Jewish leader sees 'new realism' in Vatican on Islam

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

In the wake of Muslim reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s Sept. 12 comments on Islam in Regensburg, Germany, a prominent American Jewish leader says he senses a “new realism” in the Vatican’s appraisal of the Islamic world.

“There’s a new understanding that it’s one thing to talk about love, friendship, understanding and dialogue, but you have to look at what’s actually out there,” said Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish body dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism.

“There’s a war within Islam itself for the heart and soul of Islam, and the Vatican has made the decision to align itself with the moderates, and to encourage other allies to come forward,” Foxman said, saying he based his analysis upon his impression of the pope and conversations with figures in and around the Vatican.

Foxman led an Anti-Defamation League delegation in an audience with Benedict XVI on Oct. 12. He spoke to NCR at his Rome hotel Oct. 13.

Foxman argued that the Vatican is reconsidering its sympathies in a way not dissimilar from some Muslim governments, who he said are awakening with new urgency to the threat posed by Islamic radicalism.

“What’s happening in the Vatican is also happening in Saudi Arabia, which actually condemned the Hezbollah for the violence in Lebanon,” Foxman said.

Foxman described a recent meeting between the Saudi Foreign Minister and a Jewish delegation in New York. As Foxman tells the story, the Saudi Foreign Minister told the Jewish group, “Your people and our people are in the same harm’s way.”

Foxman believes many church leaders are drawing the same conclusion.

“There’s a similar awareness at the Vatican that when Israel fights Hamas or Hezbollah, it’s fighting religious extremists within Islam, the jihadists,” he said.

Such a shift, Foxman said, has the potential for generating a historic realignment in the Vatican’s diplomatic and political sensibilities, which most observers have traditionally seen as broadly pro-Arab.

“They’ve recognized in a more practical way the value of an alliance with Jewish culture and civilization,” Foxman said.

As evidence, Foxman said that Italy’s new center-left government has not backed away from the more pro-Israel foreign policy instituted under the previous regime of conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Foxman held a series of meetings with Italian politicians in Rome this week, and said he’s convinced their more hawkish line on Islam, and thereby more sympathetic stance on Israel, is related in part to cues coming from the Vatican.

Foxman also pointed to the warmth of his reception by Benedict XVI. After Foxman finished his brief remarks to the pope on behalf of his delegation, Foxman said, the pope motioned to him to approach, marking a departure in protocol. Benedict took his hands and said, “Thank you, you have touched my heart,” Foxman said.

Later, as pictures were being taken with the pope, Benedict made a point of saying, “I will always be with you on anti-Semitism,” Foxman said.

It’s not that the substance of the pope’s remarks, or those of other Vatican officials, is new, Foxman said, but rather that the warmth and emphasis was of a different order.

At the same time, Foxman predicted, this warming towards global Judaism will not automatically translate into greater Vatican support for Israel, and in fact could have the opposite effect in the short term.

“If the Vatican gets too close [to Israel], it will antagonize even the moderate elements of Islam,” he said.

Foxman said he believes the Vatican is shifting away from a theological engagement with Islam, towards an emphasis upon a dialogue between cultures focusing on concrete social and political cooperation.

In his remarks to Benedict, Foxman told the story of how his life was saved by a Polish Catholic woman and a Polish priest, who conspired to hide him while his parents were taken away during the Holocaust. His parents survived and later returned for him.

He recounted efforts made since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) to improve Jewish-Catholic relations, and called upon Benedict to speak up on anti-Semitism.

In an indirect but pointed reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Foxman told the pope: “Also in this generation arises a country’s leader who not only denies the Holocaust – the attempted genocide of the Jewish people – but again threatens to wipe out the state of the Jewish people.”

Foxman said he believes opinion in the United States is swinging in favor of Benedict’s approach on the question of Islam.

“In the first days [after Regensburg], people said, ‘He may have been right, but was it politically correct to say it?’” Foxman said. “Now people are willing to say publicly, ‘He’s right.’”

In part, Foxman argued, that’s because “the reaction in the Arab and Muslim world proved him right.”