The first thing to bear in mind is not only that Benedict is German. He was also in the Hitler`s youth and had he been a little older, perhaps in the SS.

Secondly, the world is repulsive to condemn the death of Jews. However, there were two girls only age 16 that got killed in Natania.

Thirdly, remember Jenin where there were supposed to be 1000`s of inocent palestininas killed but later videos showed that the dead were put on strechers and they somehow revived and went back to the line and were placed on strechers again and again and again.

Fourthly to kill an inocent Brazilian in the tube? Is that not against international law?


Seeems like Benedict was so new on the job that he missed a great oportunity to mend things after he made a big mistake. But, if its not a mistake then he will destroy the work that John XXIII and John Paul II made. Please stop the double standard. Dont come to Israel apologizing!

Remember that in the Holocaust jews were right and the rest of the world was wrong!

"If terror means using force to apply a polcy, then every state, every army, every military group is terrorist"

What a ridiculous definition of terror. Terrorism is the deliberate targeting of civilians to spread terror. i.e. blowing up buses, trains, pizza parlours etc...

The IDF never deliberately targets civilians. It does sometimes kill civilians, but thats due to the fact that the cowardly terrorists hide among them, and wear no identifying uniforms, both in clear contravention of the Geneva convention.

Retaliation against terrorism is legitimate. If the retaliation is pin pointed towards the suspects or organizers of terror by the Israeli Army, that is legitimate as well.

It is difficult to understand the reasoning of the Vatican in this case. If terror occurs against Israeli citizens, why is it against international law to retaliate? If the Palestinians are so concerned with international law, they should do more to prevent Palestinian terror occurring against innocent Israeli citizens.The Israeli Army would not retaliate.

Violence gives rise to violence. The Vatican did not condemn the killing of an innocent Brazilian electrician by the British Police because of suspicions that he was involved in the second underground London bombing attempt. It is unfortunate that accidents do occur in the pursuit of terrorists who take cover in the homes of innocent people.

Come on people, do you think we really need to care about the Vatican and their condemnations? Wasn`t this the same wonderful Vatican that shut up during the holocaust and then helped Nazis get to South America? The Vatican has never (and will never be) close to Israel - so what`s the fuss?

And please return the 7 branched Menorah you stole from the Temple in 70AD (and all the other stuff you took too) - Thanks!

It is unfortunate that the Vatican, legitimately seen by millions as a moral arbiter and source of spiritual guidance, would imply that terrorism against Israelis is less condemnable than terrorism against other nations. It is even worse for the Holy See to belligerently legitimize what might have been considered an inadvertent oversight.

On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Ministry official Nimrod Barkan criticized the Vatican for condemning terrorism in England, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq without condemning the suicide bombing in Netanya in which five Israelis were murdered.

Initially, the Vatican responded by claiming that the Netanya attack was not included because the Pope was only speaking of "recent" attacks.

But this was hardly convincing, given that the Netanya bombing occurred after the one in London, and took a larger human toll than the attack in Turkey.

On Friday, citing The Jerusalem Post article that had quoted Barkan by name, the Vatican issued a longer statement implicitly abandoning its first contention and raising even more problematic ones.

The Vatican, for starters, denied Barkan's observation that the previous pope had refrained from condemning terrorism against Israel, and that private Israeli protests against this policy had been to no avail. The statement rejected the notion of "the supposed silences of John Paul II on attacks against Israel in past years" and claimed that "John Paul II's declarations condemning all forms of terrorism were numerous and public."

To back this up, the Vatican issued a separate document demonstrating that the previous pope's "voice [had] been so often raised with force and passion" condemning terrorism against Israel. The list itself, however, only buttressed Israel's contention that the Vatican has been anything but forceful in condemning the slaughter of Israelis.

According to the Vatican's own list (unless there are others not included) there were only three condemnations of terrorism against Israel since 2000, and only one, in February 2004, that seems to refer to a specific terror attack, rather than generally encouraging both sides to eschew violence.

Now, perhaps for the first time in Friday's statement, the Vatican has provided the logic behind its decision, for example, not to specifically condemn attacks that Israelis remember well, such as against teenagers at the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv, or Pessah celebrants at the Park Hotel in Netanya.

"Not every attack could be followed by an immediate public condemnation. There are various reasons for this, among them the fact that attacks against Israel were sometimes followed by immediate Israeli reactions not always compatible with the norms of international law. It would, consequently, have been impossible to condemn the former and remain silent on the latter," the Vatican stated.

It is hard to overstate how shocking this logic is on a number of levels. First, the Vatican is making a clear moral equation between the murder of innocent Israeli civilians and Israel's attempts to fight terrorism. Second, it asserts the right to determine the legality of Israel's actions and to assume, a priori, that Israel's reaction to a terrorist attack will itself be illegal. Third, the Holy See ignores the possibility, as in the case of the most recent attack in Netanya and many others, that Israel may not retaliate at all.

If the Vatican sees terrorism as a legitimate tool in the Palestinian struggle against Israel, as the Arab world does when it calls terrorism against Israel "resistance," perhaps the pope should say so. If so, he will have to explain why terrorism against Israel is legitimate while terror against England, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq is not.