Cardinal Tauran: Key Document of Vatican II Rewritten So As Not To Annoy Muslims

Cardinal Tauran and Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the current President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue had this to say a few days ago about the Council's Declaration on Non-Christian religions:

Nostra Aetate came about because St John XXIII wanted some sort of document along those lines for Vatican II but he died in 1963, before the council could consider it,. Some delegates to the council did not want to have such a document come up for discussion, Cardinal Tauran explained, and when discussion finally took place, “some bishops from the Middle East were concerned about this problem” that the draft of the document spoke only about the relationship between Catholics and Jews, and that this would not sit well with Muslim civic and religious leaders in the region. 

“It soon became clear that 'Nostra Aetate' had nothing to do with (the state of) Israel,” Cardinal Tauran said, and the document was modified to include Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and other faith systems.

I'm not sure what the Cardinal means by "it soon became clear..." Nostra Aetate doesn't explicitly discuss the state of Israel, though much of it obviously is devoted to a discussion of Judaism and the Jews. Does he mean that when the document was originally drafted as the "Decree on the Jews" there were initially references to Israel that were taken out when it was broadened to include other religions?