Member of Knesset Ayoub Kara said on Monday that he got the feeling from his meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican last week that the Catholic Church was behind the pontiff on behalf of the Jewish people. Speaking on Arutz Sheva's Hebrew journal, the deputy minister for development of the Negev and the Galilee said that the pope's speech on International Holocaust Day showed that he knew what happened in the concentration camps.

Kara said that after his meeting with the pope, he had an argument with the Church's representative on the Middle East, who said internationalization of Jerusalem was the optimal solution to the Arab-Israeli struggle over the capital. Kara responded by saying that if there was no Israel, there would be no churches in the Middle East, noting how the Christians of Bethlehem and Nazareth are being treated by their Muslim neighbors. He added that the interest of the Church should be Israeli control, and felt that some of what he said was accepted by the cardinal.