[News] Pope's visit overlooks Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Pope's visit overlooks Palestinians

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 14 May 2009
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10528.shtml


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 recognized 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 
Dheisheh 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, a prominent peace 
activist 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 legitimize 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 organizations 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 Netanyahu and Peres to listen not only to 
the Israeli national anthem but also to Jerusalem of Gold, a song 
popularized 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 recognized 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 
a captured Israeli soldier, 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 minimize 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 meters of the wall.

And today, as he headed to Nazareth to celebrate mass, he will not 
meet Mazin Ghanaim, mayor of the Galilee town of Sakhnin, after 
Israel labelled Ghanaim a "supporter of terror" for criticizing 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 antagonizing 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 $70 million.

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 has not been able to 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 criticized the building of a wall around Bethlehem, while 
attributing its construction to the "stalemate" in relations between 
Israelis and Palestinians.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. 
His latest books are 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745327540/theelectronic-20>Israel 
and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the 
Middle East (Pluto Press) and 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1848130317/theelectronic-20>Disappearing 
Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His 
website is <http://www.jkcook.net/>www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in 
<http://www.thenational.ae/>The National, published in Abu Dhabi.



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