Prepare for holy wars

Op-ed: Pope’s exoneration of Jews may be significant in world shifting towards religious wars Avi Rath

Published:

03.08.11, 00:40 / Israel Opinion

On the margins of the dramatic events worldwide, we saw a small, seemingly insignificant news story about the Pope exonerating the Jews of killing Jesus. On the face of it, this is a rather unspectacular story in the midst of a Middle Eastern storm, with regimes collapsing and the world changing right before our eyes. The preoccupation with who’s at fault for the death of Jesus appears archaic, academic and detached. Nonetheless, this headline is especially significant precisely at this time. The formation of Islam in the 7th Century changed the world to a situation whereby two major religions exist – Christianity and Islam. Judaism remained a small religion in terms of numbers but nonetheless important and central for other faiths too, as in their view it was their source and root.The world at the time was made up of religious frameworks to a greater extent than national and political ones. Identity and belonging were mostly religious rather than geographic and territorial. The global discourse was religious and so was the tension. The wars were holy wars. Read the rest of the article on: Ynet