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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
German Bishops equate Israel's actions to Holocaust
2007-03-06
This morning we saw pictures of the Warsaw ghetto at Yad Vashem and this evening we are going to the Ramallah ghetto." Several hours earlier on Sunday you probably would not have heard German Bishop Gregor Maria Franz Hanke choose such a divisive analogy.

But then on Sunday morning he was still in Israel and the rhetoric was considerably different than the one elected by the German Bishops' Conference once they crossed over in to the Palestinian Authority on Sunday evening.

The visit of 27 members of the German Bishops' Conference to Israel included a historic first-time visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem as well as guided tours of sites holy to Christianity and meetings with Christian congregations in Israel and in the Palestinian Authority.

During their time in Israel the bishops uniformly made moderate and balanced statements, but once in the PA they provided German reporters accompanying them with a plethora of harsh proclamations against Israel. Their criticism received widespread coverage in the German media on Monday.

While crossing one of the checkpoints into East Jerusalem the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, told reporters: "This is something that is done to animals, not people." Meisner, a resident of eastern Germany, said that the fence reminded him of the Berlin Wall and that in his lifetime he did not believe he would see such a thing again. As the Berlin Wall was brought down so will this wall be brought down, he said, adding that the fence served no purpose.

The delegation's visit to Ramallah took place several hours after their visit to Yad Vashem and several of the bishops chose to equate the situation in the Palestinian Authority with the Holocaust.

"Cages in the image of ghettos," said the Bishop of Augsburg of the territories. Augsburg was once under the spiritual leadership of Pope Benedict XVI, who was Archbishop of the Munich-Freising Archdiocese and his brother Monsignor Georg Ratzinger still resides there.

"Israel has, of course, the right to exist, but this right cannot be realized in such a brutal manner," said Bishop Hanke, who later stated that he intends to amend this year's Easter message to German churches so as to include the delegation's political impressions from their visit to the territories and a demand to change the situation.
A suicide bomber in the middle of Sunday mass might help clear this idiocy from their minds.
Posted by:phil_b

#18  A clear case of lead deficiency.
Posted by: gromgoru   2007-03-06 18:15  

#17  I must be very unobservant. I don't believe that I ever saw an Israeli operated death camp when I was in Israel.

I bet you missed those concentration camps that Haliburton runs for transexuals in the deserts of Arizona, too. Thank God(dess)for Democratic Underground or we'd never hear about them, either!
Posted by: Secret Master   2007-03-06 17:45  

#16  When Israel starts killing 10,000 Palestinians a day for months on end, they can think about equating Israel's actions to the Holocaust.

During the height of the Intifada, Israel was killing 3 Palestinians a day.

I.e. It's not even close!

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al   2007-03-06 17:36  

#15  Nazi Germany did not have fences to keep people in, in fact the Nazi's had trouble keeping their military age men inside the recognized German borders. They were all over Europe and North Africa the buggers.

East Germany had walls.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2007-03-06 17:07  

#14  In Israel, the Paleos are pushed into what could be their own country, if they chose to keep it as their own country; but they refuse, and want to take over Israel and destroy the Israelis.

A simple comparison between the reasons for the walls/fences in Nazi Germany and Israel (i.e. keeping people in vs. out) should be all the logic needed to puncture such stupidity. Spiteful, self-induced delusion, alas, is not so easily punctured.
Posted by: xbalanke   2007-03-06 14:42  

#13  I must be very unobservant. I don't believe that I ever saw an Israeli operated death camp when I was in Israel. As further proof that the Israelis have not followed the German model, there doesn't seem to be a booming market in articles made from rendered Palestinians. This is just one more example of the devaluation of language by the left. Everyone they disagree with is a Nazi; everyone they agree with is a hero. They live in a world of complete reality distortion and like it that way. That is why Europe, for the most part, is irrelevant to the rest of the world, the mouldering corpse of a once great civilization.
Posted by: RWV   2007-03-06 13:17  

#12  ME too. But we don't meet with leftists and nazis.
Posted by: JFM   2007-03-06 11:45  

#11  Every German I've met has a deep, deep, sense of guilt over the Holocaust. A simple, public, HOW DARE YOU MAKE SUCH A COMPARISON would shame these Bishops far more than any logical arguement.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2007-03-06 11:18  

#10  ...and then there is the arab romanticism of the german anti-semitism and racist virtue.
Posted by: JohnQC   2007-03-06 11:00  

#9  German anti-semitism and romanticism of arab virtue. I read Mein Kampf - in translation admittedly - but this is all sounding strangely non-surprising.
Posted by: Excalibur   2007-03-06 10:51  

#8  "This is something that is done to animals, not people."

Or to people that act like animals. No offense to animals.
Posted by: SteveS   2007-03-06 09:51  

#7  This is a good example of the failure of critical thinking in the West. These guys should be forced to stay in Dachau for a month.

The alleged moral equivancy between suicide bombers at Passover Seders and anything the Israelis do is breathtaking.
Posted by: SR-71   2007-03-06 09:36  

#6  I will Godamn stick a boot so far up your ass jerk off germans...
Posted by: newc   2007-03-06 09:04  

#5  If I wanted to be really snarky, I could point out that the Germans, if anyone, should know what they're talking about with respect to holocausts.

(TGA, if you're still out there lurking, please don't take that personal.)
Posted by: Mike   2007-03-06 08:35  

#4  There is also a big difference in "concept". That is, in Germany and in the rest of Europe, the despised minority of Jews were pushed into ghettos and kept apart from the rest of society.

In Israel, the Paleos are pushed into what could be their own country, if they chose to keep it as their own country; but they refuse, and want to take over Israel and destroy the Israelis.

What, the Israelis could coyly say to the Germans, would the Germans do if the Jews had violently tried to take over all of Germany and drive out the Germans?
Posted by: Anonymoose   2007-03-06 08:09  

#3  Zhang, I'd like to be offended by that. But, all I can say is that it wouldn't have fixed em.
Posted by: exJAG   2007-03-06 06:26  

#2  Well, they are *Germans*. It's a pity our first deployable nukes were finished *after* the German defeat.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2007-03-06 06:13  

#1  Nazism chic: Absolute silence against the two genocides perpetrated in Sudan. Horror cries about imaginary israeli atrocities => Joooooos are eeeeeevil => We can hate them (and by Arabs intermediary) wish them exterminated without being called Nazis.

I have called it Nazism chic but in fact it is Nazism for cowards.
Posted by: JFM   2007-03-06 06:08  

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