It turns out that the article in the Jerusalem Post "Sheikh attacks Israel, Pope walks out" which I sent out yesterday was not entirely accurate. It misrepresented what happened. I received an e-mail this morning from a much respected authority in academia who had a friend at this inter-religious meeting with the Pope at the Pontifical Institute in Jerusalem. This observer makes it clear that there was no simultaneous translation of Sheikh al-Tamimi's remarks in Arabic condemning Israel's war crimes and occupation of Palestine. The Sheikh's speech closed the conference; afterwards, the Pope shook al-Tamimi's hand and departed. According to this account, the Pope did not know what had been said, and so was not reacting to it, one way or the other, by leaving. Fine. 

But this incident and the conference itself begs the question: what was the point of the gathering, if the honored guest and perhaps many others did not know what was being said? To me, it simply points out that the Pope's entire trip is for show, a series of staged ceremonies of no consequence, like so much else. As a former Altar Boy, I feel entitled to be tougher on the Pope than the average Joe.

Like most European leaders, present and past, the Pope dances around the central issue with respect to "the Jewish State", which entity and enterprise is located right on Europe's back porch. The end results of the Zionist experiment are execrable, and are now plain for all to see--left, right and center. The program has come into final focus after 60+ (1948) or 80+ (1920) years. As I said in The Unauthorized World Situation Report (2005): "Why on earth these innocent people [the Palestinians] have been subjected to such a hellish nightmare is a mystery not easy to understand." Truth to tell, it is not a mystery to anyone who has studied Zionism in action--in London, Washington, and in Palestine.

Of course, the average American does not have the time or inclination to bother looking into the subject. That is understandable, but it is a principal reason why the authorities in Tel Aviv and their running dogs in Washington can get away with this ongoing outrage. For America and its foreign policy, the Zionist hijacking of Washington has led to two wars in Iraq, to the 9/11 attacks by Muslin fanatics seeking to retaliate for American policies, to the present destabilization of nuclear-armed Pakistan, and to the fool's errand in Afghanistan, among other things, all of which have contributed significantly to the economic collapse of the United States. In the aftermath of the Cold War (1989) and with the implosion of the Soviet Union, it all could have been much different. At best, perhaps even some kind of golden age was in store for humanity as a whole. Instead, thanks to the "neocons" and the Zionist fifth column in America, we got stuck with this. That's what is so appalling.