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Potent messages as Pope ends Holy Land pilgrimage
Fri May 15, 2009 9:42am EDT
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By Douglas Hamilton
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Pope Benedict made a personal and potent denunciation of the Holocaust on Friday, vowing to Israelis that the brutal extermination of Jews by the "godless" Nazi regime would never be forgotten or denied.
His language appeared to lift Jewish dismay over earlier remarks about the murder of six million Jews by his fellow Germans, which to Israelis had sounded chilly and impersonal.
His words were welcomed by Holocaust memorial chairman Avner Shalev who said they "strengthen the Pope's message to the world about the importance of remembering the events of the Holocaust" and who rated the visit a "very positive and significant event."
Ending a Holy Land pilgrimage which he said made "powerful impressions" of hope and sadness, the 82-year-old pontiff also appealed for peace between Israelis and Palestinians so each can live in their own state, as trustful neighbors in security.
"One of the saddest sights for me during my visit to these lands was the wall," he said of the high barrier that Israel erected between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the Palestinian town that Christians believe was the birthplace of Jesus.
"As I passed alongside it, I prayed for a future in which the peoples of the Holy Land can live together in peace and harmony without the need for such instruments of security and separation," the pope said on departure at the airport.
His visit had been awaited with hope in the Middle East, where peace-making efforts have stalled. In January, it was in doubt as relations with Israel plunged over Benedict's decision to readmit to the Church a bishop who had denied the extent of the Holocaust, one of a number of issues to anger Jews.
Israelis hoping for an apology this week said the pope had missed an opportunity and voiced disappointment at the speech he made at the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem.
His condemnation of Holocaust deniers seemed mechanical to many who expected more empathy from a man who was a teenage conscript in the Hitler Youth and World War Two German army.
But in Friday's address, taking leave of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the pontiff used more powerful language, calling his meeting with Holocaust survivors "one of the most solemn moments" of the pilgrimage.
"Those deeply moving encounters brought back memories of my visit three years ago to the death camp at Auschwitz, where so many Jews -- mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, friends -- were brutally exterminated under a godless regime," he said.
Nazi anti-Semitism and hatred had written an "appalling chapter of history (that) must never be forgotten or denied."
A STATE FOR PALESTINIANS
Before departing for Rome, the pope again drove home his political message, calling for peace to end Israeli occupation of the West Bank and give the Palestinians their own homeland.
He stressed this goal several times during his five-day tour, aware that Israel's new government has so far declined to endorse the "two-state solution" desired by the West. Continued...
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