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Pope Lays Wreath at Tomb of Zionism’s Founder Pope Lays Wreath at Tomb of Zionism’s Founder
(about 4 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Making history for the second day running, Pope Francis laid a wreath Monday on the grave of the founder of Zionism, becoming the first pope to do so, a gesture of support to Israel after several symbolic signals the day before that lent a spiritual lift to Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty. JERUSALEM — A conflict largely defined by dueling narratives became a battle of competing imagery during Pope Francis’ sojourn through the Holy Land, with Palestinians and Israelis both seizing on the pontiff’s strong symbolic gestures to promote their perspectives.
At the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Francis added to his marathon morning in Jerusalem a stop at an Israeli memorial to victims of terrorist attacks, offering some counterbalance to the powerful lift he provided to Palestinians with an unscheduled stop Sunday at the concrete barrier dividing Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu told the pope that building the barrier, which snakes along and through the West Bank, “prevented many more victims that Palestinian terror, which continues today, planned to harm.” A day after a photograph of Francis touching his forehead to the graffiti-scarred concrete barrier separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem rocketed around the Internet, the pope acceded to Israel’s request that he add to his packed Monday morning another unscheduled stop, at the Mount Herzl memorial to victims of terrorist attacks. There, too, Francis bowed his head, while pressing a hand to one of 78 tablets listing the names of the fallen.
The prime minister pointed out the portion of the memorial, comprising 78 tablets, that commemorates the 85 people killed in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in the pope’s native Buenos Aires. “Terrorism is evil, in the origin and in the result — in the origin because it comes from hate, and in the result because it does not build but destroys,” Francis said at the site. “No more terrorism. This is a way that has no end.” “I explained to the pope that building the security fence prevented many more victims that Palestinian terror — which continues today — planned to harm,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said afterward. Later, he added, “I long for the day in which Pope Francis’ call to recognize the state of Israel, the right of Jews to a state of their own, to live in security and peace, will be accepted by our neighbors.”
Later, before his one-on-one meeting with the pope, Mr. Netanyahu said there would be “no need” for the barrier if anti-Israel “incitement” and terrorism ceased. “I long for the day in which Pope Francis’ call to recognize the state of Israel, the right of the Jews to a state of their own, to live in security and peace, will be accepted by our neighbors,” he said. “This will bring, if not peace on earth, then at least peace in this part of the earth.” That was just one of the poignant photo opportunities of the pope at some of Judaism’s most sacred sites. He placed a note with the “Our Father” prayer handwritten in Spanish between the ancient stones of the Western Wall. He kissed the hands of six survivors — one saved as a baby by a Catholic family — at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. He became the first Vatican leader to lay a wreath of signature yellow and white flowers on the tomb of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism.
The memorial was one of several symbolic sites where the pope stopped Monday. He removed his shoes to enter the Dome of the Rock, part of what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and Jews call the Temple Mount. He stood for several minutes with his right palm on the ancient stones of the Western Wall before placing a handwritten note — the prayer “Our Father,” in Spanish — between them. This montage was, according to the chief Vatican spokesman, intended to provide counterbalance to Sunday’s silent prayer at the barrier, which had incensed some Israelis, particularly because it was at a section where the spray-painted slogans included “apartheid wall” and “Bethlehem is like the Warsaw Ghetto.”
At the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, he kissed the hands of six Holocaust survivors — one saved as a baby by a Catholic family — as he heard their specific stories, and, echoing a Jewish mantra, said, “Never again, Lord, never again!” But it may yet be upstaged: A Catholic cardinal who was in Jerusalem during the visit told The Boston Globe that the Palestinian president had informed Francis he planned to make a postage stamp out of the image — as Israel did after John Paul II became the first pontiff to place a note in the Western Wall in 2000.
“A great evil has befallen us, such as never happened under the heavens,” Francis said, quoting the Bible in remarks part prayer and part poetry. “Grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done.” Diana Buttu, a Palestinian analyst, pointed out that the Israeli sites visited by Francis on Monday were monuments to the past that heads of state routinely visit per protocol, while the barrier “is ongoing, something that Palestinians live with every day.” It remains unclear whether the Palestinians had planned the stop or even pressured the pope to make it, as one Catholic leader told an Israeli news outlet, but Ms. Buttu said the seeming spontaneity lent it strength.
He also had a lengthy chat with President Shimon Peres of Israel, who has accepted his invitation for a peace-prayer summit meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority at the Vatican next month. “There isn’t a single leader who comes to the country who doesn’t have to see Yad Vashem or Herzl or both — this was powerful because it wasn’t forced, you could see that he was genuinely shocked by it,” Ms. Buttu said. “I think he really displayed compassion in visiting the wall and really understanding what people are living under.”
Asked why Francis had invited Mr. Peres, whose position is largely ceremonial, rather than Mr. Netanyahu, who is Mr. Abbas’s counterpart in peace talks, the Vatican spokesman said that the pope and the Israeli president had developed a warm relationship of “great esteem” and that Mr. Peres had urged him with “great insistence” to visit the Holy Land before his term expires in July. Still, Monday’s stop at Israel’s memorial to victims of terrorism — where Mr. Netanyahu pointed out the plaque commemorating the 85 people slain in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in the pope’s native Buenos Aires — was something of a salve. Daniel Gordis, an American-Israeli rabbi who wrote a Twitter post on Sunday saying he hoped the pope had prayed at the barrier “for end to Palestinian violence so it can come down one day,” said that Monday’s activities made “it clear that he understands the complexity of the narrative.”
“The pope has with President Peres a good feeling, this is clear,” the spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters at a news conference late Sunday. “This is not an exclusion of the other, but there are good premises to pray together with President Peres and Mahmoud Abbas.” “He made some gestures that feel a little bit uncomfortable for us, but he also went out of his way to make gestures to comfort us,” said Rabbi Gordis, senior vice president of Jerusalem’s Shalem College.
The crammed morning schedule — nine stops in five hours — started the final leg of the 77-year-old pontiff’s three-day sojourn in the Holy Land, which the Vatican had described as a “purely religious” pilgrimage but in which he waded pointedly into the politics of the region. “It depends on which set of lenses one wants to bring to this,” he added. “If one wants to do a kind of tit for tat, photo op for photo op, then there are going to be Israelis that feel we got the short end of the stick. If you zoom out, what it feels like is an attempt to inspire.”
On Sunday, Francis became the first pope to travel directly into Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory and to call it the “State of Palestine,” affirming the 2012 United Nations resolution upgrading its status. An unscheduled stop provided the defining image of the day, when the pope touched his forehead to the barrier dividing Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Israel calls the barrier essential for its security, while Palestinians loathe it as a symbol of the way the occupation restricts their daily lives. Patriarch Fouad Twal, the Catholic leader of Jerusalem, told reporters more than a month before the pope’s arrival, “You need to look at the gestures, not just at the words.” But Francis was also strategic in his language.
The itinerary on Monday offered something of a counterpoint, particularly the visit to the grave of Theodor Herzl, whose appeal to Pope Pius X when they met 110 years ago for help in establishing a Jewish state was harshly rejected, with Pius suggesting that Jews convert to Christianity. Flanked by Mr. Peres and Mr. Netanyahu, Francis placed a large ring of yellow and white flowers — Vatican colors — atop the large square tomb, then added a stone, following a Jewish custom, and bowed his head for several minutes. In Bethlehem, he singled out the plight of prisoners, a touchstone for Palestinians who consider even those who killed Israelis as heroic freedom fighters. In Israel, he was careful to say specifically that six million Jews had been killed and to use the Hebrew term for the Holocaust, Shoah — things that his predecessor, Benedict, had been criticized for not doing during his 2009 pilgrimage.
Stops at Herzl’s grave have recently been added to the routine protocol for visiting heads of state, but Mr. Netanyahu nonetheless embraced Francis’ visit there as a significant step, telling the pope at Sunday’s welcome ceremony in Tel Aviv, “We admired and appreciate your decision.” (There was, however, some Israeli griping that Francis did not say those things at Yad Vashem — his spokesman said that was because he thought a “meditation” was more appropriate for the memorial — and did not use the word “Nazi.”)
In previous papal pilgrimages, the Israel portion of the itinerary proved politically charged. The pope also laid the groundwork during his visit for another enduring image intended to change perceptions of the conflict, inviting Presidents Shimon Peres of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to his apartment in the Vatican to pray together for peace. Both men accepted: The meeting is expected within the next two weeks, though the pope’s spokesman said a date had not yet been set.
In 1964, Paul VI outraged Israelis by arriving from Jordan through Megiddo, in the north, rather than Jerusalem. “He spent 11 hours in the country and never mentioned the word ‘Israel,'  ” said Amnon Ramon, a professor of comparative religions at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “It left a sour feeling.” Asked why Francis had chosen Mr. Peres — who leaves his largely ceremonial post in July — rather than Mr. Netanyahu, who is Mr. Abbas’s counterpart in peace negotiations, the spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope and the Israeli president shared a warm relationship of “great esteem.”
John Paul II’s visit in 2000 “was a huge revolution,” Dr. Ramon said, particularly his placement of a note committing “to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant” between the stones of the Western Wall. “This is not an exclusion of the other,” Father Lombardi said Sunday. “The pope has with President Peres a good feeling, this is clear.”
But Pope Benedict XVI, a German who had been a member of Hitler Youth, angered Israelis in 2009 by failing to apologize in a speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. Father Lombardi pointed out that, unlike Benedict, Francis was careful to say specifically that six million Jews had been killed and to use the Hebrew word for the Holocaust, “Shoah.” At Mr. Peres’s official residence on Monday, Francis wrote in the guest book, “It is always the grace of God to come in the house of a man who is wise and good.” Then the two leaders had what Father Lombardi described as a “very, very lengthy” one-on-one.
Francis also joined the Israeli leaders in condemning Saturday’s killing of at least three people outside the Jewish museum in Brussels, which he called a “criminal act of anti-Semitic hatred.” “The president said many things about the peace process, the problem of building peace, the collaboration of the religious leaders and the pope in building peace,” he said. “It was said in a very sincere, very friendly and profound way.”
Pope Francis, who pleased Jews worldwide by promising to open the church’s archives from the Holocaust era, traveled with a rabbi from Buenos Aires with whom he has written a book and recorded hours of televised conversation. (He also brought an Islamic scholar from Argentina.) From there Francis received Mr. Netanyahu at the Vatican-owned Notre Dame center.
On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu described Francis’ “special bond with the Jewish nation” and called the visit “a very important chapter in the relationship between Jews and Christians” that dates back two millenniums. All Father Lombardi had to say about that was: “It was a friendly meeting also.”