NEW YORK (Press Release)– The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed concern and criticism that Pope Francis met on his visit to Israel with the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, a vicious, internationally condemned anti-Semite who, among many hateful and obscene statements, said in 2012 that it was the destiny of Muslims to kill Jews.
The ZOA is also critical of the Pontiff for choosing to pause during his visit to Bethlehem at a section of Israel’s security barrier which included graffiti proclaiming the obscene comparison of the Palestinian Arabs in Bethlehem to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, as well as graffiti supporting Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), the campaign to falsely malign and delegitimize Israel as a serial human rights abuser. By appearing and offering a prayer at the security barrier in this way, the Pope bolstered the lie that the barrier, rather than being a life-saving device, is a repressive device which, like the Berlin Wall, should be torn down. Rather, the Pope should have truthfully and publicly stated that Jew-killing Palestinian terrorists caused this fence to be built.
The ZOA was also critical of the Pontiff ludicrously calling PA dictator Mahmoud Abbas a “man of peace,” given a long anti-peace record that includes Abbas calling for a Jew-free Palestinian state; refusing to implement Palestinian commitments under the Oslo agreements to arrest terrorists, disband and outlaw terrorist groups, end the promotion of incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps; demanding the freeing of blood-soaked jailed Palestinian terrorists; his demand that each and every Jew-killing terrorists must be released from Israeli prisons; paying stipends to jailed Palestinian terrorists and the families of deceased Jew-killers; refusing to negotiate with Israel for virtually all of the past five years; honoring and glorifying Palestinian terrorists living and dead; calling terrorists “heroes” and “martyrs”; telling Arab leaders that “If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor”; refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state; and, this month, concluding a reconciliation agreement with the U.S.- and E.U.-recognized terrorist organization Hamas, which calls in its Charter for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We acknowledge and praise Pope Francis’ action during his visit to the Middle East in condemning the recent vicious and murderous anti-Semitic attack in Brussels and the recent vicious attack on two Jews in Paris. The Pope spoke with dignity and eloquence at Yad Vashem, the Western Wall and at the terror victims memorial. We particularly note that Pontiff was the first Pope to visit Israel to lay a wreath at the tomb of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist movement.”
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Preceding provided by ZOA