Vatican-Israel Economic Accord Angers Palestinians

The Vatican is poised to ?indirectly recognize? Israel?s annexation of East Jerusalem, viewed by most Palestinians as the future capital of their independent nation, Ha?aretz Online reported Monday.

This tacit recognition would result from the approval of an economic agreement in the works between the Vatican and the Jewish nation, which contains no distinction between sovereign Israel and the territories it has occupied since 1967. The absence of any such distinction in the Vatican-Israel deal is heightening tensions between the Vatican and Palestinian groups. Ha?aretz said the lack of distinction between disputed territory and Israeli territory could have severe implications for the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

A Vatican spokesman said the Catholic Church remains ?extraneous to all merely temporal or political conflicts ?. Unless the contending parties or the international institutions make concordant appeal to its mission of peace.?

But a broad view of history reveals the Vatican to be no stranger to conflict in the Holy Land.

Though the gory conflicts in the Middle Ages between European Christians and Middle Eastern Muslims are often labeled the ?Christian Crusades,? the Christians involved were uniquely Roman Catholic. These ?noble? Catholic wars were among the bloodiest imaginable: While seizing Jerusalem in 1099, Catholics killed around 70,000 Jews and Arabs. Over the course of 200 years of Catholic crusading, somewhere between several hundred thousand and several million people had their blood spilled in the Holy Land.

The Crusades showed the Catholic desire to control Christianity as a whole, and also the Vatican?s desire to rule the world from Jerusalem.

Observers of the Middle East mostly focus on the Arab Palestinians and the nation of Israel. But what about the instigator of those original Crusades? Has that power given up on reclaiming the Holy Land? Will it stand idly by while Jerusalem is fractured between Arab and Jew? Quite the contrary. In fact, the Vatican believes it still holds claim to Jerusalem even to this very day, and it is already taking subtle measures?like this agreement with Israel?to bolster its presence in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Berlin is also making steady gains in positioning itself as a nation on which Israel relies for military security.

To understand where these trends are leading, read ?Jerusalem and the Last Crusade.? ?

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