A cry for peace

by Editor · January 15, 2014

Pope Francis will visit the Holy Land in May to mark the 50th anniversary of the historic embrace of Pope Paul VI and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Atengora. The very brief itinerary’s centrepiece will be the pope’s meeting with current Greek Patriarch Bartholomew, but inevitably much of the attention will be on the pope’s calls for peace.

A portion of the separation wall built by Israel in Bethlehem.

Indeed, the Catholic archbishop of the Holy Land, Patriarch Faoud Twal, has expressed his hope that Pope Francis will issue a cry for peace in the region. The pope will doubtless do so, and the plain-speaking pontiff might not mince his words.

His visit coincides with attempts at kick-starting fresh negotiations for a peaceful solution in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The notion of peace talks generally inspires some hope for a just settlement, but should hope be crushed by failed or bad-faith negotiations, the consequent frustrations might well find expression in uncontrollable reactions. Already there are whispers of a new intifada (or Palestinian uprising) should new talks produce no just results.

The last intifada, which broke out in 2000, brought great suffering, both to Palestinians and to Israeli civilians. A third intifada would be a disaster for all prospects of peace.

The last uprising provided Israel with the pretext to build its separation wall, which now stands as a symbol for the injustices visited upon ordinary Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The wall cuts deep into Palestinian land, often as a prelude to the expropriation of the property of the locals for the benefit of illegal Israeli settlers. Many farmers have been cut off from their land, and many people have lost their livelihood because the wall makes it impossible to commute regularly to their places of employment. Whole communities have been divided by the wall.

The wall deprives Palestinians in the West Bank of statehood, land, subsistence, dignity, family life and, in many cases, access to health services and education.

It would be a powerful moment were Pope Francis to stand at the eight-metre-high wall in Bethlehem and challenge Israel to bring it down, much as US President Ronald Reagan in 1987 challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

The continued violation of Palestinian rights by Israel cannot continue, and Pope Francis, who is a good friend to Jews, has every right to make this known when he speaks in Bethlehem and in Jerusalem, without being accused of pursuing an agenda of special interests.

Pope Francis would do his Jewish friends a service by calling for a just and equitable peace which would require material sacrifice from Israel by way of returning land and freedom of movement to Palestinians.

And he might call on Israelis to acknowledge a profound truth: that the establishment of their state in 1948 was accompanied by the dispossession of Palestinians who had occupied the land for more than a thousand years.

Like the state of Israel, the dispossession, what Palestinians call al-Nakba (the catastrophe), cannot be undone. While the Palestinian demand for the right to return to their old homes most expelled families still have the keys to their old houses has merit in justice, it is impossible to translate into action.

Pope Francis would also serve his Palestinian friends well to emphasise that the state of Israel is a reality. To deny its demand to exist in security is wholly futile. While formal recognition of Israel may be a useful tool for negotiation, rhetoric that calls for the notional extinction of the state does not serve peace.

The right of the state of Israel to exist within secure borders according to the pre-1967 demarcations, as recognised by the United Nations, must be self-evident.

Negotiations must genuinely seek peace and justice, and they must be open to pragmatic solutions, on both sides.

At Christmas Pope Francis prayed for peace in the Holy Land: Bless the land where You chose to come into the world, and grant a favourable outcome to the peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Let us join the pope in this prayer.