Will Pope Benedict stand strong and avoid what is becoming the traditional "cave in" by Western leaders to radical Muslim demands? From Reuters:
AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordanian Islamist leaders on Thursday condemned Pope Benedict's visit to the Middle East, saying it was provocative because he has not apologized for offending comments implying Islam was violent and irrational.
They said the pope, who arrives in Jordan on Friday on the first leg of a tour including Israel and the Palestinian territories, still owed them an apology for hinting Islam was violent and irrational in a 2006 speech in Regensburg.
Jordan's Roman Catholic Church urged Islamists on Wednesday to welcome the pope despite their earlier criticism of his visit. A senior Amman official acknowledged some discontent but said the government would warmly welcome Benedict.
"The present Vatican pope is the one who issued severe insults to Islam and did not offer any apology to the Muslims," Zaki Bani Rusheid, head of the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest mainstream Islamist party, told Reuters.
"Ignoring Muslim sentiments will only block the healing of wounds his statements caused," said another Islamist figure, Jamil Abu Baker.
For many Arabs in the region, the pope's stated mission of peace and reconciliation is futile without a sufficient gesture to Palestinian suffering under Israeli occupation.
Read it all. Personally, I'd like him to acknowledge the plight of southern Israelis who have rockets and missiles reigned down upon their heads on a daily basis, not to mention Jews who were forced to flee Arab countires by the thousands after 1948. But I digress.