Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Jordan and the occupied territories steered clear of any controversy, if that is possible in a land where Christians suffer almost as much as Muslims, report Oula Farawati in Amman and Khaled Amayreh in Bethlehem While trying repeatedly to emphasise the religious nature of his eight-day visit to the Middle East, Pope Benedict XVI nonetheless found himself in a visibly difficult situation, having to satisfy the two sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The pope began his visit, the first to the Arab region, in Jordan where he was accorded a state reception by the Jordanian king and his royal family. The Pope visited the largest mosque in Amman where he met with Muslim religious leaders, highlighting the need for a constructive dialogue between Islam and Christianity. However, the high priest of the Roman Catholic Church angered many Muslims when he spoke affectionately of the "umbilical relationship between Catholicism and Judaism" while visiting the Mount of Nebo, 32km southwest of the Jordanian town of Madaba. According to the Bible, Prophet Moses stood at Mount Nebo, east of the Jordan River, and viewed the Land of Canaan before he died. In the course of his visit, the Pope stressed on several occasions the spiritual nature of his journey which he labelled "a Pilgrimage for Peace". However, it was clear that every word he uttered and every gesture he made were scrutinised for political significance, both by his hosts and especially by an army of reporters covering the visit. Arriving in Israel on 11 May, he tried as much as possible to balance his sympathy with the Jews over the Holocaust and the past troubled relations between European Jewry and the Vatican with concern for the enduring Palestinian plight. However, in doing so, the Pope raised hackles on both sides. In West Jerusalem, Israeli political and religious leaders used the occasion to stress the "bond between Jews and Palestine" and tacitly attacked Muslims for rejecting the Zionist usurpation of Palestine as well as the ongoing Israeli persecution of Palestinians. Acting as a public relations officer, Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger, told the Pope that he should have visited Israel much earlier for the sake of peace. "If a historical meeting such as this, where the head of the largest religion in the world meets in Jerusalem with the head of the Jewish religion, had taken place many years ago, how much blood would have been spared and senseless hatred prevented." The rabbi, who had enthusiastically supported the recent massacre and destruction by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, even spoke of his wish to see "love, mutual respect and peace prevail in our world." The Pope didn't comment on Metzger's political tirade, saying rather tersely that the Vatican would maintain the dialogue between Christianity and Judaism. The Pope's remarks at the Al-Buraq plaza, which Jews call the Western Wall plaza, and his earlier brief statements at the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in West Jerusalem upset Israeli religious leaders. One Catholic official in the West Bank remarked that "the Jews wanted to squeeze the Pope for any conceivable statement that would be used as a propaganda tool to justify the criminal Israeli persecution of the Palestinians. "In fact the main thing Israel wanted to obtain from the Pope's visit is a papal blessing of Israel savagery and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people." Another non-Catholic Palestinian Christian described the intensive public relations exploitation by Israel of the papal visit as "a desperate attempt to get the Pope to legitimise the brutal and barbaric Israeli regime, especially its genocidal actions against the Palestinians. He added that "we hope the Pope will be aware of these vicious attempts." Generally speaking, the Pope didn't fall into the trap, which upset the Israeli leadership, prompting some right-wing politicians to repeat accusations that the Pope had been a member of the Hitler Youth. Disquieted by the accusations, Vatican officials reemphasised that the papal visit was a spiritual journey, not a political junket. Earlier at a brief inter-religious encounter at the Notre Dame Centre in Jerusalem, Sheikh Taysir Al-Tamimi, the chief judge of the Palestinian Authority, told the Pope that it was a religious and moral obligation incumbent on all men of religion to condemn in the strongest terms the cruel persecution of Palestinian Muslims and Christians at the hands of the Israeli regime. Tamimi reminded the Pope that Israel was "murdering innocent Palestinians at will, destroying their homes, stealing their land and narrowing their horizons." On Tuesday, the Pope paid a historical visit to the Dome of the Rock Mosque at the Haram Al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) esplanade where he was briefed on the history of the magnificent shrine by Muslim religious officials. Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, grand mufti of Al-Quds and head of the Supreme Muslim Council spoke of the exemplary harmony between Christians and Muslims in the holy land. He told the Pope that "we look forward to your holiness's effective role in putting an end to the ongoing aggression against our people, our land, and our holy sites in Al-Quds, the West Bank and Gaza." The Pope spoke of the need for inter-religious tolerance, saying the Islamic sanctuary represented the common grounds of heavenly religions. "Here the path of the world's three great monotheistic religions meets, reminding us of what they share in common," the pontiff told the grand mufti. "This sacred place serves as a stimulus, and also challenges men and women of goodwill to overcome misunderstandings and conflicts of the past and set out on the path of a sincere dialogue." Before entering the Islamic shrine, whose golden cupola is the distinguishing landmark of East Jerusalem, the Pope took off his shoes in deference to Islamic customs. Benedict XVI is the first Vatican ever to visit this Islamic shrine. The Israeli security authorities sought to make sure that the papal visit to the Islamic edifice be fraught with as many problems and interruptions as possible. The Israeli security guards posted at the gates of the Haram Al-Sharif initially refused to allow a large number of local Muslim leaders from escorting the Pope under the pretext that they didn't obtain a permit. The Pope visited Bethlehem yesterday and held a mass at the Manger Square outside the Nativity Church in the heart of the mixed Muslim-Christian town. In recent years, thousands of Christians from Bethlehem and surrounding areas emigrated to North and South America, Europe and Australia as a result of Israeli restrictions and persecution. Israel has built a gigantic concrete around Bethlehem and other Palestinian population centres, transforming them into de facto detention camps. An American Catholic official at Bethlehem University, which is funded by the Vatican, told the Weekly that "we will brief the Pope on the situation here. We hope that his holiness will do what he can to rectify the situation." While the Palestinian Authority warmly welcomed the papal visit, Hamas charged that the visit, coming on the heels of the recent horrible Israeli massacres in Gaza, was "beautifying the image of the Israeli occupation." Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum also harshly criticised the Pope's pronounced sympathy with the family of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, calling the gesture an expression of "moral inconsistency" on the part of the Vatican. Barhoum noted that there were as many as 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli dungeons and detention camps, many of them held in squalid and harsh conditions without charge or trial. He also indirectly criticised the Vatican for not paying sufficient attention to the Israeli policy of denying Christians and Muslims access to their respective religious places in East Jerusalem. "It is really sad that while Christian tourists can easily reach Jerusalem from all over the world, Palestinian Christians who live outside the walls are denied the right to reach their churches. "You see, Muslims and Christians alike are at the receiving end of Israeli racism and persecution." The papal visit was boycotted by leaders of the Orthodox Christian community in Palestine. Most Palestinian Christians are affiliated with the Orthodox Church and have greater affinity with national concerns such as the Israeli occupation of Palestine than do Catholics. Relations between the two churches are shaped by a heavy historical legacy of resentment as well as by dogmatic and ecclesiastical discord.
