Ya Baba

1. Catholics around the world were re-energized and emboldened to speak out on issues ranging from abortion to human rights in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem on May 11, 2009.

Irish Cathlolic O’reilly O’really had this to say: “The fact that the Pope did not get down on his knees in tears begging the Israelis for forgiveness for his having been born in Germany and didn’t give Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau a blow job has really lifted up our spirits here in Dublin” he said as he swizzled down another beer at Murphy’s pub.

Catholics in places as far away as Argentina echoed O’really’s sentiments. Juan Valdez, an unemployed laborer spoke with reporters at his home surrounded by his 15 children. “The fact that he stood up to international Zionism by refusing to kiss Knesset speaker Reuvin Rivlin’s ass on Israeli television has made me proud to be a Catholic again. I might even start going to a Catholic church. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Not surprisingly, many Israelis did not share this kind of enthusiasm concerning the Pope’s visit to Israel. In fact they were outraged at the following comments the Pope actually did make.

He said that the suffering of the Jews killed in World War II must “never be denied, belittled or forgotten.” He added

“They lost their lives, but they will never lose their names,” the Roman Catholic leader said in a quivering voice before clasping the hands of six Holocaust survivors at a haunting ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance. “These are indelibly etched in the hearts of their loved ones, their surviving fellow prisoners, and all those determined never to allow such an atrocity to disgrace mankind again.”

He went on to say:

“As we stand here in silence, their cry still echoes in our hearts,”

Wow. The tuyuur here in Mantiq al-Tayr were so inspired by this slap in the face to the racist Zionist Israeli government that we all went out and bought rosary beads and learned to say Hail Marys.  Unfortunately, you need opposable thumbs to use rosary beads properly, so we ended up making necklaces out of them and gave them to a home for stray cats. But again, I digress.

Not surprisingly, Israeli Jews were outraged at the Pope’s uppity behavior. Their anger was not even assuaged by the fact that a “haunting” ceremony right there at Yad Vashem as part of the Pope’s visit was held in which the Pope clasped the hands of six holocaust survivors and played rock-paper-scissors with them.  The Pope won and as a result was given the opportunity to continue giving boring speeches in Israel and the West Bank, which of course, is exactly what he then did.

Okay, I’m just kidding about the rock-paper-scissors thing. But he did get into the hand holding with the six holocaust survivors, each one symbolizing one million holocaust victims. You can read one version of that story here.  Of course, that version leaves out something. Not only did the Pope meet with the six survivors and with a “righteous gentile” (I think we are going to start referring to Alfred Lillianthal here as a “righteous Jew”) and hold hands and everything, but one of the six is indicted on corruption charges in the United States and had to turn in his US passport but was allowed out of the US for this special occasion. We hope he asked the Pope for forgiveness for this swindling of people in the United Sates and had to do some penance – maybe saying 1000 Hail Mary’s. We’ve still got some rosary beads left over if he needs them. His wife and children were allowed to go with him.  Did you even have to ask?

His name is Edward Mosberg.  According to this article he is only thought to have been engaged in bribery and fraud for TWENTY years and three others have already been convicted in the scheme.

This quote is from an absolute must read article about Mosberg.  “Mosberg remained overseas on Tuesday and was expected to return to the United States in about a week, his lawyer said.”

But once again, I digress.

Anyway, the Pope’s speech was not adequately suck-upy enough for the Israelis and he was pretty harshly criticized. Some of the comments made about the speech were pretty revealing. Howard Schneider, an obvious Islamofacist, wrote a negative article that appeared in the Jerusalem Washington New York Times Post and many other papers.

“The identity of the murderers went completely unmentioned,” Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who heads the Yad Vashem Council, said in the daily Maariv.

“With all due respect to the Holy See, we cannot ignore the burden he bears,” Israeli parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin said on Israel Radio. He added that Benedict spoke “as if he were a historian, someone looking in from the sidelines.”

Israeli critics said the German-born pope missed an opportunity to express regret for his country’s central role in the extermination of 6 million Jews.

“You were not asked to do something unprecedented or heroic. All that was required from you was a brief, authoritative and touching sentence. All you had to do was to express regret. That’s all we wanted to hear,” wrote Hanoch Daum, a columnist for the Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

Not surprisingly, that great Israeli humanist Tom Segev, the one who advocates war crimes against the people of Gaza, just had to put in his two shekels worth.

He attempts to smear the entire leadership of the entire Catholic Church because the Pope didn’t grovel enough to his satisfaction. Red highlights are mine.

There is nothing easier than expressing real horror when talking about the Holocaust, than identifying with its suffering, pain and grief. If that is not done, it is a sign that there was a deliberate decision not to do so.

Segev even hints to the reader that his own criticism of the Pope is bogus when he writes:

Benedict is aware of the historical responsibility that rests on his shoulders as both a German and a Christian. He supports annulling the statute of limitations on prosecuting Nazi criminals in Germany and has visited Yad Vashem once before. On more than one occasion, he has expressed empathy for Jews and for Israel.

But since the demand for total submission to the demands of the holocaust has become so ingrained in the Israeli body politic, Segev goes on to bitch and moan as if he just can’t help it.

But the word the pope used is significant because someone in the Holy See decided to write “were killed” instead of “murdered” or “destroyed.” The impression is that the cardinals argued among themselves over whether Israelis “deserve” for the pope to say “were murdered” and decided they only deserve “were killed.” It sounded petty. Even the recurring use of the term “tragedy” seemed like an attempt to avoid saying the real thing.

The verbal stinginess Benedict displayed last night also diminishes the impact of anything he might say about Palestinian suffering. Had he said what he needed to on the Holocaust, he could have said more to condemn Israel’s systematic violation of the human rights of residents of the West Bank and Gaza.

The paragraph above is the real key. The holocaust, or rather slavish devotion to it at the expense of one’s dignity, is being used once again to ward off any criticism of the horrible crimes that continue to be committed by Israelis against the Palestinian people.  Unless you worship at the holocaust alter, you can’t say a word about the evil that is being perpetrated upon the Palestinians by the likes of guys like Segev – who no doubt sees himself as a good guy.

All this coming from a country that has an elected leader who advocates getting rid of the Palestinians and a foreign minister who is arguably even worse.

What’s a Pope to do?

2. The fact is that nothing can ever satisfy Israel’s lust for Holocaust worship so it wouldn’t have mattered what the Pope said; in the end the Tom Segevs of this world and the many who are far worse than he would still never be satiated and would continue to reject calls for true justice for the Palestinians. So there is no need for spiritual leaders, or anyone else, to grovel before the Holocaust in order to then be able to beg Israel to stop murdering Palestinians.  Sadly, there are few true spiritual leaders in this world and the Pope’s performances this past week highlight this fact in bold.

Therefore we here at Mantiq al-Tayr humbly offer the readers of this blog a text that the Pope might have read.

We are gathered today on this solemn occasion at Yad Vesham, a vital institution now four times its original size, in honor of those so brutally murdered and the millions more whose suffering can never be calculated but who managed to survive this terrible event, the Shoah, the Holocaust. All Catholics and no doubt all Christians around the world will never forget anything that they did or did not do that led to this horror.

We are also gathered here today to mourn the fact that out of the ashes of Europe at the end of World War II, the most horrible war ever fought on the face of the earth, the Holocaust emerged as a tool that for decades has been used to justify the very sorts of acts that we are gathered here today to condemn. The unspeakable horrors committed against European Jewry have given birth to further horrors in their own image. Unless we Christians and you Jews all acknowledge that we are fallen, that we are capable of and have committed and continue to commit horrible crimes against our fellow human beings, we are condemned to keep doing so forever more.

In that spirit, I call upon the people of Israel to cease their crimes against the Palestinian people, to withdraw from the lands they occupy and to live in peace with their Christian and Muslim neighbors, and to allow those displaced from their homes to return to them. I know this is hard, but it is time for us all to acknowledge that the Palestinians are as much a victim of the Holocaust as the Jews, for it is the Palestinians who have had to pay the price for generation upon generation of European anti-Semitism and imperialism. I call upon the entire world to participate in restoring the people of Palestine to health, we owe them more than we can ever repay and we owe it in the name of the Holocaust. The Catholic Church is prepared to do its part and I have ordered that it begin doing so immediately.

It is time for us all to come out of the shadows of hypocrisy, lying and deceit. Throughout the history of mankind we have only seen ourselves through a glass darkly, but now we must, as God is my witness, we must see one another face to face. I pledge to the rank and file of the Catholic Church and to the rest of mankind that this temporary custodian of the shoes of St. Peter will henceforth show you a more excellent way.

Ya Baba