A spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the cardinal, whose remarks appeared in an interview Wednesday, adopted the kind of language that Hamas and other Islamic militant groups have used to demonize Israel and equate it with Nazi Germany.
“It was shocking to hear the same kind of terminology from such a high-ranking member of the church,” Israeli spokesman Yigal Palmor said Saturday.
Cardinal Renato Martino, a former Vatican envoy to the United Nations and now Pope Benedict XVI’s top official on issues of peace and justice, said in the interview that Gaza now resembles a “big concentration camp.”
Commenting on Israel’s two-week military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Martino told the online newspaper Il Sussidiario.net that both sides were concerned only with their own interests.
George Patsourakos
Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI’s top official on issues of peace and justice, should not have said that Gaza now resembles a “big concentration camp.” I am surprised that such a high-ranking theologian would make such a caustic comment. Instead of being so negative and insulting to Israel, Martino should have said that all peace-loving people of the world should pray for a prompt ending to the fighting in Gaza!