VZCZCXRO8807
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHTV #1122/01 1401030
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 201030Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1901
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RUEHROV/AMEMBASSY VATICAN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 001122 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KIRF KPAL VT IS
SUBJECT: PAPAL VISIT TO ISRAEL UNDERSCORES DIVISIONS MORE 
THAN UNITY 
 
REF: A. VATICAN 63 
     ¶B. VATICAN 57 
 
TEL AVIV 00001122  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Pope Benedict XVI's May 11-15 visit to the 
Holy Land, while billed as a pilgrimage of reconciliation and 
peace, served perhaps more to underscore ongoing divisions 
between Jews and Christians, Muslims and Christians, Israelis 
and Palestinians, and Israel and the Vatican.  Coming just 
days after yet another disappointing round of GOI-Vatican 
negotiations (ref. B), and just four months after Israel's 
Cast Lead military campaign in Gaza, the Pope landed in a 
minefield of competing narratives and public grievances that, 
despite his best efforts, proved impossible to navigate. 
While Israeli and Vatican officials publicly hailed the 
visit's success, many observers saw instead a series of 
missed opportunities, with real or imagined slights 
underpinning nearly every word uttered and every symbolic 
site visited by 82 year-old pontiff.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Conflict Apparent from the Beginning 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶2. (SBU) Tensions began surfacing almost from the beginning 
of the planning process for the visit.  Israeli Muslim 
activists aligned with the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch 
distributed leaflets condemning the visit on the basis of the 
Pope's perceived anti-Islamic bias.  One such leaflet, 
written by the Imam of the Shihab a-Din mosque adjacent to 
the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth (the site of 
violent Muslim-Christian riots in 2000), said of the Pope, "A 
person who cursed the Prophet, who stood at the head of the 
effort to convert Muslims in Darfur, Indonesia and the Muslim 
world, who attacked Islam, praised America and drew near and 
fraternized with the butcher of Gaza - is unwanted here." 
Numerous other Israeli Arab activists (Muslims and Christians 
alike, including many Catholic clergy) criticized the planned 
visit on the grounds that it was premature and would reward 
Israel at a time when condemnation -- for the "war crimes" of 
Gaza and for the ongoing occupation -- would be more 
appropriate. 
 
¶3. (SBU) For their part, many Jewish nationalists and 
Holocaust survivors argued that Israel should not open its 
doors to a German Pope who in his youth belonged to the Nazi 
youth wing (against his will, according to the Pope), and who 
recently reinstated a Holocaust-denying Catholic Bishop to 
the Church rolls, before changing his mind and 
excommunicating him again.  A cartoonist in the 
mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot depicted the Pope looking at 
a photo of Nazi mobs at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, and 
commenting, "That's me!"  Others fretted that Israel was 
behaving too solicitously toward the Pope, and would end up 
handing over to the Vatican a number of important Christian 
holy sites in and around Jerusalem's Old City. 
 
¶4. (SBU) As tensions arose over sites the Pope should visit 
and people he should meet, even the GOI entered the fray, 
with Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov (Yisrael Beiteinu) 
publicly lambasting the Vatican for scheduling a Papal 
meeting (later canceled) with the Israeli-Arab mayor of the 
Galilee town of Sakhnin, who Misezhnikov called "a terror 
supporter and warmonger who acts against the national 
interests of the state."  The Vatican and GOI also fought a 
number of semi-public battles over whether, where and how the 
Pope should meet PM Netanyahu, and whether Jerusalem Mayor 
Nir Barkat should be allowed to host or even address the 
Pontiff as the leader of a divided and partially-occupied 
city. 
 
How Not to Lay a Wreath at Yad Vashem 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) On May 11, just hours after arriving at Ben Gurion 
airport, the Pope came under heavy fire for failing to more 
directly acknowledge German and Church -- and by extension 
his own -- guilt for the Holocaust during a wreath-laying 
ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.  Terming his 
remarks callous and overly abstract, a number of Israeli 
Jewish commentators blamed the Pope for acknowledging the 
Holocaust without making a clear apology, and for failing to 
mention the exact number of Holocaust victims (he said 
"millions" instead of "six million").  Many Israelis were 
also annoyed that the Pope and used the softer phrase "were 
killed" instead of the stronger "were murdered" when 
describing the fate of European Jewry, and failed to directly 
mention "Germans" as the perpetrators.  Many others 
criticized him for failing to mention the ongoing scourge of 
anti-Semitism during his remarks, although he did earlier in 
the day during the arrival ceremony at Ben Gurion airport, 
where he also said "six million" when memorializing the 
 
TEL AVIV 00001122  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
victims of the Holocaust. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin summed up the public 
mood when he later told the press, "I didn't come to (Yad 
Vashem) just to hear historic descriptions or the fact that 
the Holocaust took place.  I came as a Jew wishing to hear a 
request for forgiveness from those who caused our tragedy, 
and these include the Germans and the Church."  In response 
to the Vatican's explanation that the Pope had previously 
acknowledged these issues in other statements and should not 
be expected to repeat himself, Rabbi David Rosen, an 
important Vatican contact and one of its most enthusiastic 
defenders in Israel, also expressed disappointment, saying 
the Pope's remarks demonstrated a "lack of emotional 
understanding on the need to say certain things in certain 
places even if you've said them before." 
 
¶7. (SBU) The visit to Yad Vashem also underscored another 
GOI-Vatican dispute, as the Pope refused to enter the 
memorial's museum because it contains a display criticizing 
his wartime predecessor, Pope Pius XII, for failing to defend 
European Jewry during the Holocaust -- a display which the 
Church and many Catholics argue is inaccurate and offensive. 
While both sides sought to conceal the dispute, the ghost of 
Pius hung over the entire ceremony, making Benedict's 
unemphatic remarks even more acutely disappointing to many 
Jews.  (Note: The Vatican and GOI have been at severe odds in 
recent years over Benedict's desire to canonize Pius.) 
 
The Perils of Interfaith Dialogue... 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶8. (SBU) Later that same day, the Pope attended an interfaith 
meeting hosted by the Council of Religious Institutions of 
the Holy Land (which is partially funded by MEPI and USAID). 
Near the end of the gathering, the Chief Muslim 
representative, President of the Palestinian Sharia Courts 
Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, hijacked the microphone to deliver a 
five-minute indictment against Israeli "war crimes and 
aggression," prompting Israel's two Chief Rabbis to vow to 
withdraw from the Council as long as Tamimi remains a member. 
 Concerned that the fiasco would jeopardize the Pope's 
mission to promote peace and interreligious dialogue during 
his visit, the Vatican later issued a statement criticizing 
Tamimi's unscheduled intervention as a "direct negation of 
what a dialogue should be." 
 
...And Other Embarrassments 
--------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) The remainder of the visit ran into a series of 
other, smaller controversies.  Many Israeli Jews were riled 
by live television images of the Pope's reception ceremony in 
Bethlehem, shot against the backdrop of the massive concrete 
separation barrier (complete with fortified guard tower) that 
made it appear as though the Pope was visiting a maximum 
security prison.  Many Israeli Arabs, on the other hand, were 
irked that the Pope did not take a strong public stand on 
Gaza or point fingers for the continuing discrimination 
against their communities.  Israeli organizers were also 
reportedly annoyed by Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal's welcoming 
remarks for the Pope at the Garden of Gethsemane, which dwelt 
on the "unjust occupation" and was highly critical of Israel 
(though in a more restrained way than Tamimi's earlier 
outburst). 
 
¶10. (SBU) MFA planners, for their part, were embarrassed that 
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the head of the Sephardic 
Ultra-Orthodox Shas party, refused a Vatican request -- timed 
to coincide with the Pope's visit -- for 500 multi-entry 
visas for Catholic clergy whose pastoral work requires 
frequent travel.  Despite an interagency appeal from the MFA 
and National Security Council, Yishai denied the visas on the 
grounds that they would represent a security risk (most of 
the clergy are Arab). 
 
John Paul's Visit was Better 
---------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) COMMENT: GOI, Church and interfaith figures 
involved in the Pope's visit all told Poloff that the visit, 
while difficult, was an overall success.  In doing so, they 
each went to great pains to paper over the various hiccups in 
order to focus on the Pope's message of peace and 
reconciliation (in the case of Church and interfaith figures) 
or Israel's belief that the visit will lead to greater 
tourism revenue from Christian pilgrims (in the case of GOI 
officials).  But while immediate stakeholders might be 
willing to look at the bright side, it seems clear that this 
visit fell far short of the high expectations established by 
 
TEL AVIV 00001122  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
Pope John Paul II's widely praised Millennium pilgrimage in 
¶2000.  To be fair, John Paul II's visit took place before the 
collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations at Camp 
David and the ensuing outbreak of the Second Intifada, events 
that served to poison intercommunal relations within Israel, 
as well as between Israelis and Palestinians. 
 
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