One can just imagine the glee of Israeli government officials when they got wind of the fact that His Holiness the Pope would grace Israel with a visit. I imagine it sounded something like this:
And so, money was spent, security details planned, traffic obstructed, and so forth.
All so some dude in a white outfit, wearing a big gold crucifix with a dead guy on it for bling bling, could come to the Holy Land and give the Jews a moral upbraiding for their supposed mistreatment of the “Palestinians.”
Well, Shimmy Peres will get his Kodak moment and Israel will pride itself on its ecumenical demeanor. Meantime, the Pope has planned every bit as meticulously as the Israeli government for this trip. This photo for instance. No doubt a great deal of planning went into that pose. This photo will likely be imprinted on the world conscious for decades to come.
In it, the Pope mocks the manner in which Jews pray at the Western Wall, except, instead of being close to the holy of holies, the Pope is praying to the wall that keeps terrorists from blowing up Israeli buses and decapitating three month-old infants.
Pallywood refers to the wall as “The Separation Wall,” so naturally the AP follows suit.
Jews pray at the Western Wall because it’s as close as they can get to the Holy of Holies most days. But when the pope is in Israel, Jewish prayer at the Wall is every bit as verboten as on the Temple Mount.
Funny how one wall keeps Arabs from killing Jews and the other is the final proof of the indigenous status of the Jewish people in the Holy Land.
Who knows? Maybe his Popiness is praying that we won’t ask him about those Temple treasures he’s got stashed away in the Vatican.
