On the fourth day of his first trip to the Middle East as pope, Benedict XVI arrived Monday in Israel and immediately called for a solution to the conflict that would yield a “homeland of their own” for both Palestinians and Israelis.
While he did not use the word “state,” he made clear in a brief speech that he was underscoring the Vatican’s previous support for the creation of a Palestinian state, albeit with a stronger resonance imparted by the setting and timing of his remarks within minutes of arriving in Israel.
“The eyes of the world are upon the peoples of this region as they struggle to achieve a just and lasting solution to conflicts that have caused so much suffering,” he told Israeli leaders who met him at the airport in Tel Aviv when he arrived from Jordan.
“The hopes of countless men, women and children for a more secure and stable future depend on the outcome of negotiations for peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said.
“In union with people of good will everywhere, I plead with all those responsible to explore every possible avenue in the search for a just resolution of the outstanding difficulties, so that both peoples may live in peace in a homeland of their own, within secure and internationally recognized borders.”
The pope was met by President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who later left Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak.
His five-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories is likely to prove the most contentious part of his journey in places laden with symbolism and charged with emotion for Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.
Benedict plans to visit sites including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, the Western Wall and the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. He has also scheduled ceremonies in a Palestinian refugee camp and in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
“I take my place in a long line of Christian pilgrims to these shores, a line that stretches back to the earliest centuries of the church’s history and which, I am sure, will continue long into the future,” Benedict said here on Monday. “I come, like so many others before me, to pray at the holy places, to pray especially for peace — peace here in the Holy Land, and peace throughout the world.”
He spoke out against anti-Semitism as “totally unacceptable.”
“Every effort must be made to combat anti-Semitism wherever it is found,” he said.
Benedict was is scheduled to visit Yad Vashem on Monday afternoon. “I will have the opportunity to honor the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah, and to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude,” he said in his arrival speech at Tel Aviv airport.
The pope’s remarks about the Holocaust were closely watched.
He sparked global outrage in January by revoking the excommunication of a bishop from an ultra-traditionalist sect who had been filmed denying the magnitude of the Holocaust. Many Jews had already viewed Benedict with some suspicion because he is a German who was forced into the Hitler Youth and the German Army in World War II.
The pope has also sought to overcome lingering disfavor among some Muslims who were offended by a speech three years ago in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who said Islam encouraged violence and brought things “evil and inhuman.” To make amends, he reached out to various Muslim groups and prayed in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul on a trip to Turkey two months after the speech.
The pope’s trip, which began Friday in Jordan, has take him to a region where the number of Christians has dwindled in the land where their faith was born — a theme of concern to the Vatican.
On Sunday, the pope urged Christians in the Middle East to “have the courage” to stay faithful to their religious roots in order to “build new bridges” to fight extremism.
Celebrating Mass before 30,000 people in Amman, the pope told the faithful that staying true to their Christian roots required “the courage to build new bridges to enable a fruitful encounter of people of different religions and cultures, and thus to enrich the fabric of society.” He added that that meant “bearing witness to the love which inspires us to lay down our lives in the service of others, and thus to counter ways of thinking which justify taking innocent lives.”
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope’s words could be interpreted not only as a rejoinder to Islamic extremism, but also more broadly. During the Mass, Benedict also greeted a group of Iraqi Catholics living as refugees in Jordan. The Vatican estimates that some 40,000 Iraqi Catholics have fled to Jordan since the start of the Iraq war.
Blessing two churches under construction in Bethany Beyond the Jordan, the site where some say that Jesus was baptized, Benedict called on Christians to “promote dialogue and understanding in civil society, especially when claiming your legitimate rights.”
He added, “In the Middle East, marked by tragic suffering, by years of violence and unresolved tensions, Christians are called to offer their contribution, inspired by the example of Jesus, of reconciliation and peace through forgiveness and generosity.”
As he left Jordan on Monday, the pope praised King Abdullah II for his treatment of the desert country’s tiny Christian community which makes up less than two percent of the mainly Muslim population, The Associated Press reported.
“I would like to encourage all Jordanians, whether Christian or Muslim, to build on the firm foundations of religious tolerance that enable the members of different communities to live together in peace and mutual respect,” Benedict said.
Front Page Features