Pope says will honour Holocaust dead in
Israel
By Philip Pullella
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Pope
Benedict used his first speech in Israel on Monday to remember the
six million Jews killed by the Nazis and try to heal fresh wounds
over his reinstatement of a bishop who denied the
Holocaust.
"Tragically, the Jewish people
have experienced the terrible circumstances of ideologies that deny
the fundamental dignity of every human person," he said at Tel
Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport, going on to challenge Israel's
right-leaning government by calling for a Palestinian
homeland.
"I will have the opportunity to
honour the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah,"
the German-born pope said, using the Hebrew term for the Holocaust,
"and to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such
magnitude."
He later flew by Israeli military
helicopter to Jerusalem.
In the 45 years since the Second
Vatican Council repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt
for Christ's death, Catholic-Jewish relations have been haunted by
the Holocaust and the question of what the church did, or failed to
do, about it.
They went through one of their
worst periods after the pope in January lifted the excommunication
of four traditionalist bishops, including one who denied six
million Jews were killed.
The Vatican says it had not known
enough about that British bishop's past and the church and Jewish
religious leaders now hope the issue can be definitively closed
with a visit later in the day by the pontiff to Yad Vashem in
Jerusalem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the
Holocaust.
Pope Benedict, who flew into
Israel from Jordan, lashed out at anti-Semitism, which he said
"continues to rear its ugly head" in many parts of the
world.
"This is totally unacceptable," he
said in his speech at Ben-Gurion airport. "Every effort must be
made to combat anti-Semitism wherever it is found, and to promote
respect and esteem for the members of every people, tribe, language
and nation across the globe."
Pope Benedict, born Joseph
Ratzinger in Bavaria in 1927, was a member of the Hitler Youth and
later served in the German army before deserting at the end of
World War Two.
In his welcoming remarks at the
airport, Israeli President Shimon Peres said: "We see in your visit
here to the Holy Land as an important spiritual mission of the
highest order, a mission of peace, a mission of planting seeds for
tolerance and uprooting of the weeds of fanaticism."
HOMELAND
Reiterating Vatican policy, the
pope called for "just resolution" of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict "so that both peoples may live in peace in a homeland of
their own, within secure and internationally recognised
borders."
Since being sworn in as Israel's
prime minister on March 31, Benjamin Netanyahu has not specifically
discussed establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip, a U.S. and Arab priority.
The pope's remarks on the subject
will echo around the region, particularly when he visits a
Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on
Wednesday. In Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, he
will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
At a brief ceremony in Jerusalem,
its Israeli mayor welcomed the pope to "the capital of Israel," a
status that has not won world recognition. The mayor, Nir Barkat,
used the term in the Hebrew portion of his speech, but not in his
remarks in English.
During the pope's visit to Jordan,
he stressed his desire for warm relations between Christians and
Muslims and tried to wipe away residual bitterness over a 2006
lecture he made which Muslims saw as offensive.
Jordan's King Abdullah was quoted
on Monday by London's Times newspaper as saying the United States
was promoting a peace plan for the Middle East involving a
"57-state solution" in which the entire Muslim world would
recognise Israel.
During his five-day stay in Israel
and the Palestinian territories, the pope is expected to repeat his
offer for the Catholic Church to do all it can to help the stalled
peace process.
"I come, like so many others
before me, to pray at the holy places, to pray especially for peace
-- peace here in the Holy Land, and peace throughout the world,"
the pontiff said.
Between visits to sacred sites
connected to the life of Jesus he will also hold talks with Israeli
officials, Palestinian leaders and Jewish and Islamic religious
leaders.
Israeli police said they would be
carrying out their largest security operation in nearly a decade,
since the visit by Pope John Paul II in 2000.
Some 30,000 police will be on
duty. Everywhere he travels, the pope will have police helicopters
tracking him from above.
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller and
Philip Pullella, editing by Alastair Macdonald and Samia
Nakhoul)
