Word: germanism
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...Given that the Pope is German, much of the emphasis of his "pilgrimage" to the Holy Land has been to improve ties with the Jews and the state of Israel, which the Vatican only recognized in 1993. Arab Christians say that have no objection to the Vatican reaching out to Jews, but at the same time, they don't want the Pontiff's visit to gloss over their own troubles with the Israelis. Says George Said, a Bethlehem property dealer: "If the Pope continues to keep quiet about the suffering of Christians from Israelis, a day will come when...
...Given that, European leaders who in 2008 had enthusiastically backed proposing the EaP to the six former Soviet republics began scrambling to lower its scope ahead of its May 7 launch in Prague. Just hours before the gathering, for example, German and Dutch officials pushed to change wording in the official document to refer to the six EaP postulates as "partner countries" rather than "European countries". They similarly struck any language that even remotely hinted at possible E.U. membership for any time in the future, and revised a "long-term goal" previously described as "visa-free travel" by EaP citizens...
...Appearances are not always insignificant, however. Moscow has voiced its hostility to EaP, and said it will defend its influence over the six neighboring nations involved. And many E.U. leaders - notably the Russia-friendly Sarkozy, Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel - want to avoid provoking an increasingly stroppy Kremlin. Indeed, ever since Russia's August 2008 war with Georgia, E.U. officials have become particularly wary of possibly prodding the Kremlin into similar action by appearing to set up camp with the EaP countries in Russia's backyard. (See pictures of Sarkozy...
...Holocaust, neither its roots in anti-Semitism nor the place where it was launched. "This is a place where we speak of the importance of memory," Shalev told reporters after the ceremony. "To not specifically mention the perpetrators, the murderers... He missed that point." Shalev also wondered why the German-born Pope, who was an unwilling conscript into the Hitler Youth, chose to offer no reflections of his personal experience. (The Pope had condemned anti-Semitism during his remarks at Ben Gurion airport earlier Monday, when he'd arrived from Jordan as part of his eight-day Middle East trip...
...same speech hit several sour notes in the ears of Jewish leaders, as the Pope failed to cite anti-Semitism as a cause of the genocide. Instead, he wondered if Christianity wasn't ultimately Hitler's final target, and summarily disposed of the complicated moral question of German society's "collective responsibility" by blaming the systematic extermination of millions of Jews and other innocents on the deeds of a "ring of criminals." The Bavarian native concluded: "Our people was used and abused as an instrument of [the Nazis] thirst for destruction and power." (Read a story about the Pope...