Dear Is Mise,

Pope Pius XII did much to help save the Jews from the Nazis. Mons. Hugh O'Flaherty is a man to be proud of.

As you point out there are two sides. Pius XII has been criticised by Catholics and others for his silence in not openly condemning the Nazis and not excommunicating Hitler. The Catholic Church has excommunicated many others. As Cardinal Secretary of State he negotiated a Concordat with the Nazi state. This gave the Nazis legitimacy that they would not otherwise have had. When the Nazis rounded up the Jews in Rome under the Vatican windows Pius XII kept silent. The puppet government of Slovakia under the Nazis was headed by Father Tiso, a Catholic priest.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/no-saint-jozef-tiso-and-the-holocaust-slovakia tells about him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_J%C3%A4gerst%C3%A4tter is about Franz Jagerstatter. If you don’t read any of the other references please read this. He was an Austrian Catholic and a heroic figure. He has been beatified and I hope will be sainted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_von_Faulhaber tells about Cardinal Faulhaber who told his priests to be loyal to the Nazi government. He was also against democracy and the Weimar government which he apparently regarded as worse than the Nazis. He also condemned Jew hatred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Stepinac tells about Cardinal Stepinac who supported the Nazi-puppet Ustace even though he disagreed with some of their activities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(World_War_II_aftermath) tells of the escape routes of Nazi war criminals. From the site:

By 1946, there were probably hundreds of war criminals in Spain, and thousands of former Nazis and fascists. According to US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Vatican cooperation in turning over asylum-seekers was "negligible". According to Phayer, Pius XII "preferred to see fascist war criminals on board ships sailing to the New World rather than seeing them rotting in POW camps in zonal Germany".

Members of the Catholic Church hierarchy including Pius XII supported the Nazis even though they did not like some of their activities.

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Perhaps I can offer my perspective. During WW2 I was a soldier in the US army. We were shown a series of propaganda films called “Why We Fight”. It showed the Soviet Union as a happy land in which enthusiastic people lived in a good society. I was horrified. Some of my family fled czarist Russia. Others had fled Soviet Russia. I much preferred democracy in the United States with all its flaws to any kind of dictatorship. Nevertheless, as bad as it was, I was glad that the USSR was on our side as I thought Nazi Germany was much worse.

I think Pius XII and much of the Catholic hierarchy thought, as bad as Nazi Germany was, the Soviet Union was much worse.

Dear Cherful,

Hitler could have done nothing without the support of many people. It took great courage to speak up, and I don’t think many people in any group are willing to risk death to speak up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_J%C3%A4gerst%C3%A4tter is about Franz Jagerstatter. He is one person who spoke up and was beheaded. My wife’s uncle was in Germany during the war. He refused ever to say, “Heil Hitler.” Nobody reported him so nothing happened to him.

There is a story about Khrushchev who gave a speech after Stalin’s death condemning the acts of Stalin. The story goes that a loud voice from the audience cried, “Where were you? Why didn’t you speak out?”

Khrushchev asked, “Who said that?”

No answer.

Khrushchev said, “Please tell me who you are? I guarantee nothing will happen to you.”

Still silence.

“That’s where I was.”

A correction to your last post.

The British pulled out in 1948 when the Israelis fought the War of Independence. The 6 day war which resulted in Israel occupying the West Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza was in 1967.

I agree that Fisk is one sided. To use the term martyr as the Arabs do to describe a soldier killed in battle or a suicide bomber is not as far as I am concerned a legitimate use of the word.

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To me a martyr is one who will not submit, will not deny his or her faith and is willing to suffer the consequences.

War is horrible and people die, kill and destroy. However, in 1967 after the 6 day war Israel offered to negotiate a settlement. The Arabs rejected Israeli offers of peace at the Khartoum. Their slogan was “no negotiation; no recognition and no peace.” Peace was not given a chance. I do not know if that was mentioned in Fisk’s video as I did not watch the whole thing. However, I doubt it. The result of the Arab stance has been the hardening of attitudes in Israel. In any narrative of the Middle East a lot depends on where you start the narrative. The point at which I would start the narrative if I were making a video would be during World War 1 where the British made conflicting promises to Arabs and Jews.

Dear SteeleRedux,

You wrote: “While all religions may well deliver a sense of community one gets the sense that there is something about Islam that is particularly attractive to the poor and oppressed.”

Before Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge, Christianity was particularly attractive to the poor and oppressed. Like Islam Christianity advised one to submit to the powers that be in the present in the hope of an afterlife where one will be rewarded for one’s sufferings. Christianity with its advice to subjects and slaves to submit to the powers that be as they are put there by God is also a religion the ruling class can rely on to help them maintain their rule. Christianity gave US slaves hope for liberation as it did for many other oppressed peoples. Islam did not have a chance in the nineteenth century as many in the Christian areas had no contact with or knowledge of Islam.

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However, in twentieth century US Islam offered two things that Christianity did not. In the US Christianity was the religion of the slave traders and slave owners. Muhammad Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay and Malcolm X from Malcolm Little thus getting rid of family names either of the slave owners or given to them by the slave owners. In the US churches were by and large divided into black churches and white charges. Islam was not as racially conscious as US Christians were. In the former colonies of the imperialist powers Christianity was the religion of most of the imperialists.

I think the appeal of Islam to those suffering from colonial oppression and racism is that it does not have the association with the white ruling classes and European imperialist powers that Christianity has. The same kind of appeal can be found in both religions.

I don’t enjoy cuffing anyone around the ears - ttbn, runner or anybody else. I am not happy that our disagreements are sometimes not very civil. I have not always been civil myself, but I will try to be. If I don’t feel a discussion with another person can be civil I will not respond.

Steele Ruddick,

I don't condone the rape and killing of women by male soldiers.

Whichever year ISRael occupied the areas surrounding
Israel, it would have been because of the continuing provocation by the militant muslims.


Actions speak louder than words. And the Muslims
had 15tunnels dug trying to get into Israel in the last missile
attacks on Israel.

I don't see any Israelie people digging tunnels trying
to get into Lebanon. They wouldn't want the place. It is a
badly run slum.

However the unemployed over populated Lebanese look over
at the beautifully built and well run Isreal, and they want to
just get over there and loot the place.

The religious priests are the blame for their poverty,
a lack of contraception and a lack of scientific knowhow
has held them back in the dark ages.
It is ludicrous for them to go on having big families when
they have no resources or land for them.

China turned it's poverty around when they adopted the one
child policy.
Even in the Western wealthy countries, you condemm yourself
to a life of poverty and hardship if you have 6 or more childeen.

Therein is the real reason why the Arabs are trying to get
rid of the Jews. If the Jews threw up their hands and said
have it! tomorrow. In a few years it would look just like the
slums on the other side of the wall.
The Arabs would soon overpopulate it and run it into the ground.
When that happened they'd have a hard time getting the ocean
to move aside to give them more space.

But they would probably still keep on populating until
they had to stand on each others heads.

Come to think of it are you sure it wasn't the Arabs that
raped all the women in the refugee camp, that seems to fit
their style of doing things. Maybe they just blamed it on
the Israelies.

It is a male thing in war. on any side though,I know that.

The Paris atrocities as display of faith, is to me questionable.

>>> Faith is the antithesis of all thinking human beings.

1. Yes and no, in the frame of this discussion point. I cannot know every persons view, faith, religion or belief, as they can vary.... unless I am personally told very exact details - but I may have to take that on faith or belief, as a person may or may not be telling me the truth.

>>> Blind, unthinking dogma that inevitably leads to hatred and violence.

2. I could then argue (as a vegetarian) this applies to all meat eating individuals, with these people having the "faith" to leave the killing and violence involved to someone else and when sitting down at the "killing" table are actively benefiting from various forms of violence.

This could then be the start of violence (based on these people's own faith) and lead to violence across the planet, as it is seen as an acceptable activity.

>>> It has always been the way of the faithful. Always.

3. Eating meat has been the way of the very faithful over many periods. I could also argue if humans keep taking the strong anthropocentric view where many consider human beings as the most significant entity of the universe, there will little to no change in relation to violence impacting on others. Some, will also see themselves higher than other human beings, potentially showing no respect to values, principles, ethics, life or beliefs, regarding free movement as a result.

So, it is not simply faith that can promote and justify atrocity, it is the actions, occurring on a daily basis being undertaken by humans that is the real issue.