VATICAN CITY — It is hardly equivalent to the end of the Cold War, but a brief chill in relations between the Vatican and Israel is clearly over in the wake of an explanatory letter from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Still to be resolved, however, are longstanding taxation and property rights issues regarding Church properties in the Holy Land that some believe were the real trigger for this summer's diplomatic spat.

“The situation has returned to the point where we can sit down and discuss common issues. It was in everyone's interest that things calm down,” a senior Vatican official said Aug. 29.

Israeli Ambassador Oded Ben-Hur — who delivered Sharon's letter to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, in late August — said that explanations on both sides had smoothed things over.

“Cardinal Sodano told me himself that the case was closed,” the Israeli ambassador said. “We are quite satisfied with the situation now and look forward to talks in the future.”

In fact, the Register learned in mid-August that negotiations on tax and property rights for the Church in the Holy Land had already resumed before Sharon extended his olive branch.

Angelus Anger

The souring of relations began in late July, when an Israeli government spokesman harshly criticized Pope Benedict XVI for his Angelus address. During his traditional Sunday message, the Pope condemned recent terrorist attacks in London, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq but omitted reference to a suicide attack on the Israeli city of Netanya that left five Israelis dead.

The Israeli spokesman called the omission a “deliberate” and “immoral” omission that “cried out to the heavens,” and accused the Holy See of wishing to legitimize terrorist attacks on Israel. Further strong words came from Religion Minister Nimrod Barkan, who complained that Pope John Paul II had repeatedly failed to condemn Palestinian terrorism.

In response, the Vatican secretariat of state noted in a statement that the attacks Benedict mentioned had taken place two to three days before the Pope's remarks, whereas the Netanya atrocity took place nearly two weeks earlier. It also reminded Israel that John Paul, who had done so much to build relations with Israel, made “numerous and public” condemnations of terrorist attacks on Israel.

The Secretariat of State added that the Holy See could not condemn every attack on Israel because Israel itself often retaliates in contravention of international law. The statement concluded with a terse warning that the Holy See would not “take lessons or instructions from any other authority on the tone and content of its statements.”

Diversionary Tactic?

Soon after the exchange, some sources suggested the Israeli outburst was a stunt manufactured by the Israeli foreign ministry to divert attention from the stalled negotiations with the Holy See.

According to observers, the talks have so far failed for two reasons: ministerial inattention to the bilateral relationship, and some Israeli unease with the 1993 Fundamental Agreement that established diplomatic relations between the two states.

Under the terms of the Agreement, the Church should gain control over a good deal of property and be accorded some de jure tax exemption rights. But Israel has failed to ratify some rights and eroded others in recent years, partly because it is worried about granting the same concessions to non-Christians and partly because of the lost revenue and property involved.

However, with the U.S. government pressuring Israel to fully comply with the Agreement, some analysts speculated Israeli officials were anxious not be seen stalling the talks yet again and consequently cooked up a diplomatic dispute to forestall American criticism.

If so, the officials apparently acted without Sharon's approval. Even before the Israeli prime minister issued his conciliatory letter, sources told the Register that the highest levels of the Israeli government were furious about the flap over the Pope's remarks. The government spokesman who criticized the Angelus address reportedly received a “real dressing down” from the prime minister's office, and bilateral negotiations resumed in mid-August.

Rabbi David Rosen, the international director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, said the dispute was a “lamentable storm in a teacup” caused by “undiplomatic stupidity.”

“Paradoxically,” added Rosen, who has been involved in the Vatican-Israel negotiations, “for the first time the Prime Minister's Office is involved and seems to be pushing things along.”

Sharon's Letter

In his letter, Sharon said that Israel, as a country scarred by “Islamic terrorism,” was very sensitive to any attempt to differentiate between attacks on Israeli citizens and attacks on citizens of other countries.

Sources said that when Ambassador Ben-Hur presented Sharon's letter to Cardinal Sodano the cardinal reassured him that the wording of the papal Angelus text was simply an oversight.

Ben-Hur said that in his letter Sharon also underlined his government's commitment to concluding negotiations with the Vatican on the taxation and financial issues regarding Church institutions in the Holy Land.

Sharon said he had instructed his officials to make every effort to wrap up an agreement with the Vatican, Ben-Hur said. The prime minister also stressed that both sides shared responsibility for reaching an agreement and that, in his view, Israel had made “fair and generous” proposals on the issue.

Israel has given similarly positive signals during six years of negotiations over the issues, only to later stall on concluding an agreement. In an interview in mid-August, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the apostolic nuncio to Israel, said that he is not authorized to disclose why reaching an agreement has been so difficult. But he did acknowledge that the cause of the delay runs deeper than a merely a lack of attention by senior Israeli officials.

Archbishop Sambi declined to predict if the current round of talks will finally resolve the issue.

“There will be an agreement but I don't know when,” the archbishop said. “The talks will be concluded when common ground is found.”

(CNS contributed to this story)

Edward Pentin writes from Rome.