There’s Really Nothing New Under the Middle Eastern Sun
by: Schvach Yid

It appears that the Vatican’s number one man in the driver’s seat in ‘The Holy Land’, Archbishop Michel Sabbah, has announced that we Jews aren’t fit to have a Jewish State, especially Israel. He thinks it’s bigotry. Surprise!

Arutz Sheva quotes him as having said: (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/138424)
“If there’s a state of one religion, other religions are naturally discriminated against,” Sabbah said. Sabbah, a Palestinian Authority Arab, did not mention the PA’s definition of its areas as Arab and Muslim. He blamed Israel for the conflict with the PA and PA-based terrorist groups, saying, “If Israel decides for peace, there will be peace.”

Additionally, Arutz Sheva reports the padre as having said: “Sabbah told reporters that Israel must abandon its Jewish character in favor of a ‘normal state for Christians, Muslims, and Jews’.”

Batya Medad provides her opinion of this in her A7 blog at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/6#2482 , titled ‘What’s Good for the Goose…’, as does Nissan Ratzlav-Katz at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/1#2483

There seems to be plenty written by Yiddin about this one. Just do a search – there’s more.

So, what else is new? A Catholic cleric who just might be anti-Israel and anti-Jewish is nothing new. Take Martin Luther – please - who started out as a Roman Catholic cleric. Take the previous pope, John Paul II, who as a ‘friend’ to Jews, insisted that the soul of any person who has not accepted the Christian Savior is damned. There’s no need to be Arab - Palestinian or otherwise.

But the most immediate association was to recall that late, great figure of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship and administration, Father (Père) Roland de Vaux of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem.

Yup! Under his leadership, Jewish biblical scholars were excluded from viewing and studying the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the scrolls of Tanakh, until our hero (and I mean hero) Hershel Shanks, founder of the Biblical Archeology Review (http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/bswb_BAR/indexBAR.html), succeeded in his long campaign to wrest this exclusivity from the clutches of Father De Vaux’s disciples.

Regrettably, the Jewish world was greeted with the sad news that although the non-biblical scrolls had been rescued intact, as well as a completely intact scroll of the Book of Isaiah (one of Christianity’s favorites, I’ll have you know!), the remaining material of Tanakh writings was in fragments.

What a tragic coincidence. Can you say ‘spite’ - not that I want to cast fabricated accusations, but…

The story of the Dead Sea Scrolls is famed and lengthy. Regrettably, my brain fails the spontaneous recollection test on this one, so if you’re interested, start digging.

Well, ‘that’s all folks’. There’s nothing new about an old story, and this one is old.