The Foreign Ministry has instructed its ambassador to the Vatican, Shmuel Hadas, to ask the Holy See for a clarification of reports that it awarded a papal knighthood to former Austrian president Kurt Waldheim.
In a July 6 ceremony in Vienna, Waldheim was made a member of the Ordine Piano, an order of knights named directly by the pope.
Waldheim, the former president of Austria and secretary-general of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, was a Nazi intelligence officer stationed in the Balkans during World War II. He has been implicated in the deportations of Jews and reprisal killings of anti-Nazi partisans in the region.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Rafi Gamzu said Israel was “shocked” by the award.
“If it happened, then it is a bad, tasteless joke,” Gamzu said, “Whoever honors Waldheim for safeguarding human rights ignores his wartime record, which his U.N. term does not compensate for.”
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