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Vatican recognition of Palestine denounced

By Gareth Narunsky May 21, 2015, 12:00 am Edit
epa04750710 Pope Francis (R) exchanges gifts with Palestinian authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) during a private audience at the Vatican, 16 May 2015. Person in the center not identified. The Vatican finalized a treaty recognizing Palestine as a state just this week, making Abbas's private audience with Pope Francis on Saturday particularly significant. EPA/ALBERTO PIZZOLI / POOL
epa04750710 Pope Francis (R) exchanges gifts with Palestinian authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) during a private audience at the Vatican, 16 May 2015. Person in the center not identified. The Vatican finalized a treaty recognizing Palestine as a state just this week, making Abbas's private audience with Pope Francis on Saturday particularly significant. EPA/ALBERTO PIZZOLI / POOL

THE Vatican’s decision to formally recognise a Palestinian state “discourages the only way to a true and lasting peace”, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) said this week.

The Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) has also criticised the move, labelling it “unwise and counterproductive”.

Ahead of a visit by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, the Vatican and PA finalised the text of a new agreement last Wednesday that recognises the “State of Palestine” instead of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The agreement is still to be signed.

A source in the Israeli Foreign Ministry has said the move does not advance the peace process, “and moves the Palestinian leadership further away from returning to direct bilateral relations”.

In a joint statement, AIJAC national chairman Mark Leibler and executive director Colin Rubenstein concurred with that view.

“While we don’t question Pope Francis’ genuine desire for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, nor that this decision was made in good faith, premature recognition of the non-existent Palestinian state can only be inimical to the cause of peace,” they said.

“It discourages, rather than encourages, the only way to a true and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, a bilateral negotiated outcome where both sides make difficult compromises.”

They noted the PA’s refusal to genuinely engage in recent negotiations, preferring to pursue an international strategy to realise a state without having to recognise Israel’s legitimacy.

“Premature recognition of a Palestinian state, which in any event lacks the prerequisites for statehood, is simply counterproductive as it emboldens the PA to pursue this destructive course.”

ZFA president Danny Lamm said the move “does injury to the cause of diplomacy in the Middle East”.

“The decision by the Vatican to sign a formal treaty with a ‘State of Palestine’ was both unwise and counterproductive,” he said.

“It provides reward for no effort to President Abbas, serving to foster Palestinian recalcitrance and undermine the principle of mutual compromise that must be the foundation of any viable peace agreement.

“Through this ill-advised action, Pope Francis has also prejudiced the historic process of interfaith reconciliation that has done much over recent decades to heal wounds inflicted by two millennia of ecclesiastical anti-Semitism.”

The Vatican has already been informally referring to the “State of Palestine” since the 2012 United Nations General Assembly vote that gave the PA the status of non-member observer state.

Meanwhile, earlier media reports that Pope Francis called Abbas “an angel of peace” during their meeting have since been discredited.

Initial accounts said the Pope presented the PA President with a medallion which he said depicted an angel of peace, saying “you are an angel of peace”.

However, it was later clarified that he in fact said: “May the angel of peace destroy the evil spirit of war. I thought of you, may you be an angel of peace.”

GARETH NARUNSKY

Mahmoud Abbas (left) and Pope Francis.

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