Calling Abbas, whose PhD thesis was the denial
of the Holocaust and whose regime names city squares in honor of jihadist
terrorists, an ‘angel
of peace’ is obscene.
By
Arutz Sheva Staff
Following a meeting with Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud
Abbas on Saturday, major English-language media outlets - including Associated Press and AFP - reported that Pope Francis called the PA
leader an "Angel of
Peace".
The purported comments were received as something of a coup by PA
officials and their supporters - but it appears they were the result
of a mis-translation.
Francis's original remarks appeared in the Italian-language newspaper La Stampa, which the English-language outlets in
question translated as the pontiff calling Abbas outright an "angel of
peace."
But doubts were first cast on the accuracy of the translation by
the Israellycool blog, which pointed out that the
Italian was written in
the exhortative (using the word "sia").
Several Italian-language experts have confirmed that to Arutz
Sheva,saying that Francis actually told Abbas that he
"may" or "could" be an "angel of peace," in an
attempt to persuade him to return to peace talks with Israel.
As leader of the Catholic world, the Pope's stance on the
Arab-Israeli conflict is closely scrutinized, leading to several high-pofile controversies.
Most recently, last week Pope Francis declared he
would recognize "Palestine," sparking an
uproar - just days after he declared that the Vatican would canonize
"Palestinian saints."
In May 2014, he called the Palestinian Authority (PA) the "state of Palestine,"
and made an unexpected stop at the security
barrier between Jerusalem and Bethlehem in Judea to pray at
a section with "Pope we need to see someone to speak about justice.
Bethlehem look (sic) like Warsaw ghetto. Free Palestine"
spray-painted on it.
