From the University that brought us yigal Amier should we really be surprised? My family used to dontate large sums of money to Bar ilan, howver our family board members decided against any further contributions because of this dangerous man.

Jerusalem would be a burden yo the nations......

So what if the Pope opens his mouth only to change feet? Who cares? Some Italian and Spanish Catholics, maybe? That religion has been on the wane for some time now. He'll never come close to the respect his predecessor earned. More importantly, why is this nut job Weiss given a dignified forum to rant in? Why do you think we wish to know what this whacko thinks?

and the Greek translation of the hebrew bible, and the various pagan novels and literature, myths, legends and intertestemental jewish literature. The Gospel of Mark copied Homer, by Dennis MacDonald, Yale Univ Press.

This man is a totally immature raving lunatic! Why does y net bother?!

How can you judge an entire educational institution on one graduate? Thats the problem with you liberals , just a lot of hypocrisy. You claim to be open minded when youre more narrow then us all!

Dont you think judging an entire educational institution based on one graduate is a bit......ridiculous. Thats the problem with you liberals , you claim to be "open minded" and accepting when really youre the most closed minded of us all. Just a bunch of hypocrites.

The Pope is coming as a peaceful visitor, not a medieval despot, so this nonsense will only aggravate Israeli-Vatican relations. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish some Jews from the Taliban...in any case, the Pope should be greeted with open arms...

doesnt know the meaning of freedom of speech or freedom of thought and even less aware of freedom of opinion. keep yo shekels-this great university can do without u and yo kind

As a recent convert from catholcism, I would remind us to love the sinner while hating the sin. The catholic church has perpertrated some of the most hidous crimes, not to exclude hitler and his bunch, known to man. If alive would we invite hitler and his folks to visit jerusalem? To spend one cent on this culprit is to insult all the money sent to Israeel by yor brothers in the diaspra. Forgiveness is beyond me, after he apoliges for the sins aginst the people off the world and sells the welth of the church to help the poor of the world, I would be able to consider forgiveness. until then treat him like you would a visitor from anywhere, to treat him as a head of state is ridiculous. Ask this question how would we treat the head of disneyland? Ray

Thank you for your passion and caring. As to whoever wants to take away money from a university because of a man like Prof. Weiss who understands and is not a puppet.. a man who cares.. who knows history... then do not give your precious money . It is soiled money.

This is like a speech that would come from the lips of a rabid mullah.

i may be uncomfortable with the way he says it, but what he says has some truth in it. the vatican has been jockeying for status in the middle east since the creation of israel. it is no coincidence that the vatican only recently recognized israel, and this is only the second time that a pope has visited israel, even though christianity's holiest sites are all in israel. why? because the vatican's foreign policy seems to be to maintain its "even-handedness" (i.e. pro-arab slant), so that they can present themselves as a neutral party to settle the conflict over the holy places, by taking control of them! there is no other logical explanation for their behaviour. the refusal to recognize israel may have been based on a long-standing tradition (and theology) of anti-semitism, but their failure to speak out in support of oppressed christians in the arab world isn't so easy to explain. the vatican claims to speak for christianity, but they have been even more silent on moslem attacks against christians than about attacks on israel - they haven't even made their usual bleatings deploring the "violence on all sides". because their goal is to conquer jerusalem by diplomatic means, as professor weiss says.

You are wrong Avi , not all the Bar Ilan people are Weisses or murderers . Certainly not this high ranking person from Bar Ilan i know , he has a decicated phto of Y. Rabin Z.L. in his living room . Sam , i don't think that Avi is a liberal thinking person , he is not objective , has as you say "close minded" ideas , not liberal at all .

This pope was most probably a soldier from the werhmacht , yes , but Weiss forgets that he was only 18 at the end of the war . Weiss could even blame him for being born in Germany , why not ?

althought the Pope is not one of my favorite people either- what Tom and Prof Weiss are saying sounds just a bit over the top- with arguments like this no wonder no Pope has wanted to visit Israel- . Frankly I am not sure why he bothers when certain fanatics and so called intellectuals bring up such nutty reasons.... the expenses of this trip could be spent on some worthwhile cause rather than a visit that is resente by suspicious people. I vote for Benedict to stay home, any seconds?

should give him their full support.

Why should Israel host someone with his track record. Not only did the pope served in the Nazi army, but he thought lifting excommunication from a Holocaust denying bishop was just dandy. It was only when Catholics themselves raised objections that he backtracked. Somewhat. Also: this pope has reinstated a prayer for conversion, deeply offensive to Jews. Leaders of interfaith dialogue are expressing concern that a Good Friday prayer newly revised by Pope Benedict XVI could set back cordial relations between Catholics and Jews. The Latin-language “Prayer for Conversion of the Jews” urges Catholics to “pray for the Jews. May the Lord our God illuminate their hearts so that they may recognize Jesus Christ as savior of all men.”

90 out of a 100 people that make statements such as yours are parroting something they heard and have barely cracked the bible open for themselfs let alone make a comparitive study of the bible, history and ancient lititure.... don't swollow someome elses theory hook line and sinker without examining the vast body of evidence to the contrary...

I don't want the Pope here either, but Prof. Weiss should watch his mouth. How would he like it if Catholics criticized our big rabbis like this?

Go to my blog, Israel Truth Times, and look for the article "PERFECT CRIME...". There you will find ALL THE INFORMATION you are looking for , to explain what the professor is saying, He is not a lunatic, what he is saying absolutely correct. Because he is not showing you the evidence, you have a hard time believing Professor Weiss. READ, get educated, and see the evidence. http://israeltruthtimes.blogspot.com/

you quote one article, I can quote another: http://www.think-israel.org/parsons.christianfriendsandfoes.html here the culprit is not so much the Catholic Church but other Christian churches (starting with the Protestants, ...)- and I am beginning to wonder how many people on TB just put all of them in a big pot, stir it up and come up with all sorts of new theories ( I guess one Christian is a bad as another?!)- accusing everybody except their own people of 'wanting to destroy Israel', come to think of it: I have read TB discussions where Jews accused Jews of exactly the same- . There is more emotion than facts in these discussions, old stories, hearsay, wrong interpretation and venting anger -

In March 1994, the newspaper Chadashot revealed a most remarkable secret of the Middle East "peace" process. A friend of Shimon Peres, the French intellectual Marek Halter, claimed in an interview that in May 1993, he delivered a letter from Peres to the pope. Within, Peres promised to internationalize Jerusalem, granting the UN political control of the Old City of Jerusalem, and the Vatican hegemony of the holy sites within. The UN would give the PLO a capital within its new territory and East Jerusalem would become a kind of free trade zone of world diplomacy. Halter's claim was backed by the Italian newspaper La Stampa which added that Arafat was apprised of the agreement and it was included in the secret clauses of the Declaration Of Principles signed in Washington in September 1993. In March 1995, the Israeli radio station Arutz Sheva was leaked a cable from the Israeli Embassy in Rome to Peres's Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem confirming the handover of Jerusalem to the Vatican. This cable was printed on the front page of the radical leftwing Israeli newspaper, Haaretz two days later. A scandal erupted and numerous rabbis who had invited Peres for Passover services cancelled their invitations in protest of his treachery. Peres reacted by claiming that the cable was real but that someone had whited out the word, "not;" the cable really said that Israel would "not" hand Jerusalem over to the holy pontiff. Illustrating the sorry political state of Israel's rabbis, they accepted this cockamamie excuse and re-invited Peres to their tables. However, in the widely distributed minutes of a meeting with Clinton in 1997, Peres reiterated his diplomacy, ending with the words, "as I had previously promised the Holy See."