Israel Hides Behind its Own Special "Catch 22"

"There are no official figures on the number of Christian Palestinians in the occupied territories, but according to the Lutheran ecumenical institution the Diyar Consortium in 2008 there were 51,710 Christians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. They are concentrated mainly in Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, and Ramallah."

Israel's official claims that all is well with the indigenous Christians in the Holy Land, but this Pope knows poverty and oppression when he sees it. He identifies with the downtrodden. He will not be easily fooled.

The Pope will arrive in Tel Aviv four days after the start, on May 21, of yet another effort to find justice in the Israeli courts by the family of American (state of Washington) peace activist Rachel Corrie.

Israeli lower courts have absolved the IDF soldier who drove the bulldozer which killed Rachel Corrie in Gaza. She was there to protest the destruction of a Palestinian home. The Israeli courts have shown no willingness to seriously consider an earlier decision which ruled that the IDF soldier was not responsible for her death.

The Pope will also arrive in Tel Aviv a few weeks after a prominent Israeli academic returned to Israel to receive an award. His name is Saul Friendlande. He is a Jewish historian of the Holocaust, During a recent short stay in Israel, where he was being honored, Friendlande was clearly in distress over what he knows is happening there.

In an interview with Ha'aretz he spoke of his views of Israel today:

"'For personal and family reasons I'm happy to see the captivating human fabric of Israel,' he says. 'But it's important to put aside this pleasant Tel-Aviv life and to go to Jerusalem where things are a bit more complicated. When you forget the pleasant daily life, think for a bit and read the paper, you get into an angry frame of my mind.'

"Professor Friedlander could be excused for sitting back and enjoying his vacation. The foremost Israeli and Jewish veteran historian of the Holocaust, he has been writing and teaching history for over 50 years in Switzerland and Israel, and since 1988, at the University of California...

"'I am connected to this country. My eldest son and grandchildren live here but I can't call myself a Zionist. Not because I feel estranged from Israel but because Zionism has been taken, kidnapped even, by the far right.'"

"Kidnapped by the far right" are the words of a man who refuses to call himself a Zionist.

The Israel he had hoped would develop, has become a nation that has lost its moral compass, a loss which involves the arrest of Palestinian children from their beds at night and subjecting them to total isolation in Israeli prisons.