Papal prayer summit dips into Mideast peace talks

Pope Francis plants an olive tree with Israel's President Shimon Peres, left, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, second from left, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, right, in a sign of peace during an evening of peace prayers in the Vatican gardens, Sunday, June 8, 2014. Pope Francis waded head-first into Mideast peace-making Sunday, welcoming the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Vatican for an evening of peace prayers just weeks after the last round of U.S.-sponsored negotiations collapsed.
Pope Francis plants an olive tree with Israel's President Shimon Peres, left, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, second from left, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, right, in a sign of peace during an evening of peace prayers in the Vatican gardens, Sunday, June 8, 2014. Pope Francis waded head-first into Mideast peace-making Sunday, welcoming the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Vatican for an evening of peace prayers just weeks after the last round of U.S.-sponsored negotiations collapsed.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis plunged into Middle East peace-making Sunday, welcoming the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Vatican for an evening of peace prayers just weeks after the last round of U.S.-sponsored negotiations collapsed.

Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas joked and embraced in the foyer of the Vatican hotel where Francis lives and later in the Vatican gardens, where they joined Francis in presiding over a sunset invocation of Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers.

Francis told the two men, who signed the Oslo peace accords in 1993, that he hoped the summit would mark "a new journey" toward peace. He said too many children had been killed by war and violence, and that their memory should instill the strength and patience to work for dialogue and coexistence.

"We have tried many times and for many years to resolve our conflicts with our strength as well as our weapons, many moments of hostility and darkness, a lot of blood spilled, many lives broken, many hopes buried," he said. "But our efforts have been in vain. Now, Lord, let it be you to give us peace."

The event had a receiving line and guests mingling on the lawn as a string ensemble played.

Vatican officials have insisted that Francis had no political agenda in inviting the two leaders to pray at his home other than to rekindle a desire for peace. But the meeting could have greater symbolic significance, given that Francis was able to bring them together at all during a time when the Israeli government is trying to isolate Abbas.

"In the Middle East, symbolic gestures and incremental steps are important," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a veteran Vatican analyst for the National Catholic Reporter newspaper. "And who knows what conversations can occur behind closed doors in the Vatican."

Francis capitalized on both his own enormous popularity and the peace-loving heritage of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, to bring the two sides together.

The unusual prayer summit was a feat of diplomatic and religious protocol, organized in the two weeks since Francis issued the surprise invitation to Peres and Abbas from Manger Square in Bethlehem.

It took place in the lush Vatican gardens in the shadow of St. Peter's Basilica, the most religiously neutral place in the tiny city-state. It incorporated Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers, delivered in Hebrew, English, Arabic and Italian, and with musical interludes from the three faith traditions.

The prayers focused on three themes common to each of the religions: thanking God for creation, seeking forgiveness for past wrongdoing and praying to God to bring peace to the region.

During the ceremony, Peres and Abbas avoided political tropes. There was no mention of 1967 borders or security arrangements. Abbas did not use the word "occupation," according to an English translation of his prepared text distributed by the Vatican. Nor did he say the word "Israel," though he did refer once to Israelis.

Peres did not mention rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, but he evoked the attacks with the biblical quotation: "Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."

At the conclusion, Francis, Peres and Abbas shook hands and planted an olive tree together in a sign of peace.

Vatican officials have described the prayer evening as something of a "time-out" in political negotiations, merely designed to rekindle the desire for peace through prayers common to all the main faith traditions in the Holy Land.

No concrete results are expected: Peres has no formal role in peace negotiations, holds a largely ceremonial post and leaves office at the end of the month.

But Nadav Tamir, a political adviser to Peres, said Sunday that the Israeli government authorized the trip and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in "constant contact" with Peres. Speaking on Israeli Army Radio, Tamir stressed the meeting was not political, even though he said Peres and Abbas were expected to discuss political developments when they met in private after the prayer.

Netanyahu has urged the world to shun Abbas' new unity government that took office last week because it is backed by the Islamic militant group Hamas. His pleas have been ignored by the West, with both the U.S. and the European Union saying they will give the unity government a chance.

Peres' participation thus undermined Netanyahu's attempts to isolate the Palestinians and instead added to the growing isolation of Netanyahu's hard-line position. Netanyahu's office has declined repeated requests for comment about the Vatican summit.

Peres, 90, deviated from his prepared remarks in the garden to add a personal note as his term as Israeli president comes to an end.

"I was young. Now I am old," he said. "I experienced war. I tasted peace. Never will I forget the bereaved families -- parents and children -- who paid the cost of war. And all my life I shall never stop to act for peace, for generations to come.

"Let's all of us join hands and make it happen."

Abbas made a few political points, saying Palestinians craved peace as well as "dignified living" and "freedom in our sovereign and independent state."

"We want peace for us and for our neighbors," he said, according to his prepared text.

The two met privately for about 15 minutes inside a nearby Vatican villa.

Meanwhile Sunday, Israel's finance minister criticized settlement construction in isolated parts of the West Bank as a waste of money and vowed to bring down the country's governing coalition if it heeds hard-line calls to annex settlements.

The tough speech by Finance Minister Yair Lapid highlights divisions in the Israeli government after the collapse of the recent peace talks with the Palestinians.

Addressing a security conference in the coastal town of Herzliya, Lapid urged the government to seize the diplomatic initiative and present its own peace plan. He said Israel should withdraw from empty areas of the West Bank and dismantle settlements located in isolated areas. He said the government should present a map clearly identifying these areas.

"There is no reason to keep building settlements in places and areas that will not be part of Israel in any future agreement and to continue investing billions in infrastructure that at the end of the day, we will just give away as gifts to the Palestinians," he said.

Information for this article was contributed by Nicole Winfield, Josef Federman and Tia Goldenberg of The Associated Press; by Andrew Frye and Alessandra Migliaccio of Bloomberg News; and by Jim Yardley and Jodi Rudoren of The New York Times.

A Section on 06/09/2014

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