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Comments (3)Controversial World War II Pope Pius XII moved one step closer to sainthood.
The current pope, Benedict XVI, advanced the sainthood Saturday of Pius and the popular Pope John Paul IIby endorsing their “heroic virtues.”
Jews and other critics have accused Pius of having turned a blind eye to Jewish suffering in World War II. Benedict has said that Pius worked “secretly and silently” to help save Jews, according to The New York Times.
Another Vatican committee must ascertain that miracles attributed to them actually occurred before the two popes can be made saints.
“One day after the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz is desecrated, Holocaust survivors are shaken by the profoundly insensitive and thoughtless Vatican announcement advancing wartime Pope Pius XII on the path to sainthood,” said a statement issued by the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants. “Pairing the announcement on Pius—who remained publicly silent during the Holocaust—with that on John Paul II, himself a victim of the Nazis, is a particularly disturbing and callous act.”
American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris said that while the Vatican should determine its saints, “the Church’s repeated insistence that it seeks mutually respectful ties with the Jewish community also means taking our sensitivities into account on the Holocaust era.”
AJC has maintained that no steps should be taken toward the beatification of Pius XII until the Vatican’s secret archives on the World War II period are opened for objective scrutiny by scholars.
France Warns Satellite Provider on Hamas TV
A French government authority warned a satellite broadcaster that carrying the Hamas TV channel violates French law.
The Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, or CSA, which regulates the electronic media in France, warned Eutelsat that al-Aksa TV violates the 1986 French media law that “prohibits all forms of incitement to hatred or violence on the ground of race, religion or nationality,” according to a statement from the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which lobbies for the removal of terrorist-run broadcasters from satellite providers.
The Dec. 17 statement from the foundation’s Coalition Against Terrorist Media project said the formal CSA warning to Eutelsat was sent in November but was just published this week.
“This is an important victory against terrorist media,” said Mark Dubowitz, the foundation’s executive director. “If Eutelsat complies with this warning and removes al-Aksa television from broadcast, as we hope that it will, it will deal a severe blow to Hamas’ distribution efforts.”
Eutelsat and the Saudi-run Arabsat are the only satellite providers carrying al-Aksa, Hamas’ TV channel.
The Coalition Against Terrorist Media has led the campaign that removed Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV from all but three of 13 satellite providers worldwide.
Spain Says It Will Fight for Palestinian State at EU
Spain said it will make Palestinian statehood a priority during its presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2010.
“Of course I cannot guarantee that at the end of the year we will have a Palestinian state,” Miguel Moratinos, the Spanish foreign minister who will assume the EU presidency on Jan. 1, said last Friday at a Brussels news conference. “But we are going to fight for this final aspiration to become a reality.”
Moratinos was formerly a chief Middle East negotiator for the European Union.
The EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, plans a visit to the region in February to press the Israelis and Palestinians to resume talks.
Moratinos’ announcement came the same day that the Swedish-run EU presidency criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for including settlements in a priority spending budget despite the current settlement freeze.
Israeli officials were quoted by Israel Radio as saying that they regretted the EU statement and that Europe would do better to promote agreement rather than division between the parties.
Sydney Student Site Bans Anti-Semitic Group
A Sydney-based, student-run Web site banned a group of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel commenters.
The commenters posted their remarks on http://www.boredofstudies.org, a portal run by students for students who are sitting in their final year exams at school.
Deenu Rajaratnam, a spokesman for the organization that runs the Web site, told JTA that the entire group had been deleted last Friday.
“In no way do we endorse anything of that nature,” he said.
One of the threads began with a post about finding synagogues in Sydney and included a post explaining how to make a Molotov cocktail. On another thread, titled “F—- Israel”, one blogger wrote: “Yea bro, let’s f—-ing Holocaust them.” Another wrote: “Kill all da f——ing Jews. Hate every single one of them … hope Iran nukes them.” One student wrote that “the people of Israel are an infectious disease, a plague on the world” and urged supporters to “remove and execute the inhabitants.”
The bloggers who made the offensive comments had been banned from the site and moderators have been warned about permitting offensive material, Rajaratnam said.
“The most concerning aspect of this appalling material is that it was able to be published,” said Vic Alhadeff, CEO of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies.
Still, Alhadeff applauded the publishers “for acting responsibly and deleting this group. It is clear that vigilance is needed. All Internet publishers should exercise care to prevent such damaging material appearing on their sites and to remove it immediately if it appears.”