A group of German bishops sparked controversy yesterday when they compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with the Nazis' maltreatment of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

It's that wall, which the Telegraph (!) tells us, as an almanac fact, is "illegally built." It has also made downtown Jerusalem once again safe from suicide bombers, and defense of populace is any state's highest obligation, whatever some tuppny-haypny international lawyer may say.

Why will bishops go around thinking anybody needs or wants their advice on politics, as distinct from faith and morals? Frankly I'd have to go back to Cardinal Spellman to find a statement on an international issue by a high-ranking Catholic hierarch that isn't either trivially true (poverty is bad, peace is good, etc.), or else cringe-making, like this one.

And if they insist on talking about things they don't understand, they should at least have a clue about the ideological and rhetorical environment in which they say it. The "Israel = Nazi" meme is the standard screen behind which some people -- not all who have criticisms to make of Israeli policy, which should be as freely debatable as the policy of any nation, but some of them -- hide their neo-Nazism.

I note that Cardinal Meisner (a) has visited the wall, and (b) grew up in communist East Germany. I do not concede that these facts give him expertise on Israel's legitimate security needs, or on present-day rhetorical politics. On the contrary, they deprive him of potential excuses.

This is not just about Israel: it's also about potential conversions. We will never know how many of these are deterred every time Church spokesmen reinforce, in the eyes of Jews, the myth that the Church hates them, or (like it makes a big difference) considers their security a low-ranking priority.