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2 The Struggle for Jerusalem: The Papal Connection Evaluating the Threat The shock and deep forebodings evoked in Israel by the UN resolution on internationalization inevitably led to reappraisal of policy and to a search for political tactics centered on the Catholic Church. Some post factum reports tended to understate the impact and to attribute the Israeli defeat to a unique set of circumstances. It was in this spirit that Sharett described to the cabinet the situation shortly before the critical vote: On the eve of the decisive vote at the ad hoc committee, we calculated, and so did the Americans and so did the Arabs—and we all came to the same conclusion—that there were twenty votes in favor [of the internationalization proposal, which required a two-thirds majority] and nineteen or twenty against.The Arabs were gloomy. [Charles] Malik [the Lebanese delegate] rallied , sent a cable to the pope and said that it was rumored that the Vatican was not vitally concerned with the issue and would not care if the resolution was not passed. The pope responded in a cable and authorized Malik to convey the contents to all the delegations. This was what caused the downfall. From twenty-three votes, the number rose to thirty-five.1 This description notwithstanding,Sharett believed that there was a vital lesson to be learned from the circumstances exposed by the Assembly deliberations . And, indeed, subsequent discussions indicate that the Israeli authorities drew weighty political conclusions that were to guide their actions for years to come. They centered on the tactical moves that preceded the UN resolution and provided dramatic evidence of the power and technique of papal influence. As Eytan told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on 12 December 1949: Three weeks ago one of our diplomatic representatives visited Rio de Janeiro for a meeting with the Brazilian foreign minister concerning Jerusalem. . . . At the end of the talk, the minister said . . . that Brazil would vote for the internationalization of Jerusalem, “because we must follow the instructions of Bialer, Cross on the Star 6/9/05 8:43 AM Page 24 the Vatican.” Our representative asked: “Why must Brazil, which exerts such tremendous influence in this part of the world and is the leader of these nations , follow Vatican instructions on an issue in which it is not involved?”The Brazilian foreign minister replied that they were indeed involved. Brazil is a vast country, but precisely because it is so large, everything is fragmentary and the only two factors that unite the country are the army and the church. Every government in Brazil,whatever its standing and political orientation,must reinforce these two factors. Brazil has asked the Vatican to appoint a third cardinal , in addition to the two incumbents, for the north of the country for purposes of internal cohesion, and they are now awaiting the Vatican’s reply. “Who would have thought,” concluded the Israeli diplomat, that “because of a third cardinal, Brazil would vote for the internationalization of Jerusalem? There is nothing to be done against this: it’s final.”2 Ben-Gurion cast the net wider in his retrospective analysis of the three main causes of Israel’s defeat. Russia and the Arab world were two of them. “The third force, which was possibly the crucial one this time,” he said, was “the force of world Catholicism which, perhaps for very many years, has not displayed the power it now wields. They mobilized about thirty countries, and it is evident that it was only the Vatican that brought pressure to bear, because some countries altered their stand overnight. Mexico, for example, abstained on the first vote but changed its mind at the Assembly. . . .The [South] American states are developed countries but have no desire to quarrel with Catholic power on our behalf. . . . It is not easy to go against the United Nations, particularly when there are underlying religious sentiments, which will undoubtedly serve as weapons for the Vatican.They have a 2,000–year-old reckoning with the Jews.” The bottom line, as Ben-Gurion saw it, was “that the Vatican does not want Israeli rule here. . . . There is a dogma which has existed for 1,800 years, and we gave it the coup de grace by establishing the State of Israel.”3 A week later, he told the cabinet bluntly that Israel “must understand that the Christian world will never become reconciled to the fact that the Holy Places are in Israeli...

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