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Israeli and Palestinian Leaders to Meet With Pope at Vatican Israeli and Palestinian Leaders to Meet With Pope at Vatican
(about 4 hours later)
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Pope Francis waded into the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process upon arriving here on Sunday, issuing an extraordinary invitation to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and President Shimon Peres of Israel to join him in his home in the Vatican for “a heartfelt prayer to God for the gift of peace.” JERUSALEM — Pope Francis inserted himself directly into the collapsed Middle East peace process on Sunday, issuing an invitation to host the Israeli and Palestinian presidents for a prayer summit at his apartment in the Vatican in an unexpected overture that has again underscored the broad ambitions of his papacy.
The pope also gave the Palestinians an uncommon boost by openly endorsing “the State of Palestine.” During his Regina Coeli address in Bethlehem’s Manger Square to a crowd of thousands who had come to celebrate the papal Mass, he added, “All of us – especially those placed at the service of their respective peoples – have the duty to become instruments and artisans of peace, especially by our prayers.” Francis took the extraordinary step in Bethlehem, where he became the first pontiff ever to fly directly into the West Bank and to refer to the Israeli-occupied territory as the “State of Palestine.”
The location was highly symbolic: He referred to Bethlehem, the West Bank town where Jesus is said to have been born, as “the birthplace of the Prince of Peace.” The pope then made a dramatic, unscheduled stop to bow his head at Israel’s contentious security barrier separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem, and denounced the overall situation as “increasingly unacceptable.”
Both sides welcomed the pope’s invitation. Mr. Peres would attend, an Israeli source confirmed. Church and Palestinian officials said that the meeting would be largely symbolic. They also said that since as president, Mr. Peres, a longtime advocate of peace, plays a mainly ceremonial role in the Israeli leadership, it would would not involve political negotiations. “There is a need to intensify efforts and initiatives aimed at creating the conditions for a stable peace based on justice, on the recognition of rights for every individual, and on mutual security,” Francis said. Peace “must resolutely be pursued, even if each side has to make certain sacrifices.”
Displaying an unusual level of personal involvement at a time of upheaval in the Middle East and weeks after the breakdown of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Francis had called earlier for intensified efforts for the creation of two states — Palestine alongside Israel — within internationally recognized borders. Presidents Shimon Peres of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority accepted the pope’s invitation to pray together; Mr. Abbas’s spokesman said the meeting would take place June 6.
“In expressing my closeness to those who suffer most from this conflict, I wish to state my heartfelt conviction that the time has come to put an end to this situation, which has become increasingly unacceptable,” he said after a meeting with Mr. Abbas at the presidential compound. While the meeting is likely to be more symbolic than substantive – Israel’s presidency is ceremonial and Mr. Peres leaves office soon – it could have atmospheric significance for a peace process that has all but completely broken down.
Calling Mr. Abbas as “a peacemaker,” the pope then attested to “the good relations existing between the Holy See and the State of Palestine,” the kind of high-profile recognition that the Palestinians have been seeking. More broadly, the invitation itself posed a dramatic example of how the outwardly unassuming Francis is reasserting the Vatican’s ancient role as an arbiter of international diplomacy.
This was the first papal visit to the Palestinian territories since the United Nations General Assembly vote in November 2012 upgrading Palestine to a nonmember U.N. observer state, giving it the same status as the Vatican. The pope is “taking the negotiations to another level – a meeting in front of God,” said the Rev. Jamal Khadar, head of a West Bank seminary and a spokesman for the pope’s visit. The idea, he added, is to “make religion part of trying to find a solution instead of it being seen as a negative and a complication.”
In another powerful gesture, the pope, traveling in an open-top car from the presidential compound toward Manger Square, made an unscheduled stop at a section of the concrete wall with a military watchtower separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem, part of the contentious barrier Israel has constructed along and through the West Bank. Oded Ben Hur, a former Israeli ambassador to the Holy See, said the invitation to a prayer summit reflected the difference between Pope Francis and his predecessors “in a nutshell,” eschewing Vatican protocol and tradition to speak and act on a more human level.
The pope unexpectedly asked to get out of his vehicle, prayed silently by the graffiti-covered wall for several minutes and touched it with his forehead, providing an powerful image of a symbol of the Israeli occupation and the human costs of the conflict. Palestinians loathe the barrier, but Israel argues that it is essential for security. “They don’t take initiatives – we call it ‘the holy balance’ – they don’t rock the boat,” Mr. Ben Hur said of the typical pontiff. “This is different. It’s a balance, but the fact is there is a move somewhere. He’s not conventional in that sense. When he thinks something, he expresses it.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel suspended the American-brokered Middle East peace talks last month because of a reconciliation pact reached between Mr. Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization and its rival Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel. The intervention came on the second day of the pope’s three-day sojourn through the Holy Land, which the Vatican has described as a religious pilgrimage but has profound political implications.
Father Jamal Khader, head of the Latin Patriarchate Seminary in Beit Jala and a local spokesman for the pope’s visit, said the invitation on Sunday to a joint prayer session was “taking the negotiations to another level – a meeting in front of God.” In a delicate diplomatic dance, the pope helicoptered from Bethlehem to Tel Aviv for an official head-of-state welcome to Israel, then back to Jerusalem for an ecumenical dinner with the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople.
He said the idea was for interreligious dialogue, to “make religion part of trying to find a solution instead of it being seen as a negative and a complication.” An invitation to Mr. Netanyahu would have been “too political,” he said. That meeting, marking the 50th anniversary of a historic Jerusalem handshake that was the first contact between the world’s two largest churches in 500 years, was the stated purpose of the trip. But it was overshadowed by the pope’s pointed wading into the fraught tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
There was no immediate comment from Mr. Netanyahu’s office. In Bethlehem, Francis met Mr. Abbas as a peer, giving the Palestinians the kind of high-profile boost they have been seeking, and spotlighting the Vatican’s support for the 2012 United Nations resolution that upgraded their status to observer-state.
Francis’ Holy Land visit has been billed by the Vatican as a purely religious pilgrimage centered around meetings in Jerusalem later Sunday and Monday with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the historic reconciliation between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. He led a spirited Mass in a crowded Manger Square, which was bedecked with photo montages blending Christian iconography with images of Palestinians’ difficult daily reality. Then he had lunch with families suffering particular hardships under Israel’s occupation, and was serenaded by scores of children from the nearby Dheisheh Refugee Camp, home to some 12,000 people exiled from former family homes since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
But for the Palestinians and for Israel, the political dimensions of the visit were inescapable, with every papal word and gesture coming under scrutiny. But the unforgettable image of the trip was the pope’s surprise exit from his open-topped vehicle to pray at a section of the concrete security barrier that snakes along and through the West Bank. Palestinians loathe the barrier – Mr. Abbas had earlier called it “monstrous” — and Israel insists is essential to its security.
“We and the Vatican are twins at the United Nations,” said Issa Kassissieh, Palestine’s ambassador to the Holy See, in a recent briefing with reporters. By arriving here directly by helicopter from Jordan, and not via Israel, Mr. Kassissieh said, the pope was sending “a political message that he is coming to the State of Palestine.” Francis prayed silently for several minutes, then touched his forehead to the wall, where someone had spray-painted “Pope, we need some 1 to speak about justice.”
Manger Square was bedecked with huge photomontages of classic artworks featuring Christian imagery superimposed with images from the Palestinians’ modern reality. Caravaggio’s “Ecce Homo” merged with a photograph of Palestinians crossing an Israeli checkpoint on their way to Jerusalem, equating Palestinians with Jesus and his suffering. Welcomed to Tel Aviv by President Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Francis reiterated his call for a “sovereign homeland” for Palestinians “with freedom of movement.”
The stage was decorated with a backdrop of a Nativity scene, Palestinian and Vatican flags, and a border of flowers in yellow and white, the Vatican colors. Up to 10,000 people were expected to try to cram into the square, mostly Palestinian Christians from the West Bank and about a third of them Christian Arabs and foreign workers from Israel who arranged to come through their churches. “I implore those in positions of responsibility to leave no stone unturned in the search for equitable solutions to complex problems,” he said. “The path of dialogue, reconciliation and peace must constantly be taken up anew, courageously and tirelessly.”
“I said I have to see our father, the peacemaker,” said Khader Azer, 39, a chef from Ramla, a mixed Jewish-Arab city in Israel. “Only God can make peace, but Pope Francis is trying.” Mr. Netanyahu said at the ceremony, “Our hand is outstretched in peace to whoever wants to live with us in peace,” but also referred to Jerusalem as the Israel’s “eternal capital, the heart of our faith,” anathema to Palestinians’ aspirations to have East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Francis’ reputation for humility as a pope of the people and the poor has resonated with many Palestinians, Christian and Muslim. The prime minister’s spokesman declined to say whether Mr. Netanyahu was aware of negotiations underway for the Vatican prayer summit – or whether he approved.
After celebrating Mass in Manger Square, the pope was to have lunch with five families who were chosen, according to Palestinian officials, to express the difficulties that Israeli policies cause the Palestinians. One family came from Gaza, the isolated, Hamas-ruled coastal enclave, where only about 1,300 Christians still live. Another family is split between Bethlehem and Jerusalem because of travel restrictions. Mr. Peres, a former prime minister whose term ends in July, has been an outspoken advocate for peace and recently disclosed that he and Mr. Abbas had neared agreement in back-channel talks, only to be blocked by Mr. Netanyahu. While popular among Israelis and respected around the world, he has little influence on Israeli policy.
After a private visit to the Grotto of the Nativity, Francis was to meet 100 children from the refugee camps of the Bethlehem area at a community center on the edge of the Deheisheh camp, which is home to about 12,000 Palestinians exiled from their former family homes since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. “The pope wants to play a constructive role, and maybe he thinks gathering them together he can do that, but he doesn’t know Peres doesn’t make political decisions at all,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee. “Peres has been saying the same thing for years, and nobody listened. The political establishment is going one way and he just tries to give it a clean bill of health for public relations.”
There, the pope was to see more photomontages featuring refugee scenes from the 1950s. Jack Persekian, director of the Palestinian Museum, which produced the images, said the works were meant to reflect “a continuous ordeal.” After Secretary of State John Kerry’s intensive nine-month push for a two-state deal fell apart last month, the pope’s initiative is an implicit indictment of international peacemaking efforts.
In all, he was scheduled to spend six hours and 40 minutes in Bethlehem out of a three-day pilgrimage to the region. From Bethlehem, he took a helicopter to Tel Aviv for an official Israeli reception at Ben-Gurion International Airport, and from there was to go to Jerusalem, navigating the fraught politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Aaron David Miller, a former American peace negotiator now at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, said the summit would neither hurt nor help the process but would provide “another reflection of American fecklessness in the wake of Kerry’s failed effort.”
Late Saturday, the Israeli police arrested rightist Jewish activists during a protest on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion. Venerated by Christians as the location of the room of the Last Supper and by Jews as King David’s burial place, the mount has become a focal point of tensions ahead of a private Mass that Francis is scheduled to celebrate there on Monday. Other experts agreed that the joint prayer could not substitute for political negotiations and would not prompt a breakthrough, but said it might change public perceptions in a conflict increasingly defined by deep mutual distrust.
Manger Square in Bethlehem is now relatively tranquil, but once it was the scene of fierce gun battles. In 2002, the Israeli Army engaged in a five-week standoff with armed Palestinians who broke into the Church of the Nativity compound, fleeing from invading Israeli forces. Daniel Levy of the European Council on Foreign Relations said the meeting would “mean nothing in big-picture terms” but “in the margins” would belie the widely held Israeli belief that Mr. Abbas is not a willing peace partner and could “drive more of a wedge” between centrist and right-wing components of Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition.
The other side of Manger Square is dominated by Bethlehem’s central mosque. David Horovitz, a longtime Israeli journalist who described himself as “cynical about everything,” said the summit could challenge many Israelis’ concern that “the Palestinian public has not come to terms with the legitimacy of a Jewish state.”
Though Christians once were a strong majority in Bethlehem, the community has dwindled, as elsewhere in the Middle East, after decades of emigration spurred by opportunities abroad, violence and economic hardship. Christians now make up only about 35 percent of the population of the city. In general, Christians in the Holy Land now make up barely 2 percent. “It would be naïve to think that the sight of Peres, Abbas, and the pope doing anything together is going to change the world,” said Mr. Horovitz, editor of the Times of Israel news site. “If you look at it in political terms, O.K., insignificant, but if you look at it as an effort to foster a different mindset among Israelis and Palestinians, psychologically, I think this is very positive.”
Paul VI was the first pope to visit Bethlehem, in 1964, when the West Bank was under Jordanian control. Just over a decade later, he called on Israel to recognize “the rights and legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people, marking a significant milestone in Vatican-Palestinian relations.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II was received here by Yasir Arafat. During a visit to the Deheisheh camp, John Paul described the plight of the Palestinians there as “barely tolerable.”
Benedict XVI came to Bethlehem in 2009 and visited the Aida refugee camp. There, to the chagrin of the Israelis, he spoke just a few paces from the separation wall.
Bethlehem’s mayor, Vera Baboun, recently showed reporters pictures of the gift to be presented to Francis by the city: an oil lamp of reddish Jerusalem stone carved with scenes of Bethlehem, the work of local artists. The lamp was to be packed in an olive-wood box engraved with a drawing of the separation barrier and covered with a black-and-white kaffiyeh, the scarf that has become a symbol of the Palestinian struggle.