Pope Francis missed a golden opportunity
In his speeches during a trip to the US, the pontiff failed to mention the growing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis
There is no doubt that the first historic visit by the Argentine-born Pope Francis to the United States, which ended on Sunday, warmly engulfed Americans during his six days in Washington, New York and Philadelphia. His pronouncements were greeted by thousands; at one point a million, loudly and repeatedly, even when he was speaking before the joint session of the US Congress last Thursday.
It remains to be seen whether any of his pronouncements will change opinion among Congressmen, the American media or the public. One news story about his address in Philadelphia noted that, “Pope Francis dove into some of the United States’ thorniest political debates during his historic visit by urging the world’s wealthiest nation to welcome immigrants, to end homelessness and do more to address climate change.”
In his address to the UN General Assembly, reported The New York Times on Saturday, the Pope “rebuked [the world leaders], particularly those charged with the conduct of international affairs,” for having failed to put an end to the many conflicts in the world, particularly the Middle East. He underlined: “Real human beings take precedence over partisan interests, however legitimate the latter may be.”
The paper explained that his statement “appeared to be a specific reference to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq where the people “have faced the alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesions to good and to peace by their own lives, or by enslavement.”
What has been sorely missing from any of the Pope’s public statements is his golden opportunity to emphasise how the continuing warfare in the Holy Land remains since Israel now illegally controls the West Bank, an area that is less than 20 per cent of the original State of historical Palestine. More drastically, the West Bank is actually less than half the area that was originally allotted to the Palestinians in accordance with the infamous UN Partition Plan, which awarded Israel 55 per cent of Palestine.
This stalemate has also contributed to a new pessimistic view that a majority of Palestinians no longer support a two-state solution. A poll by the prominent West Bank-based Palestine Centre for Policy and Survey Research found that 51 per cent of Palestinians oppose the two-state solution and only 48 per cent support it. The figures were down from 51 per cent in support and 48 per cent opposed three months ago. This survey was carried out on 1,270 people in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza from September 17-19.
This change was attributed by the Centre’s president, Khalil Shikaki, to the sinking popularity of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a feeling among Palestinians that the Arab governments no longer care about the fate of the Palestinians.
The conflict that surfaced at the UN General Assembly this week, in what has been described as duelling speeches of US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin over how to settle the crisis in Syria and bring stability to the Middle East, was another troubling development.
Whatever the two leaders agreed on later at their private meeting remains unclear, except for the unprecedented involvement of Russia. This underlines the failure of the Obama administration to step up peace-making processes in the Middle East — be it over the rise of right-wing Islamist extremism or the growing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
As far as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict goes, the chance of a peaceful settlement remains dependent on the willingness of the Israeli government to pull back from the occupied Palestinian territories — a step that needs a clear American endorsement.