Does the Catholic Church now endorse the conquest of Israel?

Two news items have just appeared in Israel. They appear on different websites.

Is this coincidence? You’ll have to decide.

The first item showed up on Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). PMW is a research institute that finds, translates and presents in English Palestinian Authority (PA) materials about Israel and Jews that appear in PA TV, radio, entertainment, speeches, schoolbooks and sermons. It updates what it finds as it finds it.

The latest update covers PA and Fatah declarations about Israel (Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “PA and Fatah present Israel ‘as occupied Palestine’”, Palestine Media Watch, May 13, 2015). This particular review covers the last five weeks.

-Last month, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement declared that there is no room for Israel next to "Palestine". Instead, it said, "Palestine means the entire national land, from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea (Facebook, "Fatah - The Main Page," April 8, 2015).

-For the last few days (early May, 2015), all broadcasts on official PA TV have been showing a logo with the PA's representation of the map of "Palestine". This map shows  Israel labelled ‘Palestine’.

As PMW has repeatedly documented, both the PA and Fatah regularly present to the Palestinian public this same map of the Arab ‘Palestine’. It’s a map that replaces Israel. It shows all of Israel as either ‘Palestine’ or ‘occupied Palestine’.

For the PA, there is no Israel, just ‘occupied Palestine’. For the PA, there is no ‘two-state’ solution. There is only the replacing of Israel.

That isn’t peace. It’s a call to war.

The second item was about the Vatican (Nitzan Keidar, “Vatican Preparing to Recognize PA as 'Palestine'”, Arutz Sheva, May 13, 2015). This news story reported that the Vatican has now decided to recognize the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a sovereign state (ibid).

Finding these two items published on the same day begs us to find a connection between them. There is a connection.

On the one hand, we see Arab leadership acting with a war-like intent. It promotes the destruction of the state of Israel. It highlights a new Arab state named ‘Palestine’ replacing Israel, literally wiping it off the map.

On the other hand, we see the world leader of the Catholic Church apparently endorsing that Arab war-intent. He approves the creation of a state which can come into being only after the sovereign state of Israel has been eliminated.

Is that what the Pope is doing? Is he joining the Arab call to destroy Israel?  

The Catholic Church doesn’t exactly have a history of peace, love and friendship with Jews, Judaism or Israel. The Pope’s endorsement of ‘Palestine’ seems to embrace the Arab war against Israel.

Is that what’s going on here? I couldn’t tell you. You’ll have to decide that for yourself.