“Jerusalem is the city of eternity, a city that has been reunified,” Israeli President Ezer Weizman pointedly told the pontiff just after his plane landed in Tel Aviv. By then, Palestinian officials had already floated a giant balloon decorated with a large Palestinian flag over their headquarters in the holy city. “The pope’s visit is proof of the Palestinian rights over Jerusalem,” declared PLO official Faisal Husseini.
While many around him raised their voices to score points, the pope often sought out quiet places to offer prayers and to bear witness. He stood atop Mount Nebo in Jordan, where tradition has it that Moses first set eyes on the Promised Land; he prayed, alone, in the room where believers say the Last Supper took place. At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, John Paul, who came of age in Nazi-occupied Poland, spoke of silence. “In this place of memories, the mind and heart and soul feel an extreme need for silence,” he said in the Hall of Remembrance, which is inscribed with the names of 30 death camps. “Silence in which to remember. Silence to make sense of memories that come rolling back, silence because there are no words strong enough.” Many Israelis were heartened by the pope’s comments, though others were disappointed that he did not directly apologize for the silence of Pope Pius XII during the Nazi extermination of Jews.
Stooped by infirmity, dressed in white robes, the pope did his best to offer a spiritual example. But it was hard to avoid the impression that, good intentions aside, Muslim, Jew and Christian cannot share the Holy Land’s spiritual landscape without also settling the temporal questions of land, water and sovereignty. An interfaith meeting organized by the Vatican, including one of Israel’s two chief rabbis and the deputy chief justice of the Palestinians’ Islamic courts, degenerated into an embarrassing display of rancor. The frail pontiff endured the proceedings with his head in his hands. Although he was tired, he was not dispirited. The next day he addressed a throng of 100,000 international pilgrims gathered at the Sea of Galilee. The message they heard has been echoing in the Holy Land for at least 2,000 years: good and evil are in competition, and each of us must choose which to embrace.
