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Perhaps he meant the British concentration camps from the Boer War.

While I am generally supporter of the State of Israel and the IDF, I do hate the overly sensitive nature people have about Nazi references, for example when you mention the modern holocaust of abortion.

The curious thing about making references to the Nazis and then (usually) backtracking is why it should happen at all. On another thread, (the one about the atheist bus) Portwyne asked what the motivation behind the use of the word 'probably' was; I would ask the same about these references to the Nazis.

From my point of view it would appear that the use of such a description is intended to describe, for whatever reason, a particular set of circumstances or people as being particularly abhorrent and severe. It is not my intention to try to determine whether or not this actually is the case, or if the Nazi reference is warranted or not, rather what interests me is the apparent need to describe another group, one which I do not belong to, as something which is other than civilized, and in the process to disassociate oneself with what is unacceptable. It is, it seems, a way of saying, "This I am not. It is you, the other, who is guilty."

For a good few months now I have been dipping in and out of the book 'Exclusion and Embrace', by Miroslav Volf, a Croatian theologian who writes with firsthand experience of the Balkan war and his thesis is summarized in the following way,

"Life... presents us with a disturbing reality. Otherness, the simple fact of being different in some way, has come to be defined in and of itself as evil. Volf proposes the idea of embrace as a theological response to the problem of exclusion. Increasingly we see that exclusion has become the primary sin, skewing our perceptions of reality and causing us to react out of fear and anger to all those who are not within our (ever-narrowing) circle. In light of this, Christians must learn that salvation comes, not only as we are reconciled to God, and not only as we learn to live with one another, but as we take the dangerous and costly step of opening ourselves to the other, of enfolding him or her in the same embrace with which we have been enfolded by God."

Even, I suppose, (and maybe most especially) when the other really does fit the mould of 'Nazi.

It is an 'interesting' study on the themes of guilt, innocence, forgiveness and reconciliation.

No he did not mean the concentration camps of the Boer War. Rather the extermination camps of Nazi Occupied Poland.

Funny how the Vatican has such a short memory when it comes to the Holocaust. I exclude of course Monsignior Hugh O Flagherty who is the exception to the Vaticans failure to help the Jews.

Mind you considering that way back during the crusades Rome delighted in slaughtering Jews and Muslims I am not surprised that a Prince of the church has effectivly followed in the footsteps of the Bishop of Motherwell with a complete gaff.

Peter, fascinating comment, could not agree more. Another must-read book joins the ever-lengthening list.

I suspect part of the aim in identifying one side with the Nazis is to designate it bad guys so inferring that the other side must be good guys. In war, however, there are nogood guys: war is the very essence of evil and evil consumes all who engage in it.

The analogy is entirely inaccurate demonstrating that Cardinal Martino speaks from ignorance, emotion, and prejudice. There is nothing about Gaza or the West Bank which resembles a concentration camp except that the occupants can't freely leave. There are no Israeli soldiers there except during these rare and necessary incursions to beat, shoot, or work to death the Palistinians. The isolation in quarantine has come incrementally as the result of endless importation of arms to be used against the Israelis. Each small step was designed to thwart those attacks but none has been successful to date. Not with 6000 rockets being fired at Israel in the last couple of years since the 8000 settlers left Gaza.

Now if he had said it is beginning to resemble a cemetary where the occupants are becoming walking corpses, I think that would have been more accurate. Empty promises such as those the UN gave that Israel would not be attacked if it left Lebanon won't cut it anymore. Even inspectors from say the UN or EU may not be enough. But Hamas will not accept them anyway. If this goes on much longer and any of what's been reported in the news about the conditions there is true, I expect to see a very large number of Palis die suddenly and quickly. In reality they will have been consumed by their own hatred built on hearing and believing a lifetime of lies about Israel and Jews. Lies repeated endlessly on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ blog sites and even by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ itself.

Cardinal Martino has not eaten his words. Neither were those words taken from a Hammas crib-sheet. His Eminence has been/is in touch with Archbishop Fouad Twaal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and with Msgr Manuel Mussalm, the pastor the Church of the Holy Family, the only Latin Rite parish in Gaza.

Doubtless the Israeli authorities would earnestly desire to distract attention from the inhuman conditions in Gaza by picking a fight with the Vatican over Cardinal Martino's choice of words. But who is kidding who?

The Israelis have not only barred journalists from Gaza, after having agreed to provide passes for the Patriarch and two of his priests to enter Gaza to undergo a visitation of the parish of the Holy Family, they reneged on that pledge. Why? Because in both cases they did not wish independent witness of the conditions in Gaza and their genocidal attacks upon the population to be reported to the world outside.

The self-styled "righteousHolyknight" clearly knows nothing of the genuine historical reality of the Holy See's many actions in behalf of the Jews during the Second World War, which independent witnesses have said saved in excess of 850,000 lives, if he believes that Msgr O'Flaherty "was the exception to the Vatican's failure to help the Jews." There speaks a bigot and not someone interested in truth. A bit, when you think about it, like the Israeli government spokesman who criticised Cardinal Martino.

Gaza is not a concentration camp it is a concentration of terrorist activity!

The notion that Israeli highly trained armed forces are deliberately and specifically targetting innocent Palestinain civilians is absolutely ridiculous. Unfortunately it has always been the tactics of Hamas and Hezbollah extremists to fire their rockets from the centre of residential areas including hospitals and schools. The Israeli's have no option but to target these Hamas fighters and there will always be loss of life of innocent civilians -- and Israel will always lose the propaganda war!
This tragic confrontation, which has lasted for over sixty years, has been encouraged and promoted by a succession of corrupt Palestinian leadership.

What I don't understand about Martino is why he left out the part about the Jews being Christ killers. Sooner or later they always get around to that. Is he slipping or is anti-semitism becoming more sophisticated these days?

Marcus - I often support the State of Israel in these debates and think the analogy probably way off, though to be honest, like most people here I've never been to Gaza - but you are being a little unfair in suggesting that everyone who opposes Isreal is anti-semitic.

SmasherLagru;

"Marcus ... you are being a little unfair in suggesting that everyone who opposes Isreal is anti-semitic."

Am I? Israel is the one place in the world where Jews can go and feel they will not be the object of pogroms, discrimination, and genocide. Europe certainly cannot claim to be that given its long sordid history. Anti semitism even existed in much of America until relatively recently. Yet those who oppose what Israel does to defend itself would deny Jews the one sure refuge they have in this world. No you are wrong. Those who bash Israel's remarkably restrained efforts to defend itself and its citizens are out and out anti semites looking for cover to hide their real feelings. In American law, the test of criminality is that one knew or should have known that a crime was being committed. This then villifies everyone in Europe alive during the Nazi era because they really did know. There is no plausible deniability. Jews have had a hard time just recovering stolen art work and stolen bank accounts taken during the Nazi era yet they scream about Palestinian land. Look up Robert Morgenthau's efforts as Attorney General of New York State to force Swiss banks to return stolen money to the survivors of Nazi death camps and their families. When it comes to whatever Isreal feels it must do to defend itself and its citizens, Europeans would do well to just shut up. They have nothing to say about it. They are every bit as guilty as the Arabs and the Nazis. It is not Europe's fight.

Marcus, your powers of over-simplification seemingly know no bounds (and make you sound ever more ridiculous in the process). Keep it up.

paulcrossleyiii

Me oversimplify? No it is your kind who obfuscate.

My 'kind'?

MarcusAureleusII states: "What I don't understand about Martino is why he left out the part about the Jews being Christ killers. Sooner or later they always get around to that. Is he slipping or is anti-semitism becoming more sophisticated these days?"

Sooner or later this seriously troubled young man - copy and read the entirity of his contribution here and show it to any competent psychoanalyst and a diagnosis of paranoia is inevitable -must get round to realising that Rudlpf Hochhuth was NOT a reputable historian nor, even, an objective playwright/commentator.

The prayer in the Tridentine Latin Mass, as translated from Latin into English, suffers from a common problem: trying to express the sentiment as conceived in one language when uttering it in another is very, very difficult. Thus the "perfidious Jews" would be more accurately translated as something like "the Jews who have no faith in Christ".

It is, however, a helluvalong way to go from arguing the semantics of a prayer once used throughout the Catholic world to asserting that Catholics "always get around" to "Jews being Christ killers".

Marcus must really have come acvross some singularly unrepresentative Christians is all I can say. Apart from the fact that Cardinal Martino is no anti-Semite.

Hughie:

Don't argue with him. His views on the world outside America are mad, bad and dangerous. Actually, his views of America are also a travesty (I hope!).

hangemhighmcloughlin

Oh I think I have known a fair representation of Christians in my life and read about their fanciful escapades. The inqisition. The crusades and other religious wars. The moral justification of colonial subjugation, despotism under the devine right of kings. The moral justification of slavery. And what could serve as a better example of the Christian ethic than the 400 year history of Ireland in what is so sanitarily described as "the troubles." Just a minor spat between different Christian sects. And how apt that the Mafia don who puts out the contract to have one of his rivals murdered always sends the largest floral array to the funeral in full Christian regalia. Yes, I think I've known enough Christians of many sects throughout history to have a good understanding of who they are and what they are about. Protecting child molesting priests by moving them from one parish to another one step ahead of the law in the US is one of their latest high visibility activities, isn't it?

I'm not young as you've incorrectly concluded. I've been around this world long enough to see through many kinds of lies, religion not the least of them. You can't hide the truth about it from me and I am not intimidated by anyone. When you can't defend the undefendable, the hypocricy ridden facts which belie every claim to moral superiority you presume of yourself and your kind, then attack the person who exposes you. It's a weak ploy but what else can you do when you are desperate for lack of contradicting facts. BTW, how many starving children do you think the Pope's ring would feed if it were sold at auction in Sotheby's? You can be sure a man who wears a silk dress to work every day hasn't taken a vow of poverty and kept it.

Marcus, while I share some of your views on religion, your comments here only serve to highlight your need to hate the people of Europe (through, in this case, their majority religion).

That the leaders of one religion are prepared to highlight the plight of a people of another religion does not make them 'anti' a third religion, one might even say that it in fact demonstrates their enlightenment and distance from the actions of their ancestors (the separation of history from present is something you frequently forget in pursuit of a good Euro-bashing).

Far from being young, you must indeed be many centuries old to have known personally these historic figures, perhaps your extreme age explains the broken logic of your mind?

Well those are the views of my 'kind'.

Marcus - congratulations - you've managed to unite the full spectrum of people from mad dog reactionary Catholics who support Israel to hipply loving secular humanists.

You are correct in asserting that the Pope hasn't taken a vow of poverty and kept it. As a diocesan priest he never took a vow of poverty. Quite what this has to do with the situtation in Gaza is unclear - as is the reason why you want to antagonise everyone who actually supports the State of Israel.

SL, if my words here cause people who read them to change their minds and not support Israel, their support wasn't worth a counterfeit nickel to begin with. Just like their support of NATO until they are called upon to fight in Afghanistan after it is the US which is attacked. I've concluded after a lifetime that most Europeans are ultimately congenital liars and hypocrites. I only post in places like this to create one single voice which stands in opposition to all of the lies and hypocricy which comes out of that wetched place from those wretched people.

paulcrossleyii, I don't "need" to hate anyone. It seems they make it almost impossible not to. The main difference between me and other Americans is that I am not deterred by being accused of being impolite or undiplomatic by repeating what many of us say about them among ourselves. You may not believe that. You may not want to believe that. You're better off believing what the majority of Europeans believe which is that most Americans don't think about Europe at all. And most of the time that is true. BTW, I know these "Christians" by historical accounts of them and by their own words. I do not apologize for not having any "charity."

Well Marcus, all I can say is I'll try and remember you in my prayers, because boy do you need them. But I won't engage with any further debate with you because you don't know.

I like the point you raise about Marcus being the unifying force, Smasher. And as we have not agreed an awful lot before, that makes the point even better.

SL and PK, I hope one of you is Protestant and the other Catholic. How nice it would be to know I helped bring peace to Christians living in Northern Ireland. Maybe I should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. OK, which of you has the bombs and which has the guns?

Peter, Smasher, it is indeed a happy day when people on both sides of a debate can unite, even if it is only in recognition of the odd, misguided comments of another. BTW am I being classed as a hippy?!
Poor old MAII seems to believe that all Europeans regard themselves as better than our US cousins and it's his job to put us right. The irony is that in doing so he generally makes at least one American sound rather inferior.

paulcrossleyiii, let me clear up at least one misconception....you are not our cousins. Perhaps for a few in blood but not in spirit. BTW, a lot of support for the IRA came from America. Anything that opposes the English crown can't be all bad.

So, my American cousins are not my cousins? Thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't aware you knew them personally and were thus familar with their 'spirit'.

I'm not sure what point your making regarding the IRA. Surely to you that was/is just a conflict between two European countries - one of which is generally slightly more EU-supportive than the other. Is your dislike of Ireland's pro-EU stance and lack of troops in Afghanistan/Iraq outweighed by the past ownership of your country by the UK? What a complex world you live in. It must be difficult to keep track of the relative hates.

paulcrossleyiii

Ahem, ahem...excuse me. Ireland's pro EU stand? It seems to me that just recently, the Irish voted down the Lisbon Treaty, that is the EU constitution in drag. Yes Ireland very much supported the EU when it was a net recipient of money. But, now that it would be a net donor, it doesn't feel nearly so predisposed to submit to Brussels. So much for unity. As with so much of the tyrannical EU bureaucratic dictatorship, Ireland will be forced to vote again and again until they get it right. All for one, one for all, and every country for itself. At least the Irish got to vote, more than you can say for the UK which voted for a trade ageement and consequently lost much of its sovereignty. But then what should one expect from a cobbled together nation run as an oligarcic dictatorship. When do the Scots get to vote for separation? Will Wales be next? It would just be England and NI then.

Excellent Marcy, we're all aware of the above (we do live here). But how about you answer the question for a change?

crosseyes

What didn't you understand about my answer? You may have cousins by blood living here but if they were born here, they do not see the world the way you do. They are not cousins in spirit. In a larger sense, Americans are not distant cousins of Europeans. Not by a long shot. We are an entirely differrent breed of people.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

uh-oh, looks like I upset Marcy. Hope he's ok.

Me upset by what anyone says on the internet. Don't be stupid crosseyes. However, if I ever considered for even a moment that any of my rich red American blood was in any way diluted by even ond drop of the ice water that flows through European veins, I'd find it most disturbing.

LOL LOL
OMGWTF

Is the most sensible reaction to a post like that.

"if I ever considered for even a moment that any of my rich red American blood was in any way diluted by even ond drop of the ice water that flows through European veins"

Has to be a contender for the most insane, paranoid, solipsist rant I've ever read on this blog.

What a lunatic...although he is good value entertainment.

:)

B_I, is that the best you can do? Thanks for proving my point. If we were at a pub together, this would be a great excuse to start a bar room brawl. Anyone for a game of darts? I mean the real thing, not with some stupid corkboard for a target :-) -> -> -> -> ->;-( Your turn!

Bernards_Insight, on the other thread you noted the name calling between Graham and myself. I assume you can outdo us on this thread? :)

Marcus, I'd forgotten just how ridiculous your comments could be. Thanks for reminding me.
The ice-water running through my European veins now feels rather stupid - not for communicating with you, but for seeking a lucid, consistent response.

crosseyes, you may have forgotten how rediculous my comments can be but I'll have you know I haven't forgotten how rediculous yours are, no not for one moment.

The brutal murder of 300 children and the wounding of 1200 more in Gaza by Israeli forces is a crime against humanity. According to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ reports tonight, many of them had been shot in the back and in the head.

Since 27th December, 13,000 people, half of them children, have been forced to flee their homes, now turned to rubble.

This appalling massacre and degradation of civilians is a tragedy for the Palestinians, but it also diminishes the Israelis in the eyes of much of the rest of the world.

Gaza resembles not so much a concentration camp as a wasteland.

Just seen the news about the bombing of the UN compound in Gaza and people fleeing in terror.
Shame on you, Israel. Shame on you. This is an outrage.

Brian

I thought this little piece of horror fiction might put the beeb's coverage into perspective. It's from the Washington Post. (Other columnists and reporters at the Post are attempting to provide a little more balance).

Moral Clarity in Gaza

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday January 2 2009




Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis - 6464 launched from Gaza in the past three years - deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage - or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb - will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.

For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians. The religion of Jew-murder and self-martyrdom is ubiquitous. And deeply perverse, such as the Hamas TV children's program in which an adorable live-action Palestinian Mickey Mouse is beaten to death by an Israeli (then replaced by his more militant cousin, Nahoul the Bee, who vows to continue on Mickey's path to martyrdom).

At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides. It's a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.

That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza -- peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.

What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza's Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base -- importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.

The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There's only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel's very existence.

Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world's opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire -- exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d'etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.

Israel's only response is to try to do what it failed to do after the Gaza withdrawal. The unpardonable strategic error of its architect, Ariel Sharon, was not the withdrawal itself but the failure to immediately establish a deterrence regime under which no violence would be tolerated after the removal of any and all Israeli presence - the ostensible justification for previous Palestinian attacks. Instead, Israel allowed unceasing rocket fire, implicitly acquiescing to a state of active war and indiscriminate terror.

Hamas's rejection of an extension of its often-violated six-month cease-fire (during which the rockets never stopped, just were less frequent) gave Israel a rare opportunity to establish the norm it should have insisted upon three years ago: no rockets, no mortar fire, no kidnapping, no acts of war. As the U.S. government has officially stated: a sustainable and enduring cease-fire. If this fighting ends with anything less than that, Israel will have lost yet another war. The question is whether Israel still retains the nerve -and the moral self-assurance - to win."

Some sanity from the same paper.

Oddly enough, this cannot be considered a Just War due to the huge asymmetry of resources available to the groups in conflict (so the amount of suffering will be massively disproportionate to the goods achieved), AND because Israel's goals are not achievable.

Conta Krauthammer, who seems to feel that we should just work out who the "goodies" and "baddies" are when evaluating a conflict.

Yee-haww!!!

GV

So you counsel against ever comparing a regime to Hitler's? For a reporter I'm surprised at the apparent lack of courage - are you saying that it's beyond even a possibilty that another Holocaust could happen? Did you miss the 20th century? Stalin, Pol Pot, the million or so in Rwanda at the hands of the Hutu etc etc. Let's hope there are a few journalists left who aren't to scared to ruffle some feathers when atrocities need to be confronted.

Dear William,

I study journalism in Brazil and now I am living in London.
The main reason I came is to research the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. I study public television.
Would you give me an e-mail interview, please?
I promess it will be short and clear.

Look foward to hearing from you.

Amanda Kamanchek