ANALYSIS: Papal visit better at substance than style

By Jeff Abramowitz May 15, 2009, 13:35 GMT

Jerusalem - Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Holy Land was intended to be a religious pilgrimage, a chance to boost the morale of local Christians and an opportunity for interfaith dialogue.

But in a region where every gesture is scrutinized and to which the last papal visitor was the charismatic John Paul II, it is perhaps inevitable that Benedict's style would attract as much attention and comment as the substance of his messages, and be found wanting.

Although Daniel Rossing, a expert on Jewish-Christian reconciliation, described the visit as 'a very delicate balancing act,' the Ha'aretz daily noted Friday that the visit was nonetheless 'very political.'

Not just because Benedict arrived in the Holy Land carrying the baggage of past statements and actions that have angered both Jews and Muslims, but because the Holy Land is home to one of the most emotional, and seemingly intractable, conflicts on the planet.

Publicly at least, both Israeli and Palestinian officials expressed satisfaction with Benedict's statements.

'Ultimately the pope's visit was important. We thank him for visiting and we look forward to continuing cooperation with the Vatican,' Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.

'The visit was very successful. It has achieved everything the Palestinian people were hoping to get from it, while at the same time we feel it has disappointed the Israeli side,' commented Palestinian Deputy Minister for Tourism Marwan Toubasi.

Apart from his unequivocal support for an independent Palestinian state - something the new Israeli government has not yet endorsed and which Regev shrugged off as 'a consistent position of the Vatican' - Benedict was careful to stay on the tightrope in his other comments during his one-day visit to Bethlehem on Wednesday.

He condemned as 'tragic' the barrier Israeli is building along the West Bank, a major thorn to the Palestinians since it isolates whole communities, and they say, serves as cover for a 'land grab.'

But at the same time he said he prayed 'for an end to the hostilities that have caused this wall to be built,' thus seemingly accepting the Israel argument that the barrier is aimed at keeping out suicide bombers.

And while voicing 'deep compassion' with Palestinians who lost loved ones in Israel's recent Gaza offensive, Benedict also called on Palestinian youth to resist 'any temptation you may feel to resort to acts of violence or terrorism.'

Palestinian analyst Gassan Khatib said he thought the visit was successful since it achieved its goals by drawing attention of the international community to the difficult conditions of the Palestinian people.'

But in Israel, however, the visit is likely to be remembered not for what the pontiff said or did, but for what he did not say.

Many were angered that, in his speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Centre on Monday, Benedict did not mention the specific number of Jews who perished in the Holocaust - six million - and he used the term 'killed' rather than the more emotional 'exterminated.'

The fact that the speech at Yad Vashem did not mentioned the Nazis at all also drew criticism.

Rabbi David Rosen, a key figure in Israel-Catholic reconciliation, told the Jerusalem Post daily that the negative reaction to Benedict's Yad Vashem speech 'reflected the fact that the man is not an emotional personality.'

'And what Israelis wanted was an emotional expression that could connect with the Jews' pain,' he said.

For Jerusalem Post analyst Matthew Wagner, 'in an age of sound- bites, narrowing attention spans and fast-paced media coverage, the profound, abstract and deeply philosophical messages put forth by the pope, as well as his monotonous, ponderous style of address came across as cold, distant and lacklustre.'

'Benedict XVI is ponderously philosophical and comes off as cold and distant, while John Paul II was warm and expressive and had the ability to convey feeling,' said Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel.

Rabbi Rosen, who told the German Press Agency that the papal visit was 'very important and successful,' thinks the criticism of Benedict was the result of unrealistic expectations.

'The depth of our trauma,' he told dpa, 'sometimes leads to legitimate criticism and sometimes to inappropriate comments.'