Human Race) written in September 1938 on the instructions of Pius XI as further evidence of the Vatican's deep concerns about Nazi racist ideology and the persecutions of Jews. (101) In summary, it is plausible to suggest that the Catholic Church and in particular Pius XII was not as silent about Jewish persecution as many church critics maintain. Nevertheless, questions remain--were these efforts enough? Did the church hierarchy do enough to stop Nazi persecution of Jews and curtail the anti-semitism that evidently sustained it?

continued next page

How Israel applied pilpul to Camp David

Israel Boonswoggles US at Camp David -- and Before, and Since

by Scott McConnell on March 6, 2011

(see esp. Jeff Blankfort comment, below)




Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, left, and US national security adviser Zbig Brzezinski play chess at Camp David, 1978.

In the midst of the Egyptian revolution, a concerned Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet that the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace was “the cornerstone of peace and stability, not only between the two countries, but in the entire Middle East as well” –a pronouncement that soon made its way to the front page of the New York Times. While the peoples of Lebanon, Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank might well wonder how much peace and stability they got from the deal, Camp David did indeed usher in a golden age for Israel, which was freed to pursue aggressive policies without having to worry about the Arab world’s largest military.

How did this happen? A strategically-dominant Israel was not a goal of Jimmy Carter and the other Americans who negotiated the Camp David accords. Washington had been frightened by the 1973 war and hurt by the subsequent Arab oil embargo; strategists worried that continued turmoil in the region would allow the Soviet Union to make trouble with the West’s energy supplies. For the previous decade, the Beltway consensus held that Israel should give up the territory it had seized in the 1967 war in return for a comprehensive peace with its neighbors and security guarantees. The Palestinian leadership had been moving steadily towards acceptance of the two-state solution. Washington had sought a resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem, amplified by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, since Eisenhower’s time.

The Camp David Accords are thus a puzzle, because the results – which shaped the Middle East for a generation-- were so different from what its American sponsors intended. Unraveling the puzzle reveals the constraints on an American president in dealing with Israel. Indeed a principal lesson to be drawn from Power and Principle, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s memoir of his tenure as Carter’s national security adviser, and from his top Middle East aide William Quandt (in Peace Process) is that the Arabs should disabuse themselves of the idea that the United States will use its leverage over Israel to achieve a just peace.

The Camp David template governed the Mideast for thirty years. The Palestinians were stateless in 1979, and remain so. The Israel lobby displayed the muscle to define the limits of what an American president might plausibly achieve. This happened in an administration whose foreign policy principals believed that resolution of the Palestinian issue was an important strategic and moral interest, under a president who felt a warm personal connection to Anwar Sadat, which he did not feel towards Israel’s leaders.

One can see why intelligent people believed that the situation was more fluid. In Brzezinski’s account, central administration figures repeatedly broached the idea of breaking openly with Israel, and explaining to the American people their frustration with Israeli intransigence. And yet one senses this was never really a serious option. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin seemed to know this, as Netanyahu and his team do today. In the end, Begin played the administration perfectly — exploiting its yearning for a diplomatic “success,” maneuvering towards a separate peace that severed Egypt from the issue of Palestine, giving Israel a free hand to colonize the West Bank, annex the Golan Heights, and launch several wars against Lebanon.

No one can blame the consequences of Camp David on a lack of commitment on the part of Jimmy Carter and his foreign policy team. Secretary of State Cy Vance and Brzezinski differed over how to deal with the Soviet Union, but both believed a comprehensive Middle East settlement, which included a Palestinian homeland, was an American vital interest. Their staffs shared the conviction. The president was wholly on board. A devout Christian, Carter felt some emotional tie to Israel as “the land of the Bible” and was put off by the disdain some world leaders, such as French president Giscard D’Estaing, felt towards the Jewish state. But he felt strongly that Palestinians were victims of injustice.

Early in his presidency, in a 1977 March town meeting, Carter said, “there has to be a homeland provided for the Palestinian refugees who have suffered for many, many years.” Brzezinski recognized instantly that the comment would set off a political storm and records that “Vance and I huddled on how best to handle this new development, but we received instructions. . . directly from Air Force One that no elaborations or clarifications were to be issued on the matter.” (Almost thirty years to the day after Carter’s evocation of Palestinian suffering, Barack Obama, in an Iowa campaign appearance, used the same verb to depict the Palestinian plight. Like Carter, he came under strident attack from Israel’s backers. While one could say that some things never change, there was one significant difference. Unlike Carter, Obama did subsequently “clarify” his remarks, claiming he meant that the Palestinians were suffering because of the failings of their leadership.)

Coming into office, the Carter adminstration’s plan was to prepare the ground for an international conference at Geneva, co-chaired by Washington and the Soviet Union. The administration knew that Israel would resist, but felt such objections could be overcome. Brzezinski records that he told Carter frequently that Israel would require “persuasion” adding “given the centrality of the U.S. pipeline to Israel’s survival, most Israelis instinctively would shrink back from overt defiance of the United States, provided they were convinced the United States means business.” (Italics in original).

But the window during such persuasion could be attempted was narrow. In a succinct summary of the Israel lobby’s strengths, Brzezinski observes, “The nature of American domestic politics was such that the President had the greatest leverage in his first year of office, less so in his second, and so forth. The more time he had for persuasion and for the subsequent progress toward peace to be manifest, the more opportunity he had to act. Friction with Israel made little sense in the third or fourth Presidential years, for such conflict would be adversely reflected in the mass media and in financial support for the Democratic Party.”

The administration’s chances of using the first year effectively grew slimmer when Israel’s Labor Party lost election to Menachem Begin’s Likud-led coalition in May 1977. Washington sensed a looming showdown with the hawkish Begin. Brzezinski pressed for more administration voices speak out on the Middle East, and an initially reluctant vice president Mondale gave a speech calling for Israeli withdrawal to the lines and preparation of a Palestinian “entity”. House leader Tip O’Neill told Brzezinski that “if the choice came down between the President and the pro-Israel lobby, the country would clearly choose the President—but only if the choice was clearly posed.” Senator Abraham Ribicoff, a Jewish liberal wary of Begin, passed word through Walter Mondale that Carter needed to stand firm. Cy Vance passed on gossip from veteran Washington insider Sol Linowitz that the Jewish community had reached the conclusion that “if they pressed hard enough, the President will yield.” This apparently was the outcome of a meeting Carter had with Jewish leaders, in which he professed his commitment to Israel, while outlining his plans to push Tel Aviv towards a peace settlement.

By August, Carter, according to Brzezinski’s diary notes, “indicated his increasing frustration with the Israeli position and his unwillingness to maintain a policy in which in effect we are financing their conquests and they simply deny us in an intransigent fashion and generally make a mockery of our advice and preferences. He was extremely tough-minded on this subject and he was echoed by Vance, who suggested that if the Israelis open up a single more settlement, . . .we should initiate talks with the PLO.”

It is one thing to display tough-mindedness in a meeting with people who essentially agree with you. Carter might have survived a showdown with prominent American Jews over Israeli intransigence -- we will never know. Certainly many American Jews considered Begin’s stance reckless. But it is hard to imagine any American president, especially a Democrat, with the stomach for such a showdown.

In November 1977 Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, in a dramatic gesture, sought to break the logjam by going to Jerusalem. In his speech to the Knesset, Sadat made it clear that in return for peace, Israel would need to make a full withdrawal, and allow the Palestinians to build a state on the West Bank and Gaza. Perhaps Sadat, whose primary concern was recovery of Egypt’s own territory, had already decided he would settle for a separate peace. to settle for less. In the wake of Sadat’s Jerusalem speech, Begin came to Washington and Carter pressed him on the Palestinian issue. Begin floated a concept of Palestinian “autonomy” -- a vague formula which Brzezinski, sensing that it might be pregnant with possibilities, sought to tease out. Autonomy, Brezezinski said, could mean anything from a “Basutoland under Israeli control” to a way station on the path to real statehood.

The spring of 1978 was taken up by a conflict over American arms sales to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which Israel opposed. Brzezinski wrote, “during this period all of us were under severe attack from the Jewish lobby, and much time was consumed in meetings and explanations. These were rarely pleasant, even though the top Jewish leaders were more understanding of our need to develop ties with the more moderate Arab states.” Brzezinski complained sharply over dinner to Moshe Dayan about Israel’s efforts to block the arms sales, offering that the President would win a confrontation, and threatening to go public on Israel’s nuclear arsenal. In the end, the arms package, modified with more jets for Israel, did go through.

By the summer, whatever momentum had been generated by Sadat’s gesture had evaporated. The Carter team hoped to unveil a proposal bridging previous Egyptian and Israel positions, one that confirmed UN Resolution 242 (which called for Israel to withdraw form the conquered territory and the Arabs to make peace with Israel-- land for peace) got Israel out of the Sinai and advanced the Palestinians along a road to self-determination. “How are we prepared to deal with an Israeli rejection of our proposal?” Brzezinski asked Carter in a July memo. “Do we have the political strength to manage a prolonged strain in U.S.-Israeli relations? What kind of forces can we marshal and in what manner in order to prevail? These are the central questions, and they touch on both international and domestic sensitivities. Above all, you must decide whether at this stage you are prepared to see this matter through to the very end. . . if we go public and then do not prevail, our Middle East policy will be in shambles. . If we go 'public' we must prevail.”

Brzezinski’s questions were simply too much for the Carter administration—to answer them would require a kind of war gaming about how to neutralize an important part of the American establishment and vital part of the Democratic coalition. In any case, there no record that the administration ever explored them. Carter’s response was to suggest a summit meeting with Begin and Sadat, an historic gathering where Carter himself could overcome the deadlock. Going in, Brzezinski urged the administration to be prepared for failure, to make clear that “refusal to accept our proposals would jeopardize the U.S.-Israeli relationship.”

Invitations to Camp David were sent out in August 1978. The thirteen days in September were unusual by any standard of diplomacy: three leaders and their national security entourages isolated in a compound in the Maryland hills, with no press around. Carter worked like a man possessed, drafting original language for the document and engaging in nearly continuous meetings with Egyptian and Israeli officials in search of mutually acceptable formulations. For diversion, the Americans played a lot of tennis; Brzezinski played two games of chess with Menachem Begin.*

Israel approached the summit with a single goal. Even before Sadat’s peace gesture, Tel Aviv’s foreign ministry had been working on removing Egypt from the conflict by working out a separate peace. Such a deal was overwhelmingly in Israel’s interests—something Begin and government recognized even as they quibbled over every hilltop and settlement and timetable for implementing the withdrawal. But the haggling served a larger purpose, as Brzezinski aide William Quandt points out in his analysis of Camp David:

“Begin, more than any of the other negotiators, seemed to have a feel for the strategic use of time, taking the negotiations to the brink of collapse over secondary issues to avoid being pressed on key problems. Sadat, by contrast, simply refused to negotiate over those matters of deepest concern to him—Egyptian land and sovereignty—while leaving to his aides the unhappy task of trying to stand up to Begin on the Palestinian issue.. . Begin’s position was also strengthened by his willingness to accept failure in the talks. Both Sadat and Carter were more committed to a positive outcome, and Begin could credibly use the threat of walking out, as he did, to extract concessions.”

At one point late in the negotiations, Sadat, frustrated by Begin’s refusal to give any ground on the West Bank, packed his bags and prepared to leave. Carter rushed to the Sadat cabin to explain that his departure would mean the end of the American-Egyptian relationship—that the failure of negotiations would be put on Sadat. It was a revealing moment: despite the fact that Sadat’s positions were far closer to the White House’s own than Israel’s were, when push to came to shove, an American president could threaten Egypt, and did not hesitate to do so. The same was not true for Israel.

Negotiations on the West Bank and Gaza did not come to a head until near the end of the fortnight. Before then, the Israelis persisted in arguing that the war of 1967 gave Israel the right to change frontiers. Begin refused to accept the applicability of UN Resolution 242 to the West Bank. As the Israeli set out his vision of the West Bank, outlining all the controls, veto rights and privileges he would retain for Israel, Carter exploded “What you want to do is to make the West Bank part of Israel. “ Vance seconded the President. Brzezinski added “This is profoundly sad—you really want to retain political control, vetoes, military governor, broad definition of public order. We thought you were willing to grant genuine self-government.” Moshe Dayan, ever the diplomat, responded “Professor Brzezinski, we are not after political control. If it looks that way to you, we will look at it again.” A breakdown was averted. Carter went back to redrafting, focusing on the idea that the Israeli proposal for home rule would be worked into a five year transitional period. On the seventh day of the negotiations, the Israelis were still objecting to any drafting which highlighted the words “inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war.” Dayan told Vance that the summit would end in failure, and Carter’s intransigence would be blamed.

But on September 16th, the eleventh day at Camp David hills, the key compromise, actually an American concession, emerged. According to Bill Quandt’s account, it was then that the American draft pertaining to Gaza and the West Bank was fundamentally changed. “The elements of 242, including withdrawal, which had previously been spelled out were deleted. The language was changed to make it clear that the negotiations, but not necessarily the results of the negotiations, would be based on the principles of 242. And the negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza were artfully obfuscated by creating two tracks, one involving peace-treaty negotiations between Israel and Jordan and the other involving talks between Israel and representatives of the Palestinians.” Quandt concluded, “It may take a lawyer to explain how, but Begin successfully protected his position that 242 did not apply to negotiations over the West Bank’s future, the Americans accepted the ambiguity, and Sadat may well have wondered what all the verbal gymnastics were about.”

To say the least, the ambiguity does not leap out from a simple reading of the Camp David Accords. The document does indeed make it seem that the West Bank negotiations are premised on 242, and set up a path towards Palestinian self-determination in some form. But unlike the more specific provisions over Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai, there is no explicit promise that the negotiations would actually lead anywhere. At least, Carter thought, he could help secure his preferred outcome by halting the West Bank settlement program which Begin had recently initiated. Carter, so he believed, elicited from Begin a promise to freeze the building of new settlements for the five-year duration of the Palestinian autonomy negotiations.

Carter promptly conveyed to Sadat the oral promise as he shuffled between the cabins of the two men. The Israelis promised him a letter the next day, affirming their promise. But the letter Israel delivered did no such thing. Instead it linked the settlement freeze to the duration of the Sinai negotiations, which were to be wrapped up in three months. Carter refused to accept the letter, and asked for another one. Quandt writes “alarm bells should have gone off, but so many other issues were on the agenda that day, especially a diversionary argument over Jerusalem which erupted in the afternoon, that both Carter and Vance continued to act if there had merely been a misunderstanding that would be cleared up as soon as Begin sent back a new draft.”

The Americans never did receive a letter confirming what Carter believed Begin had promised. But for the wider world, (except, significantly, the Arab world) Carter appeared to achieve what he wanted. As the summit ended, Brzezinski briefed the press. “There was an audible gasp when I announced the conditions of the Egyptian-Israeli agreement, particularly the point that the peace treaty would be signed in three months. The newspapermen could hardly believe it. The sense of excitement mounted steadily as the briefing went on I had trouble extricating myself. . . At ten thirty the President entered with Sadat and Begin, having landed a few minutes earlier by helicopter. There was thunderous applause as he announced the success. . . ”

Less than a week after this triumphant moment Carter and Brzezinski were worrying openly about what they had wrought. Begin immediately went on a media tour in the US, claiming Israel’s right to remain in the West Bank indefinitely and to continue building settlements. Brzezinski noted in his journal that Begin “is trying to create the impression that the only accord that really counts is the Israeli-Egyptian agreement. If he can get away with it, he will obtain a separate treaty and then the whole structure of peace in the Middle East will crumble.” But get away with it he did. Of course the peace did not crumble everywhere. Israel flourished. Begin and Ariel Sharon launched a bloody expedition into Lebanon in an effort to wipe out the PLO and Palestinian nationalism once and for all. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was reinforced by hundreds of thousands of colonizing settlers, and their accompanying road and checkpoint network. Muslim extremism, whose bitter fruit was tasted by America on 9/11, began to grow in the dank spaces of the Mubarak dictatorship, the only sort of Egyptian regime which could accept Camp David as guidepost of its regional strategy.

Less than two months after the Camp David framework was completed, (but before the final treaty was signed) Carter and foreign policy team were discussing the cable of ambassador to Israel Samuel Lewis, which told of increasingly firm Israeli demands for money and of Israeli stubbornness on the West Bank. Brzezinski records that he raised the question “of whether we should in fact be pushing so hard for an Israeli-Egyptian treaty if it is our intention to resolve also the West Bank issue. Once such a treaty is signed we will have less leverage.” Carter interjected that the Israelis don’t want to yield on the West Bank and Dayan has seized the PR initiative in terms of interpreting the negotiations to the public. Brzezinski writes “When I said that I thought the Israelis wanted essentially a separate peace, then U.S. payments, and finally a free hand in the West Bank, the President said that my remarks were brutally frank and perhaps oversimplistically stated. When I sarcastically responded ‘Thank You’ he looked at me very soberly and said ‘Yes, but I agree with you.’ ”

But of course, once committed to Camp David, Carter had little choice but to push to see it through. Honesty about the U.S.-Israel relationship was kept behind closed doors. Once the accord was finally signed the following March, Israel did withdraw from the Sinai. Predictably enough, the Palestinian autonomy talks went nowhere. Begin appointed his interior minister Yosef Burg of the National Religious Party to conduct them. Burg believed Israel’s right to the West Bank was embedded in scripture. The building of settlements accelerated. Moshe Dayan, who might have held a more forthcoming view of what autonomy for the Palestinians should mean, resigned from the government in protest. By then the Israeli cabinet was in the settlers’ hands. In the midst of the 1980 election campaign, Carter of course did nothing.

To recall this history is to recognize that so long as the Israel lobby is more powerful than the justice lobby, the United States is constitutionally incapable of being an honest broker in the Middle East. This unpalatable fact has asserted itself repeatedly, with Carter, Brzezinski and Vance, with George H.W. Bush and James Baker, and with Presidents Clinton and Obama. If a trend can be observed, it is that the United States has become even less able to stand up to Israel with each passing decade. And yet, looked at from a different perspective, the situation seems as fluid and subject to human agency as ever. If Israel’s influence over the American state (witness Obama’s repeated capitulations to Netanyahu) now seems decisive, its hold over the American societal imagination is far more tenuous than when Jimmy Carter entered the White House. Knowledge of the crime inflicted upon the people of Palestine may have grown fiftyfold in the past thirty years. At some point , there will have to be a recalibration, as American government begins to reflect these changing values. The tumult in the Arab world in the past month is a reminder, if one is needed, that no injustice need last forever.

*The Brzezinski-Begin relationship touches on the historically complex relationship between Polish Jewry and Poland’s Catholic elites. On Begin’s first visit to the United States as prime minister, before a bank of TV cameras, he approached Brzezinski and presented him some documents, found in a Jerusalem archive, bearing on his father’s activity as a Polish diplomat in Germany in the 1930’s, when he was engaged in saving Jewish lives. Brzezinski was “deeply touched by this gesture of human sensitivity, especially since it came in the wake of some of the personal attacks on me and on my role in seeking to promote a peace settlement in the Middle East.” ***
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comments on the legality of Israeli actions, from commenter Hostage:

Quandt concluded, “It may take a lawyer to explain how, but Begin successfully protected his position that 242 did not apply to negotiations over the West Bank’s future

The Security Council is unconditionally bound by peremptory norms of customary international law and the UN Charter. Article 13 of the UN Charter tasks the General Assembly with promoting the progressive codification of international law. It adopted GA resolution 686 (VII), “Ways And Means For Making The Evidence Of Customary International Law More Readily Available” and mandated that a répertoire of the practice of UN organs be prepared under the supervision of the Secretariat of the United Nations.

The official ‘Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council’ contains an analytical table of Security Council decisions (Chapter 8) for 1966-1968. It says that resolution 242 contains several “substantial measures that govern the final settlement” One is the UN Charter prohibition against the threat or use of force and here is another from the list starting on page 5:

“E. Provisions bearing on issues of substance including terms of settlement”
* “1. Enunciation or affirmation of principles governing settlement”
**”(a) Inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war,
Situation in the Middle East(II): Decision of 22 November 1967 (resolution 242 (1967)) preamble” link to un.org

Here is how one lawyer summed it up: “This is not difficult – from Security Council resolution 242 (1967) through to Security Council resolution 1515 (2003), the key underlying requirements have remained the same – that Israel is entitled to exist, to be recognized, and to security, and that the Palestinian people are entitled to their territory, to exercise self-determination, and to have their own State.” — Opinion of Judge Rosalyn Cohen Higgins in the 2004 ICJ Wall Case link to icj-cij.org

The Oslo Accords aim to implement resolution 242: “Article I: Aim of negotiations: The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority, the elected Council (the “Council”), for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for a transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a permanent settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). It is understood that the interim arrangements are an integral part of the whole peace process and that the negotiations on the permanent status will lead to the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). — Text of the 1993 Oslo Accords Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements link to news.bbc.co.uk

In the 2004 Wall case the Court concluded that Israel was illegally interfering with the exercise of the Palestinian (jus cogens) right of self-determination. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides in “Article 52 Coercion of a State by the threat or use of force: A treaty is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. Article 53 Treaties conflicting with a peremptory norm of general international law (“jus cogens”) A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law.” link to untreaty.un.org

So, the notion that Begin or anyone else can create loopholes in the applicable international law by engaging in semantic shenanigans is utter nonsense.

. . .

The key is that Israel later said expansion of Israeli settlements was agreed to be halted by only a 3 month pause. Carter et al too took their eyes from the prize, blinded at the moment over the lesser issues, while Begin did not. The other important thing is that a US president could change the status quo by simply taking a stand against Israel’s agenda–in public, and, also in public, telling the American people why. That is apparently beyond the strength of any past, present, or future US President although it is in the best interest of all concerned here and over there. This can only mean one thing, especially in light of the Arab Street revolt. Israel will take the US down with itself in WW3. Americans are oblivious.


The other important thing is that a US president could change the status quo by simply taking a stand against Israel’s agenda

§204 “Recognition and Maintaining Diplomatic Relations: Law of the United States”, in “The Restatement of the Law (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States” explains that under the Constitution of the United States the President has exclusive authority to recognize or not to recognize a foreign state or government and to recognize foreign sovereignty over territory. It also explains that the Supreme Court long ago affirmed the binding power of those determinations on the other branches of the government. That is the reason the US Embassy is still located in Tel Aviv despite the so-called Jerusalem Embassy Act.

That means President Truman’s authority to recognize the establishment of the State of Israel within the boundaries of the UN resolution of 29 November 1947 can not be legally challenged. It also means that a sympathetic President could stand up for the Palestinians and the State of Palestine and that neither the Congress nor AIPAC could prevent it.

the ultra-zionist retort:
Whatever Carter did, there would not have been a satisfactory solution to the Palestinian issue, first and foremost because the US did not recognize the PLO. What leadership would have implemented any agreement on the side of the Palestinians? Since the US would not have demanded the right of return either, which Palestinian would have agreed to such an arrangement anyway?

But let’ say, a miracle would have happened in Camp David and in parallel to peace with Egypt something like the Oslo Accords would also have been negotiated. How would that have made the Palestinian situation better? Very likely events on the ground would have followed the same path.

The moment Sadat went to Jerusalem and committed himself to peace, he knew the Palestinian issue was just grandstanding on his part so as not to look a sellout to the Arab cause. Sadat was not especially fond of Arafat to say the least. Begin of course knew this and took full advantage.

Begin did not negotiate from a position of strength because of the lobby. He negotiated from a position of strength because he knew Sadat was eager to make a deal on the Sinai, he knew Carter wanted an achievement under his belt and probably just as important, Begin was an ideologue. Anyone that denies this about Begin does not understand him. Begin would rather die than give up the West Bank. Absolutely nothing that the US could have done would have caused him to change his mind. In the worst case scenario he would have simply resigned and gone to another election forcing Labor to campaign under the slogan of giving up to US pressure.


What a sad story. Begin and his successors have always had the measure of the West, the West never having the measure of them. We keep thinking that flexibility over the Palestinians would be in Israel’s interests as we conceive them. What I think we don’t understand that it is extremely difficult, perhaps utterly impossible, for someone whose interests are utterly tied up with Zionist beliefs to make an agreement which concedes to non-Jewish people exactly what Zionism says they cannot have or that God has forbidden, ie a place in Palestine by right rather than by privilege.
________________

Begin and Sadat killed soon after
“. In Brzezinski’s account, central administration figures repeatedly broached the idea of breaking openly with Israel, and explaining to the American people their frustration with Israeli intransigence. And yet one senses this was never really a serious option. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin seemed to know this, as Netanyahu and his team do today.”

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Begin was quite the terrorist.
link to en.wikipedia.org

Clear that Israeli’s have always wanted the West Bank and the illegal settlements continue to expand. The deal with Egypt and the Accord gave cover to the illegal expansion. I believe the only time an American President was willing to cut off aid to Israel if they continued to expand the illegal settlements was Bush 41.
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“Israel approached the summit with a single goal. Even before Sadat’s peace gesture, Tel Aviv’s foreign ministry had been working on removing Egypt from the conflict by working out a separate peace. Such a deal was overwhelmingly in Israel’s interests—something Begin and government recognized even as they quibbled over every hilltop and settlement and timetable for implementing the withdrawal. But the haggling served a larger purpose, as Brzezinski aide William Quandt points out in his analysis of Camp David:

“Begin, more than any of the other negotiators, seemed to have a feel for the strategic use of time, taking the negotiations to the brink of collapse over secondary issues to avoid being pressed on key problems. Sadat, by contrast, simply refused to negotiate over those matters of deepest concern to him—Egyptian land and sovereignty—while leaving to his aides the unhappy task of trying to stand up to Begin on the Palestinian issue.. . Begin’s position was also strengthened by his willingness to accept failure in the talks. Both Sadat and Carter were more committed to a positive outcome, and Begin could credibly use the threat of walking out, as he did, to extract concessions.”

AND THE MSM WOULD HAVE DUMPED THE FAILURE INTO SADAT AND CARTERS LAPS EVEN THOUGH BEGIN WAS NOT REALLY GOING TO DEAL
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“. The building of settlements accelerated. Moshe Dayan, who might have held a more forthcoming view of what autonomy for the Palestinians should mean, resigned from the government in protest. By then the Israeli cabinet was in the settlers’ hands. In the midst of the 1980 election campaign, Carter of course did nothing.”

Moshe Dayan resigned in “protest” of settlements.

Dayan is an interesting figure, even as a hawk. I was relying on Avi Shlaim’s “The Iron Wall” which says “Begin preferred Burg to Dayan, because Dayan wanted the autonomy talks to proceed and had some imaginative ideas on how to carry them forward. . . the last straw for Dayan was the government’s decision to expropriate private land on the West Bank to make room for new settlements by the religious settlements of Gush Emunim.. . .Disagreement with the official line on autonomy and the manner in which the negotiations were being conducted was given as the reason for the resignation.”

editor comments: Yoram Peri has something to say about the military's "original sin" in failing to repulse settlements in 1975:

A Question of Survival: Civil-Military Relations in Israel Avner Yaniv

The May 1989 issue of Politika, a Hebrew language monthly of some consequence, bore the title, “ . . .”Wither the Army?” It carried articles by 13 leading scholars, officers, and analysts whose common denominator was a concerned and often rather critical reappraisal of the state of Israel’s national security effort. Most ot the contributions dealt in one way or another with IDF doctrine, with critical changes in the emerging battlefield, with the still painful question of national intelligence estimates, and with the impact of the Palestinians uprising on Israel’s ability to deter an all-out Arab attack.
Only one article was devoted to the the issue of civil-miolitary relations in the circumstances of the late 1980s. Titled “Who Will Remove the Occupied Territories from the IDF,” the piece offered a gloomy and pained evaluation of the impact of the confrontation with civilians in the occupied territories on the morale and self-image of the IDF. So far, the author argued, the traditional harmony between the Minister of Defense on the one hand and the Chief of Staff and the General Staff on the other hand has survived intact. But, with the intensification of the political debate over the future of the occupied territories, the IDF is increasingly pushed by reckless politicians into a defensive mind-set. Accused by the extreme right of political partiality (because of its persistent opinion that the uprising cannot be quelled by military means and requires a political settlement based on some redress to the grievances of the Palestinians), the IDF High Command is increasingly entangled in a public debate. This, according to Yoram Peri, the author of the article, could undermine the IDF’s long-established instrumental role, turn it into an active actor in a most divisive political

From, Pacific Focus, Vol IV, No 2 (Fall 1989) 49-73 c 1989 by the Center for International Studies, Inha University

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1976-5118.1989.tb00071.x/abstract

As a former decent but not great tournament chess player, I’m very curious about the level. Zbig writes that when they first played, Begin claimed he hadn’t played since the NKVD interrupted him in order to arrest him in 194o. But then it turns out Mrs. Begin walked in the room while they were playing and said “Menachem just loves to play chess!”

AS USUAL, INFORMATIVE COMMENT FROM
Jeffrey Blankfort March 6, 2011

A superior and important recounting by Scott of the events that led to Camp David and, unfortunately, one that has been avoided by those who in their simplistic analysis, would have us believe Camp David went just the way Washington wanted. That requires, of course, the discounting of the power of Israel and its domestic lobby over US policy.

What should be added is that, before the treaty was actually signed, Israel, using the excuse of a PLO attack, invaded Lebanon, (the real first Israeli War on Lebanon which has been conveniently forgotten here but not there) which may have been as much a test to see what Egypt would do as to wipe out the Palestinians in Southern Lebanon. If Egypt would have responded in the defense of the Lebanese, that would have provided Begin with an excuse to cancel the agreement which he was not as eager to see completed as was Sadat as McConnell’s text indicates. Sadat’s failure to act or even break off the talks in solidarity with the Lebanese did not go unnoticed in the region and marked him as a traitor to the pan-Arab cause.

After Israel had occupied Southern Lebanon for three months, Carter warned Begin that if Israeli troops were not withdrawn Israel would face the suspension of US aid. In his book “The Blood of Abraham,” Carter describes what happened:

“As president, I considered this major invasion to be an over reaction to the PLO attack, a serious threat to peace in the region, and perhaps part of a design to establish a permanent Israeli presence in southern Lebanon. Also, such use of American weapons including cluster bombs violated the legal agreement between the United States and Israel, which specified that such armaments sold by us could be used only for defensive purposes against an attack on Israel.

“In spite of my expressions of concern and worldwide outcry, Begin seemed determined to keep his forces in Lebanon for an extended period and – in another direct violation of American law — to transfer American weapons, including artillery and armored vehicles, to the Lebanese militia commanded by Major Saad Haddad. These troops had been trained and supported by the Israelis, in order to seal off the southern portion of the country against Palestinian terrorists. In carrying out this assignment, they also prevented Lebanese regular troops and UN peacekeeping forces from entering the area.

“After consulting with Secretary Cyrus Vance and with key supporters of Israel in congress, I decided that we could not permit the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon to continue. In the event that Begin would not accede to our wishes, we prepared to notify Congress, as required by law, that US weapons were being used illegally in Lebanon, which would have automatically cut off all military aid to Israel. Also, I instructed the state department to prepare a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s action.

“The American consul general in Jerusalem was instructed to deliver a message to Prime Minister Begin that explained these plans and urged that he withdraw his forces. The report came back from Jerusalem that Begin read the message, stood quietly for a few moments, and then said, “Its over.”

In the end, the American Jewish community did not reward Carter for securing Camp David, which the Zionist establishment opposed because it did not want to see Israel give up the Sinai; it would not forgive him for suggesting that the whole Israel-Arab issue be settled at a peace conference in Geneva, and it did not forgive him for threatening Begin with a cut-off in aid. Consequently, in 1980, running against Reagan, he only received 48% of the Jewish vote, the lowest percentage since they started keeping such statistics.

That warning to Begin is yet another very important historical item that has been buried or ignored by those who downplay the influence of The Lobby and doggedly insist that Israel is supported because it is a US “strategic asset” when, if reality, it has lone been the other way around

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***see future item: Vatican's "Reflection on the Shoah" http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_16031998_shoah_en.html

also, find article describing Vatican's "bad antisemitism" and "good antisemitism." "Bad" = "Jews killed Christ." Church has abjured that meme; in remarks regarding his book on Jews & Capitalism, Abe Foxman answered a question about Catholic church's movement on "supercession" problem. Jewish people get all worked up that Catholic church has taken control of god/salvation, etc. Sometime in the last days of Feb 2011, Benedict did make some statement about Church's acknowledgement that Jews did NOT kill Jesus; I guess that called mollifying. sheesh. Now, can Jews admit that they are killing Palestinians, and stop doing so?

and a Jewish response and remonstrance to "Reflections:" Antisemitism, Christianity, and the Catholic Church: Origins, Consequences, and responses.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3244/is_2_47/ai_n29191611/pg_6/?tag=content;col1





There is nothing that can ever satisfy Jewish Israelis other than fulfillment of the declaration that is carved across the door of their synagogues: Shema Yisrael (or Sh'ma Yisrael or just Shema) (Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל‎; "Hear, [O] Israel") are the first two words of a section of the Torah (Hebrew Bible) that is a centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. The first verse encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one," found in Deuteronomy 6:4 The tenth and eleventh verses encapsulate the kleptocratic essence of Judaism:

10 And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land which He swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee--great and goodly cities, which thou didst not build,
יא וּבָתִּים מְלֵאִים כָּל-טוּב, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-מִלֵּאתָ, וּבֹרֹת חֲצוּבִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא-חָצַבְתָּ, כְּרָמִים וְזֵיתִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא-נָטָעְתָּ; וְאָכַלְתָּ, וְשָׂבָעְתָּ. 11 and houses full of all good things, which thou didst not fill, and cisterns hewn out, which thou didst not hew, vineyards and olive-trees, which thou didst not plant, and thou shalt eat and be satisfied--