Pope pursues peace in Mid East
With Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over, the two sides are to keep the conversation going in an unusual setting: the Vatican.
During a three-day visit to the Middle East this week, Pope Francis issued an unexpected invitation for the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to talk and pray with him at in Rome.
He said in Bethlehem: “In this, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, I wish to invite you, President Mahmoud Abbas, together with President Shimon Peres, to join me in heartfelt prayer to God for the gift of peace.” He declared: “Building peace is difficult, but living without peace is a constant torment.”
Both leaders immediately accepted the invitation, and the meeting is expected to take place within a fortnight. Israel’s president Shimon Peres voiced confidence in the Pope’s ability to move forward the cause of peace, telling him at a Jerusalem meeting: “I believe that your visit and call for peace will echo through the region and contribute to revitalising the efforts to complete the peace process between us and the Palestinians, based on two states living in peace.”
The pontiff repeated his call for peace as soon as he arrived in Israel. “A two-state solution must become a reality and not remain a dream,” he proclaimed at Ben-Gurion Airport before his transfer to Jerusalem for the final leg of his trip, which started in Jordan and continued in the West Bank.
A few hours before he arrived at Ben-Gurion, he made a more controversial foray into Israeli-Palestinian relations by making an unscheduled prayer stop at the West Bank security barrier, which Palestinians consider a symbol of oppression. He also referred to the “State of Palestine,” endorsing the Palestinian claim, strongly denied by Israel and her allies, that following unilateral moves at the United Nations, they have a state.
Israel ensured that tensions over these actions in the West Bank didn’t sour the atmosphere of the trip. Almost 1000 Vatican flags fluttered in Jerusalem in his honour, and gifts – mostly framed pictures of historical scenes – awaited the Pope at his meetings. Pilgrims clamoured to catch a sight of him, and much of the city ground to a halt for long periods as security arrangements were made for his route.
The Pope reached deep into the Israeli psyche during his time in Jerusalem, not only discussing peace, but also honouring the key pillars of Israeli identity – the Holocaust, Judaism, Zionism, and loss to terrorism.
At Yad Vashem, he expressed shock at the Holocaust. He beseeched God to “grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done.” In the guestbook he expressed “shame for the fact that man made himself the owner of evil.”
At the Western Wall, the most visited Jewish holy place in the world, he listened to a short presentation on the site, and a speech by its rabbi, Shmuel Rabinovitch, before praying by the ancient stones and inserting a note. “We travelled a long road on our way home,” Rabinovitch told him, stressing the Jewish connection to Jerusalem. “We wandered the four corners of the earth. For two thousand years we suffered scorn, had our full share of sorrow, but every single day we prayed and believed ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’”
He became the first Pope to honour the Zionist movement, laying a wreath at the tomb of Theodor Herzl, who convened the First World Zionist Congress in 1897. And he made an unscheduled stop at a monument to honour victims of terrorism, in an attempt to quell Israeli displeasure at his visit to the security barrier. Netanyahu told him at the memorial: “When my son was 10 years old, his best friend was a girl, a beautiful Ethiopian girl, who sat next to him in class. One day she didn’t come. She was blown up in a bus not far from here because there was no fence, no wall.”
During his trip, Pope Francis also weighed in on one of the most controversial issues among Christian citizens of Israel. Arab nationalists within Israel object to the state’s claim that it is a shining example of cultural diversity, and one of the best places in the Middle East for Christians to live. They claim that this picture obscures a legacy of discrimination against all Arabs, including Christians. But the Pope accepted this picture of equality.
He said: “A variety of Christians live and work here, they are an integral part of society and participate fully in affairs. They wish to contribute to the common good and the cause of peace. They reject extremism and are committed to reconciliation and harmony. Respect for them is part of healthy pluralism and vitality of democratic values as embodied in the daily life of the state.”
NATHAN JEFFAY