Center’s Petition Will Seek Vatican Recognition of Israel

Within the next week, the Simon Wiesenthal Center hopes to distribute to its 362,000 members nationwide a petition calling on the Vatican to extend diplomatic recognition to the State of Israel, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based organization said.

The center is seeking “a noble deed” from the Vatican as a possible way to make amends for Pope John Paul II’s granting of an audience to Austrian President Kurt Waldheim last week in the face of a worldwide Jewish outcry.

Jewish leaders also were angered by the Pope’s lack of reference to accusations that Waldheim participated in war crimes as a German military officer in World War II. Waldheim has denied the charges.

Among elected officials who have supported the petition is Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who was in Jerusalem when the campaign was announced this week. Bradley wrote to Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the center:

“It is my fervent hope that history will record that under the leadership of Pope John Paul II the Vatican will recognize the state which has been the refuge for the survivors of the Holocaust. This recognition of the state of Israel will help to assure all people that the world is united in a pledge to prevent such a human tragedy from ever again occurring.”

State Senate President David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), a Catholic, wrote to Hier that the Pope-Waldheim meeting “has moved us away” from the progress made in erasing vestiges of anti-Semitism among Catholics.

Wiesenthal center officials hope to deliver the petitions to the Pope or one of his representatives in Miami during the pontiff’s first stop of his September U.S. visit.