Pope Francis: The key to Mideast peace?
Pope Francis waded into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Sunday — and that may be the most exciting thing that's happened in the Mideast peace process since Bill Clinton's promising Camp David Summit in 2000 broke down with no agreement, amid mutual recriminations between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Now, perhaps it seems unlikely that the leader of the Roman Catholic Church can broker the end to one of the world's most intractable conflicts, between Jewish Israelis and Muslim Palestinians (primarily). After all, Pope Francis is the head of state of a sovereign city-state of about 800 people, and head of a religion that doesn't exactly have a historically amicable relationship with either Jews or Muslims.
But there's reason to be hopeful.
On Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres met at a garden in the Vatican, prayed together, laughed together, hugged each other, and planted an olive tree with the pope and Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, leader of the world's Orthodox Christian churches. This feat of diplomatic acrobatics was arranged at the pope's behest in about two weeks, during which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to isolate Abbas' government for forming a pact with Hamas.
Read the rest of this article at - http://theweek.com/article/index/262854/pope-francis-the-key-to-mideast-peace#axzz34G98eAM2
Politicians have been fruitlessly tacking the political side of the conflict. Maybe its time for a man who gets the religious part — and believes in miracles.
The negotiator. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Now, perhaps it seems unlikely that the leader of the Roman Catholic Church can broker the end to one of the world's most intractable conflicts, between Jewish Israelis and Muslim Palestinians (primarily). After all, Pope Francis is the head of state of a sovereign city-state of about 800 people, and head of a religion that doesn't exactly have a historically amicable relationship with either Jews or Muslims.
But there's reason to be hopeful.
On Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres met at a garden in the Vatican, prayed together, laughed together, hugged each other, and planted an olive tree with the pope and Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, leader of the world's Orthodox Christian churches. This feat of diplomatic acrobatics was arranged at the pope's behest in about two weeks, during which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to isolate Abbas' government for forming a pact with Hamas.
Read the rest of this article at - http://theweek.com/article/index/262854/pope-francis-the-key-to-mideast-peace#axzz34G98eAM2
