‘Papa can you hear me?’
It was all smiles on Monday when Pope Francis met Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time, but there was an undercurrent of expectation and warning.
Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, was pleased to be hosted at the Vatican, and was keen to have the opportunity to discuss a range of issues, including the Iranian threat, with the Pope. He also reiterated the invitation for a papal visit to Israel, which the Vatican has since indicated it will accept. Feeling a cool wind from Washington resulting from sharp disagreement on the interim deal between Western states and Iran, Netanyahu wants all the friends he can make at the moment.
But this was no normal political meeting; it was one that invoked hundreds of years of history as relevant to today’s topics. Sure, the discussion was about contemporary affairs, but the framing was deeply historical.
Netanyahu presented the Pope with copy of a book by his late father, the historian Benzion Netanyahu. The Origins of the Inquisition is what it says on the cover – an examination of the background of perhaps Catholicism’s greatest atrocity. The gifts given by political leaders are rarely as mundane as a box of chocolates, but rarely do they dredge up the establishment of the recipient in such a vivid way.
Giving a book on the Inquisition underscored the fact that, for Netanyahu, this was a meeting with an institution that is today a friend, but in the past did his people much harm.
But this wasn’t just any book on the Inquisition – it is a book that invites action today.
Benzion Netanyahu’s book proposed the controversial theory that the motivation to the Inquisition transcended religion – it targeted even Jews who converted to Catholicism and were faithful to their new religion. This contrasts with the usual assumption that it was directed against converts who secretly practised Judaism.
With a little interpretation, Benjamin Netanyahu’s message to the Pope is evident. Yes, the Church has long ago shunned theologically motivated anti-Semitism, but look at what anti-Semitism can do even without a clear religious rationale.
Benjamin Netanyahu, like his father, believed that when it comes to the Jews, history repeats itself – with different perpetrators but the same bottom line, that Jewish blood is spilled. The gift he presented was his way of saying that while centuries ago the Church was a perpetrator, today it should do all that it can to prevent anti-Semitism taking lives and prevent a nuclear Iran. And that if it doesn’t, it hasn’t learned from history.
NATHAN JEFFAY
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