Group: ‘Honk Your Horn To Protest Pope’

Israeli drivers today were urged to honk their horns in protest of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Yad Vashem. The Generation to Generation-Bearers of the Holocaust and Heroism Legacy organization issued the call for Israelis to carry out the protest tomorrow at 6 p.m., when the pope is due to begin delivering his speech at the Holocaust museum.”With a short honk, Israeli citizens across the country will express their disgust for the visit of the pope who encourages Holocaust deniers and displays of anti-Semitism,” read a statement from the group today.

The organization cited the pope’s call to the international community to attend Durban II, where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, was a guest of honor, and the Vatican delegates’ continued presence in the hall during Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel speech.

It also referred to the pope’s initial decision last December to lift the excommunication from the Catholic Church of Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, and Benedict’s conclusion of the canonization of World War II Pope Pius XII, who Jews and others say failed to do all he could to stop the extermination of European Jews.

Members of the organization called on the government to “stop ignoring” all the above and insisted that on his visit to Israel, the pope make an “unambiguous declaration” of his absolute opposition to Holocaust denial and his desire to restore the atmosphere of appeasement that began between the Church and Jews in the era of the last pope, John Paul II, after years of thorny relations following the Holocaust.

On a visit to Jordan’s Mount Nevo yesterday, Benedict said that his visit to the Middle East was a reminder of the “inseparable bond” between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people.

{JPost/Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel}