During his high profile visit to the Holy Land, Pope Benedict XVI preached reconciliation between Christians/Muslims and Jews. But he failed to bridge the gulf between the Vatican and Jews because he did not speak of past issues dividing Catholics and Jews. These include long-standing persecution of Jews by the church, culminating in the murder of six million by the Nazis during World War II, and the refusal of Pope Pius XII to intervene in the Nazi extermination of the Jews.

Neither did he address his own decision to reverse the excommunication of a Catholic bishop who denies the full extent of the holocaust. If he had made gestures to resolve these issues, he would have gone a good deal of the way in reconciling the Catholic Church with Israel and the world’s Jewish community.

The Pope also failed to reconcile the church with the worldwide Muslim community or address the challenge posed by Israel to Palestine’s Muslim and Christian communities. Although he expressed his support for a Palestinian homeland, he did not speak frankly and openly about what is today happening in Palestine, particularly in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, and Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified by the Roman occupiers of the country.

The Pontiff’s reticence was more than made up for by Tayseer Tamimi, Jerusalem’s chief judge of Muslim courts, who called upon him to condemn Israel’s murder of 1,445 Palestinians in Gaza during its latest war on the strip, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the transformation of the Palestinians into stateless refugees. Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Husseini followed up Tamimi’s remarks by calling for an end to Israel’s “ongoing aggression against our people, our land, and our holy sites in Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank”.

The Palestinian clerics embarrassed the Vatican, which found such truth telling impolitic and undiplomatic. But the Pope and his entourage knew when they decided to undertake the pilgrimage that they were entering a political minefield from which they could not emerge unscathed.

The Catholic Church, which has brigades of priests and nuns in the Holy Land, cannot claim ignorance of Israel’s drive to ingest the whole of geographic Palestine and either drive out its native population or relegate Palestinians to an archipelago of shrinking, tightly controlled enclaves where they will be ruled by a Palestinian authority answerable to Israel.

If the Vatican is not fully informed by clerics on the ground, the Pope, a scholar, and his advisers only have to read the two latest reports by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the first, on Jerusalem, issued last month, and the second, on Bethlehem, produced last week.

The first reveals that Israel plans large-scale demolitions of Palestinian houses in Silwan and other East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, rendering at least 5,000 Palestinians homeless. According to Israeli statistics, at least 15,000 residential units, accounting for 28 per cent of all Palestinian housing in East Jerusalem, have been built without permits or in violation of zoning regulations. Israel issues only a fraction of the permits required to meet the housing needs of the city’s Palestinian population and often changes zoning rules to suit its political strategies.

OCHA says that “at least 60,000 Palestinian residents are at risk of having their homes demolished. This estimate is conservative and the percentage may be as high as 46 per cent”. Some 257,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem.

OCHA shows that 35 per cent of the land of East Jerusalem has been expropriated for illegal Israeli colonies, housing 195,000 settlers. Most of this stolen land is privately owned Palestinian property. The Israelis have allocated only 13 per cent for Palestinian construction while 22 per cent has been set aside for green areas and public gardens. But Israel’s zoning of land for green areas does not mean such lands will remain unsettled. The Israeli colony of Har Homa was built on green-zoned Palestinian-owned Jabel Abu Ghnaim between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Updating the April document, OCHA’s weekly report for April 29-May 5 revealed that so far this year, “all Israeli demolitions of built-up residences (not including tents) in the West Bank due to the lack of permits occurred in and around East Jerusalem”.

During the week surveyed, 26 demolition orders were issued, one for a two-storey addition to the Armenian Catholic Church, built to accommodate visiting clerics and other religious personalities. (I wonder why Pope Benedict did not visit this facility). This report reveals that the Israeli focus is on East Jerusalem.

OCHA’s 23-page report on Bethlehem reveals that only 13 per cent of the land in the entire Bethlehem governorate “is for Palestinian use”, and it is “fragmented”. The largest tract of land in the governorate, 66 per cent, lies between the hills and the Dead Sea. It was classified as area C, under full Israeli military control and administration, by the defunct Oslo accord of 1993.

Israel has also shrunk the territory of the Bethlehem governorate by annexing the settlements of Har Homa and Gilo, and areas surrounding Greater Jerusalem to which access “has been severely reduced” for Palestinians. The “reduction in Palestinian access and space” in areas A, under Palestinian Authority control, and B, under Palestinian administration and Israeli military control, has been achieved mainly by the planting of Israeli settlements and outposts, construction of the wall-fence-complex, and the imposition of closed military areas.

While there are 175,000 Palestinians in the Bethlehem governorate, 86,000 Israelis have been settled in 19 colonies and 16 outposts. Many of the larger settlements are slated to expand by more than 30,000 housing units. Palestinians are excluded from areas taken over by settlers and are required to obtain Israeli permits to enter East Jerusalem and Israel. These permits are restricted in time and do not allow the use of vehicles. When completed, Israel’s West Bank wall will isolate 21,000 Palestinians and severely restrict the access of others to Bethlehem city, its markets and shops, schools and hospitals, and complete the isolation of Jerusalem from the north.

Although tourism to Bethlehem rose last year, pilgrims, intimidated by the eight-metre high wall and the security area through which they must pass to enter and exit, make quick visits to the Church of the Nativity and other sites connected with Christianity and flee to the relative freedom of Jerusalem. Tourism, once the city’s mainstay, can no longer be relied upon as a money spinner. Christians, formerly the majority in Bethlehem, are emigrating due to the deepening Israeli occupation. Ultimately, the land where Christianity was born could be ethnically cleansed of native Christians. One day only priests may remain to maintain Christian holy sites.