Despite four appeals from Israeli diplomats, the Vatican has declined to disclose details about the content of the agreement, senior official in Jerusalem says.
Ha’aretz
The Vatican has rebuffed Israeli requests to obtain the text of the agreement signed by the Holy See with the “State of Palestine” two weeks ago, a senior official in Jerusalem has told Haaretz. Despite four appeals from Israeli diplomats, the Vatican has declined to provide details about the content of the agreement, the official says.
The agreement was signed on June 26 in Vatican City in Rome. Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malaki signed on behalf of the Palestinians and Foreign Minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher signed on behalf of the Vatican. The agreement, which formalizes relations between the parties, entails official Vatican recognition of Palestine as a state. It contains eight addenda concerning the Catholic Church’s activity in “the State of Palestine.”
Immediately following the signing, Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing regret over the Holy See’s decision to recognize Palestine as a state, saying “This hasty step damages the prospects for advancing a peace agreement and harms the international effort to convince the PA to return to direct negotiations with Israel.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon added, “We also regret the one-sided texts in the agreement which ignore the historic rights of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and to the places holy to Judaism in Jerusalem. Israel cannot accept the unilateral determinations in the agreement which do not take into account Israel’s essential interests and the special historic status of the Jewish people in Jerusalem.”
After this initial public reaction, there were talks at the Foreign Ministry as to what could be done.
However, Israel has not seen a full copy of the treaty – just the three-page preface to it. This section emphasizes the Palestinians’ right to an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem on the basis of the 1967 lines that will live in peace and security alongside its neighbors.
In the Foreign Ministry discussions, there was particular concern regarding the addendum dealing with the status of the Christian holy places beyond the Green Line, especially in East Jerusalem – where there is Israeli sovereignty or military control. Another concern was that the treaty between the Vatican and the Palestinians contradicts a similar treaty that already exists between the Vatican and Israel.
One of the first decisions made was to send Israeli Ambassador Zion Evrony for talks with senior Vatican officials to obtain more information about the agreement. Evrony held three separate meetings with Vatican officials over the past two weeks and requested a full copy of the treaty to ascertain that it contains nothing that would violate the accords between the Vatican and Israel. Senior Foreign Ministry officials also met with the Vatican’s ambassador to Israel and made a similar request.
A senior Israeli official said that in all four instances, Vatican representatives turned down the Israeli requests, provided only general information about the agreement but would not supply a copy of the entire document.
“The people from the Catholic Church claimed that once the treaty was ratified by both the Vatican and the Palestinians it would become public and then we could receive a copy,” said the Israeli official. “They would not reply to any specific questions from us and simply repeated that we have nothing to worry about because the agreement with the Palestinians does not contradict the agreement with Israel.”
The senior Israeli official stressed that despite the reassurances from the Vatican representatives – or perhaps because of them – Jerusalem’s concerns about the content of the agreement have not been alleviated. In fact, the concerns have grown.
0 thoughts on “Vatican refuses to give Israel details of accord signed with Palestinians”
The media heat will now be turned up on the Vatican. Pudding Head Francis will learn his pandering to the Jews means nothing !
They never forgive, and never forget.
On the contrary, Dante. I think this plant in the media is meant to make him look “independent” and free of judeozionist pressure. Does his close friend, Rabbi Skorka (not sure that’s the right spelling) advise him on how to perform?
When Pope Benedict XVI met American Jewish leaders , one Vatican prelate was a notable absentee: Dario Castrillón Hoyos, the Colombian who spent years negotiating the return to the fold of excommunicated ultra-conservative Lefebvrist Catholics, including the now famous (or notorious) Bishop Richard Williamson, who denies the murder of millions of Jews in Nazi gas chambers.
The white-haired, mild-mannered Castrillón Hoyos has become the scapegoat for the debacle that followed. He turns 80 in July, they whisper in the Vatican, and he pushed the German Pope into rehabilitating the excommunicated bishops so that he could retire declaring “mission accomplished”.
But it won’t wash. No one pushes a Pope into anything, least of all this one. Few Popes have been as sure of themselves, or their mission, as the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, distinguished theologian and former “enforcer” of Vatican doctrine.
The Vatican says that the Pope was unware of Williamson’s views, and we must accept that. But as Salomon Korn, vice-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, remarked to Der Spiegel: “The Pope had to have known whom he was pardoning. After all, he’s a man of intelligence with profound knowledge.”
Holocaust bishop Richard Williamson defies Pope’s demand to change his views
The British bishop who questions the Holocaust has defied the Pope’s demand for him to recant his views.
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent, and Bojan Pancevski in Vienna
Last Updated: 4:29PM GMT 08 Feb 2009
Richard Williamson was told that he must renounce “in an absolutely unequivocal and public way” his claim that gas chambers were not used to exterminate Jews in the Second World War before he is fully readmitted to the Roman Catholic Church.
However, the cleric, who also believes between 200,000 and 300,000 rather than six million Jews were killed, is refusing to bow to pressure immediately to recant his views.
In an interview with a German magazine he said that he would have to “examine historic evidence” before considering rejecting his long-held beliefs.
“It is not about emotions but about historic evidence,” he said. “If I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time.
“I was convinced that my views were right on the basis of my own research from the 1980s. But now I see that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently and I therefore must look again at the historical evidence.”
There was worldwide anger after Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of Mr. Williamson and three other bishops from the ultraconservative sect of the Society of St Pius X, last month. In an attempt to limit the damage, Vatican officials persuaded the 81-year-old German Pontiff – who said he was previously unaware of Mr. Williamson’s views – to insist that Mr. Williamson recant before he is reinstated as a Catholic cleric.
Talking to Der Spiegel, Mr. Williamson added insult to injury by also criticising the Second Vatican Council – which revised the tenets of modern Roman Catholicism during the 1960s – as an event that has lead to “theological chaos”.
Vatican officials have now admitted that the move to rehabilitate the four breakaway bishops was a mistake caused by loss of governance at the centre of power.
A senior member of the curia claimed that there was a lack of consultation before the controversial decree was issued lifting the excommunication.
His comments have added to infighting that has broken out amongst the cardinals over who was ultimately responsible for the mistake.
It has left the Pope looking increasingly isolated, with some Vatican observers suggesting that he is personally culpable for the readmission of Mr Williamson. His decision has been attacked by Jewish leaders and raised questions over the failure to check Mr Williamson’s anti-semitic views, which were widely known before the excommunication was lifted.
The Rev Federico Lombardi, whose office at the Vatican originally announced the Pope’s decision in a simple statement on January 24, said they could have avoided the debacle if the affair had been better handled. He said that the order for Mr Williamson to recant should have been issued along with the announcement of the bans being lifted.
Rev Lombardi said the Vatican officials who dealt with the Society of Saint Pius X focused on the views of the group’s leader, Bishop Bernard Fellay, and not those of Mr Williamson or the others. “They didn’t take the views of the other bishops enough into account,” he said.
“One thing that’s certain is that the Pope didn’t know. If someone should have known, it was Cardinal [Dario] Castrillon Hoyos.”
In the blame game that has followed the disastrous move, the cardinal, who heads Ecclesia Dei – the Vatican department that deals with traditionalist Catholics – has claimed that he was never aware that Mr Williamson was a Holocaust denier.
Comments made by Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, suggest that the Pope made the decision after limited consultations.
“In the Vatican this topic was talked about too little among one another and it was never verified where the problems might emerge,” he said. “I would have hoped for more communication beforehand.”
Ariadnathio could he right. As Jew stooge FDR said, “Nothing happens by accident in politics”.
The Pope is such a Jew ass kisser, he needs to look ,’independent’, is some way.
Bibi needs to give that uppity guy a good talking to. Who does he think he is? He needs to understand Israelis (or as Bibi calls them, Jews). are G-d’s Chosen, and everybody else, Pope or not, is chopped liver.
Why is this Israel’s business? Do they fill the Pope in on how they obtained their undeclared, un-inspected nuclear arms program?
The media heat will now be turned up on the Vatican. Pudding Head Francis will learn his pandering to the Jews means nothing !
They never forgive, and never forget.
On the contrary, Dante. I think this plant in the media is meant to make him look “independent” and free of judeozionist pressure. Does his close friend, Rabbi Skorka (not sure that’s the right spelling) advise him on how to perform?
When Pope Benedict XVI met American Jewish leaders , one Vatican prelate was a notable absentee: Dario Castrillón Hoyos, the Colombian who spent years negotiating the return to the fold of excommunicated ultra-conservative Lefebvrist Catholics, including the now famous (or notorious) Bishop Richard Williamson, who denies the murder of millions of Jews in Nazi gas chambers.
The white-haired, mild-mannered Castrillón Hoyos has become the scapegoat for the debacle that followed. He turns 80 in July, they whisper in the Vatican, and he pushed the German Pope into rehabilitating the excommunicated bishops so that he could retire declaring “mission accomplished”.
But it won’t wash. No one pushes a Pope into anything, least of all this one. Few Popes have been as sure of themselves, or their mission, as the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, distinguished theologian and former “enforcer” of Vatican doctrine.
The Vatican says that the Pope was unware of Williamson’s views, and we must accept that. But as Salomon Korn, vice-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, remarked to Der Spiegel: “The Pope had to have known whom he was pardoning. After all, he’s a man of intelligence with profound knowledge.”
Holocaust bishop Richard Williamson defies Pope’s demand to change his views
The British bishop who questions the Holocaust has defied the Pope’s demand for him to recant his views.
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent, and Bojan Pancevski in Vienna
Last Updated: 4:29PM GMT 08 Feb 2009
Richard Williamson was told that he must renounce “in an absolutely unequivocal and public way” his claim that gas chambers were not used to exterminate Jews in the Second World War before he is fully readmitted to the Roman Catholic Church.
However, the cleric, who also believes between 200,000 and 300,000 rather than six million Jews were killed, is refusing to bow to pressure immediately to recant his views.
In an interview with a German magazine he said that he would have to “examine historic evidence” before considering rejecting his long-held beliefs.
“It is not about emotions but about historic evidence,” he said. “If I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time.
“I was convinced that my views were right on the basis of my own research from the 1980s. But now I see that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently and I therefore must look again at the historical evidence.”
There was worldwide anger after Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of Mr. Williamson and three other bishops from the ultraconservative sect of the Society of St Pius X, last month. In an attempt to limit the damage, Vatican officials persuaded the 81-year-old German Pontiff – who said he was previously unaware of Mr. Williamson’s views – to insist that Mr. Williamson recant before he is reinstated as a Catholic cleric.
Talking to Der Spiegel, Mr. Williamson added insult to injury by also criticising the Second Vatican Council – which revised the tenets of modern Roman Catholicism during the 1960s – as an event that has lead to “theological chaos”.
Vatican officials have now admitted that the move to rehabilitate the four breakaway bishops was a mistake caused by loss of governance at the centre of power.
A senior member of the curia claimed that there was a lack of consultation before the controversial decree was issued lifting the excommunication.
His comments have added to infighting that has broken out amongst the cardinals over who was ultimately responsible for the mistake.
It has left the Pope looking increasingly isolated, with some Vatican observers suggesting that he is personally culpable for the readmission of Mr Williamson. His decision has been attacked by Jewish leaders and raised questions over the failure to check Mr Williamson’s anti-semitic views, which were widely known before the excommunication was lifted.
The Rev Federico Lombardi, whose office at the Vatican originally announced the Pope’s decision in a simple statement on January 24, said they could have avoided the debacle if the affair had been better handled. He said that the order for Mr Williamson to recant should have been issued along with the announcement of the bans being lifted.
Rev Lombardi said the Vatican officials who dealt with the Society of Saint Pius X focused on the views of the group’s leader, Bishop Bernard Fellay, and not those of Mr Williamson or the others. “They didn’t take the views of the other bishops enough into account,” he said.
“One thing that’s certain is that the Pope didn’t know. If someone should have known, it was Cardinal [Dario] Castrillon Hoyos.”
In the blame game that has followed the disastrous move, the cardinal, who heads Ecclesia Dei – the Vatican department that deals with traditionalist Catholics – has claimed that he was never aware that Mr Williamson was a Holocaust denier.
Comments made by Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, suggest that the Pope made the decision after limited consultations.
“In the Vatican this topic was talked about too little among one another and it was never verified where the problems might emerge,” he said. “I would have hoped for more communication beforehand.”
Ariadnathio could he right. As Jew stooge FDR said, “Nothing happens by accident in politics”.
The Pope is such a Jew ass kisser, he needs to look ,’independent’, is some way.
Bibi needs to give that uppity guy a good talking to. Who does he think he is? He needs to understand Israelis (or as Bibi calls them, Jews). are G-d’s Chosen, and everybody else, Pope or not, is chopped liver.
Why is this Israel’s business? Do they fill the Pope in on how they obtained their undeclared, un-inspected nuclear arms program?