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Potential pope favors Jewish presence in Israel
A potential successor to Pope John Paul II spoke out strongly in favor of the Jewish claim to Israel.

Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn also rejected the notion that European Christian support for Israel stems from guilt over the Holocaust, the Jerusalem Post reported. “Only once in human history did God take a country as an inheritance and give it to his chosen people,” Schoenborn said Wednesday in an address at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

A Palestinian priest challenged Schoenborn’s claim that Christians should celebrate the Jewish return to Israel, but Schoenborn responded that while the Arab-Israeli conflict is a matter of international law, the Jewish presence in Israel dates back to the Bible.