NAZARETH, ISRAEL // Pope Benedict XVI upset the schedule on his
first day in Israel by leaving an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem early on
Monday night after a leading Muslim cleric called on him to condemn the
“slaughter” of women and children in the recent assault on Gaza.
The pontiff walked out, a spokesman noted, because Sheikh Tayseer
Tamimi’s speech was a “direct negation” of dialogue and damaged the Pope’s
efforts at “promoting peace”.
Before he arrived in the region, the Pope declared that he was
coming as a “pilgrim of peace”, with his staff accentuating that his role would
be spiritual rather than political.
In truth, however, Pope Benedict’s visit was mired in politics
the moment he agreed, at the invitation of Shimon Peres, the Israeli president,
to step into this conflict-torn region.
The two popes who preceded him to the Holy Land appear to have
better appreciated that point.
The first, Paul VI, made a hurried 12-hour stop in 1964, before
the Vatican and Israel had established diplomatic relations, to conduct a Mass
in Nazareth. During that time he did not utter the word “Israel” or formally
meet with an Israeli official.
The second, John Paul II, came to the Holy Land in radically
different circumstances: for the millennium, when hopes were still bright for
the peace process. The Vatican had recognised Israel a few years earlier and the
pontiff worked hard to soothe long-standing Jewish grievances against the
Catholic church.
But he is also remembered by Palestinians for his bold move in
joining Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, on a visit to the Deheisheh
refugee camp near Bethlehem, where he cited UN resolutions against Israel and
graphically described the “degrading conditions” under which Palestinians lived.
A decade on, the degrading conditions of occupation have worsened
considerably and hopes of peace have vanished. In the circumstances, some
Palestinians question what point a papal visit has served.
“The very act of coming here is a political act that works to the
benefit of Israel,” observed Mazin Qumsiyeh, who teaches at the West Bank’s only
Catholic university, in Bethlehem.
“This Pope’s visit, unlike his predecessor’s, offers no novelty –
apart from his decision to stand next to [the Israeli prime minister] Benjamin
Netanyahu and legitimise an extreme right-wing government.”
Israeli officials too are unpersuaded by the Pope’s claim that he
can avoid being dragged into local politics. Or as one government adviser told
the Haaretz newspaper: “We have become pariahs in so many places around the
globe. Promoting the Pope’s visit to the state is part of changing that.”
Israel has established the largest press centre in the country’s
history for this visit, while police have broken up attempts by Palestinian
organisations in Jerusalem to present a rival picture to journalists.
The attempts at careful stage management began from the moment
the Pope’s plane touched down in Tel Aviv on Monday. At the reception, Pope
Benedict stood between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Peres to listen not only to the
Israeli national anthem but also to Jerusalem of Gold, a song popularised by
soldiers during the capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war.
The lyrics – offensive to Palestinians – describe an empty and
neglected city before the arrival of Jews.
Similarly, Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, made a point of
welcoming him to the “capital of Israel and the Jewish people”, a description of
Jerusalem not recognised in international law.
After the Pope failed to object, the Israeli media happily
concluded that the country’s occupation of Jerusalem had papal blessing.
In addition, Palestinians, including the 100,000 with ties to
Rome, have been angered by the Pope’s official meeting with the parents of the
captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, a humanitarian gesture made political for
them by the fact that he has not extended the same courtesy to the parents of
any of the thousands of Palestinians in Israeli captivity.
Many Palestinians appreciate that the Pope – with his
unfortunate, if apparently involuntary, connections to Nazi Germany – has been
especially careful not to offend Israeli sensitivities, even if his speech at
Yad Vashem failed to live up to the country’s high expectations.
But some also conclude that he has done too little to let the
world know of their own plight.
Under pressure from Israel he has refused to visit Gaza, even at
the beseeching of the tiny and besieged community of Catholics there.
Yesterday, to minimise Israel’s embarrassment, Vatican officials
tried as best they could to keep him out of view of the oppressive wall that
encircles Bethlehem. But he did speak to the press outside a UN school at a
refugee camp within metres of the wall.
And today, as he heads to Nazareth to celebrate mass, he will not
meet Mazin Ghanaim, mayor of the Galilee town of Sakhnin, after Israel labelled
Mr Ghanaim a “supporter of terror” for criticising its offensive in Gaza.
In private at least, some Palestinian Christian leaders admit
that there are pressures on the Pope other than his own personal history that
may make him wary of antagonising Israel.
Most importantly, the Vatican desperately needs exemption from
Israeli taxes levied on the Church’s extensive land holdings. Unpaid property
taxes are reported to amount to US$70 million (Dh257m).
The Holy See also wants a reprieve from Israeli policies that
deny visas to many church officials and block clerics’ movement in the occupied
territories.
As the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, recently
complained: “At the roadblocks, even priestly garb doesn’t help.”
And finally, the Vatican has been seeking Israel’s agreement for
more than a decade to return to its control major sites of pilgrimage, including
Mount Tabor and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
But Israel could not control the message completely. On his
one-day trip to Bethlehem and the Aida refugee camp yesterday, the Pope did
acknowledge Palestinian suffering and the destruction of Gaza, even if he blamed
it vaguely on “the turmoil that has afflicted this land for decades”.
He lamented the difficulties Palestinians face in reaching their
holy places in Jerusalem, though he appeared to justify the restrictions on
Israel’s “serious security concerns”.
And he criticised the building of a wall around Bethlehem, while
attributing its construction to the “stalemate” in relations between Israelis
and Palestinians.
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