Showing the moral way

The Vatican’s entry with the state of Palestine into a treaty governing the activities of the Catholic Church in the Palestinian territories puts the Holy See’s official seal of recognition of Palestine.

The Vatican has been treating Palestine as a state since the United Nations General Assembly voted, in 2012, to recognise Palestine as a non-member observer state.

The treaty is hugely symbolic: the Vatican represents hundreds of millions of Christians around the world and its treatment of Palestine speaks for them, but also on behalf of humanity at large.

Vatican’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, had this to say after the signing of the treaty: “Yes, it’s a recognition that the state exists!”

Senior aide to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Shaath, rightly acknowledged that “this is a very important recognition as the Vatican has a very important political status that stems from its spiritual status”.

The treaty has been finalised before Abbas visits His Holiness Pope Francis today to attend the canonisation of two nuns from the holy land.

Never failing to be predictable, Israel expressed disappointment with the Vatican’s decision, saying that it would not advance the cause of peace.

What peace? The one promised by Israel’s prime minister on the eve of elections?

Sure the world could live without.

The president of the Zionist Oranisation of America went much farther, saying that the treaty is a resurgence of “historical Catholic enmity towards Jews”, conveniently forgetting that last month the Pope condemned the incidents in Europe targeting Jews and said that Christians and Jews must defend one another against discrimination and persecution.

Pope Francis has made it a point to improve relations with representatives of other religious denominations and has consistently shown commitment to social and humanitarian issues.

Now that a most prominent representative of morality and justice was heard by the entire world, Israel and its friends and allies will have no moral, ethical or legal reasons to stand in the way of the establishment of an independent state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Even more symbolic is the fact that the timing of the agreement between the Vatican and Palestine coincided with the commemoration of the Palestinian “Nakbeh”, the catastrophe that visited hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were killed or made to leave their homes in Palestine by the Zionists movement in 1947-48 in order to make way for the creation of Israel.

The Vatican may have wished to, symbolically at least, correct a grave miscarriage of justice by officially recognising the state of Palestine while the major powers remain silent on the issue.

At least someone has the moral compass that much of the rest of the world seems to be sorely missing.