The power of prayer is a notion that neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli political establishments truely believe in. They pay lip service to their respective religions, of course. But that has always been de rigueur. The cynical view is not always the right one. Israel was presumably established as a state that would accommodate the Jews that fled persecution in Europe. The Zionist movement was essentially political in nature rather than religious. Secularists traditionally held sway. And in a world of bewildering change, the cloak of religion is invariably convenient. Based on such precarious foundations, the Israeli political establishment always feared that it would be internationally exposed as a European settler colonial political entity, devoid of true religiosity. The paradox is that Pope Francis has acquired stellar credentials from his public persona as champion of the poor and the underdog. Counter-intuitive though it seems, Pope Francis is spearheading a battle to smooth over the ideological convictions of Palestinians and Israelis, bearing in mind that neither camp is unanimous. Israelis in general have long feared the possibility that their state might collapse. The pope believes that all sides should stop searching for a political solution to the Middle East crisis from above. To many believers and unbelievers alike, the idea is preposterous. Pope Francis urged Israelis and Palestinians to “break the spiral of hatred and violence”. His pious words and spiritual convictions are easier said than enacted. Israeli President Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, his Palestinian counterpart, are challenged to distance themselves from a literal interpretation of the pontiff's sublime gesture without appearing to. It will not be easy. The pontiff was described as a “bridge builder” by Peres. But how many of his compatriots share that view? It is critical to recall that the Israeli president has shed the muscular foreign policy he once embodied. The ghastly suggestion of this particular pontifical prayer farrago has solicited much derision from Israelis and Palestinians alike. Abbas and Peres pretend otherwise. Pope Francis invited the pair on his recent trip to the Holy Land to the Vatican. “It is my hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a new journey where we seek things that unite, so as to overcome the things that divide,” the pontiff proclaimed. “Peace-making calls for courage, much more so than warfare. It calls for the courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict, yes to dialogue and no to violence,” Francis pontificated. The Vatican prayer summit was an unprecedented event. Jewish rabbis, Christian cardinals, and Muslim imams implored God for peace in the Holy Land. Some observers see it as a comic albeit serious endeavour emerging out of a deeply disturbing status quo. Peace summits no longer have the same allure as yesteryear, partly because very few achieved lasting peace. The reality is that politics is having a tremendous impact on prayer and not the other way round. The Palestinians do not fit easily into Israel's tribal politics. The two-state solution is unacceptable to most Israelis. The Vatican prayer summit comes in the wake of the construction by Israel of 1,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. “O Lord, bring comprehensive and just peace to our country and region so that our people and the peoples of the Middle East and the whole world would enjoy the fruit of peace, stability and coexistence,” Abbas beseeched Allah. Not to be outdone, Peres described the Pope's concept of prayer for peace as a “holy mission”. The veteran Israeli politician has mellowed over the decades. Peres, now 90, is due to leave office when his term expires next month. The sticking point is that Israeli leaders are loath to see the world treat them as equals to the Palestinians. A power-sharing formula is out of the question and Pope Francis surely understands the implications for Palestinians. It was inevitable that the question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank would weigh on the Vatican prayer summit. The Vatican's diplomacy over the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is reminiscent of the Norwegian attempt at resolving the Middle East crisis decades ago. Peres and Abbas signed the Oslo Accords in 1993. Two decades later they are praying for peace under the auspices of the pontiff. There was a time when the world would have taken such a gesture more seriously, but now there are formidable obstacles to peace and the fact that Israel is still psychologically in a state of war. Even setting aside the contentious question of whether prayer will result in instantaneous peace, the Vatican has historically oscillated between ostracisation of and engagement with Israel. So a bloody mess persists. Many Israelis have not forgotten the role played by the Vatican in tacitly conniving with the Nazis during World War II. The Vatican has long issued an official apology, but many Israelis will not let bygones be bygones. The machinations of the popes of the past touch a raw nerve in Israel. Many Palestinians, too, are sceptical of the Vatican's true intentions. However much they may approve of his goodwill, they would not follow Pope Francis in any circumstances. So is the prayer summit a charade? The biggest question mark hangs over the intention of the Israelis to take peace, not prayer, seriously. “For thousands of years, the people of Israel have been praying for peace daily. But until peace comes, we will continue to strengthen you so that you can continue to defend the State of Israel. Ultimately, that is what will guarantee our future and will also bring peace,” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who declined to attend the prayer summit at the Vatican, said. Succinctly explaining his position, Netanyahu proclaimed that prayer was no substitute for security. Such cold realism cannot take the pope seriously. And, it is a view prevalent in Israel. Only by prodding the Middle East down the path of peace can the pontiff ensure that there is a prospect of a cessation of hostilities. The notion of prayer for peace may be fraying, but it still has public appeal among the faithful. Many Israelis share Netanyahu's aversion to the Vatican. They have no patience with this particular pontifical brand of prayer for peace. Yet another bone of contention is that Israelis view the recent reconciliation between Abbas's Fatah and Hamas as anathema. Israel promptly announced plans for 3,200 new housing units in West Bank settlements as a retaliatory measure. Israelis see the manner in which Fatah runs the West Bank, or what remains of it free from Israeli encroachment, as anachronistic and even Orwellian. Netanyahu is outraged that the Palestinians' sparring factions have come to an accommodation of sorts. Yet, he does not comprehend that the reconciliation of Palestinian organisations with radically different ideological orientations operates within a certain internal logic. Or, perhaps he does not want to know. The Palestinian protagonists had last agreed in 2007 to form a government of national unity. Netanyahu might be banking that the same fate befalls the more recent agreement between Hamas and Fatah. Whether the prayers of Pope Francis and his entourage will iron out differences between mainstream Israelis and Palestinians on this particular question, among others, is to most analysts redundant. In some quarters, both Israeli and Palestinian, the Vatican prayer summit has stirred up controversy. Included in the prayer summit was the spiritual head of the Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew, perhaps to stress that the prayer summit is an all-inclusive venture, not restricted to the Vatican. The plight of Christians in Palestine and the Middle East was likewise highlighted at the prayer summit. The Christians of the Middle East must not be abandoned by their coreligionists in the West, the pontiff emphasised. Nevertheless, the optimistic narrative quickly fell apart. “Instil in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace,” the pontiff added. Israeli angst about Hamas and Fatah reconciliation must be assuaged, but whether the pontiff can placate the Israelis without alienating the Palestinians is questionable. “The Israeli and Palestinian presidents are both of a generation that chose to turn away from the religious backgrounds of their childhoods to embrace the twin paths of socialism and nationalism,” noted Anshel Pfeffer in an ominously entitled “An empty prayer for peace at the Vatican” in the Israeli daily Haaretz. “If Peres or Abbas had been especially spiritual, they could have joined each other in a prayer for peace any of the dozens, perhaps hundreds of times they've met since the Oslo process began more than two decades ago. Instead, their efforts have bogged down over the last 21 years. While Israel has prospered and the Palestinian Authority has become an entity unto itself with a state-like bureaucracy of its own, neither side has come any closer to embracing the necessary compromise,” Pfeffer added. “Peres and Abbas both played their part in the impeccably choreographed ceremony that took place in the Vatican's manicured gardens. The music was heavenly and the liturgy well chosen, but neither man seemed to be doing much praying. “The pope graciously gave Peres and Abbas a day of rest, but they have little use for his prayers,” the writer concluded. A contradiction lurks. Should the spirit of tolerance ever dissipate for good, no matter what the pontiff wishes will not be realised. Prayer has deadlines in the world of realpolitik. “‘Why is he wearing a kippah?' But perhaps, the real question is whether and why Jews are wearing zucchetti,” was the tongue-in-cheek rhetorical question of Elon Gilad in an incredulous article entitled “Why does the Pope wear a Yarmulke?” also published in Haaretz. After the hat swapping, or rather the headgear exchange, both Palestinians and Israelis are back to waiting.
