VATICAN CITY - Responding to Israeli criticism, the Vatican on Thursday said it hasn't condemned every strike by Palestinian militants against the Jewish state because Israel's military response to the attacks has sometimes violated international law.
Largely good relations between the Vatican and Israel in recent years were strained this week by Israeli outrage that Pope Benedict XVI failed to condemn terror against Israelis in recent remarks. On Monday, the Vatican envoy to Israel was summoned to the Foreign Ministry as Jerusalem expressed its outrage over Benedict's remarks that didn't condemn the Netanya bombing.
The Foreign Ministry had complained that Benedict, in a public appearance at his Alpine vacation retreat on Sunday, "deliberately" didn't mention a July 12 suicide bombing in the coastal city of Netanya while the pontiff did refer to recent terror strikes in Egypt, Britain, Turkey and Iraq.
"It's not always possible to immediately follow every attack against Israel with a public statement of condemnation, and for various reasons, among them the fact that the attacks against Israel sometimes were followed by immediate Israeli reactions not always compatible with the rules of international law," a statement from the Vatican press office said Thursday night.
"It would thus be impossible to condemn the first (the terror strikes) and let the second (Israeli retaliation) pass in silence," said the Vatican statement, which had an unusually strong tone for the Holy See. On Monday, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Benedict had been referring to the attacks of the last few days and, referring to the ministry statement, called it "surprising that one would have wanted to take the opportunity to distort the intentions of the Holy Father."
A suicide bomber implodes himself outside a shopping mall killing 5 (at last count and injuring over 90 Israelis) on July 12th. Israel demands that the Palestinian Authority disarm the terrorists and “The IDF conducted a pinpointed arrest activity against the Islamic Jihad terrorist infrastructure in the area of Tulkarm, in order to disrupt and thwart the execution of terror attacks.” PA Chairman Abbas condemns the attacks and by late afternoon Israeli communities are under attack from a terrorist element in Gaza who are raining missiles and rockets into their communities; so IDF takes to the sky to take out the "militants" who are firing those rockets as Israeli citizens are dying in their homes from that barrage. So what does the Vatican think a good Jew should do – wait for the Holy See to send in the Swiss Guard?
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