Israel seeks pope's help in halting Iranian threats

NAZARETH, Israel - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to Pope Benedict XVI yesterday to "make his voice heard loud" against Iran's call for the destruction of the Jewish state. But his focus on Iran did not mask a key difference with the pontiff over whether Palestinians deserve a state of their own.

The two men met a day after the pope made a powerful call for Palestinian statehood, a concept that Netanyahu has refused to endorse. They held 15 minutes of face-to-face talks, which the Vatican said "centered on how the peace process can be advanced."

In televised remarks after the talks, Netanyahu did not mention the Palestinian issue, focusing instead on Iran. "I asked him, as a moral figure, to make his voice heard loud and continuously against the declarations coming from Iran of their intention to destroy Israel," Netanyahu said of his talks with the pope.

"I told him it cannot be that at the beginning of the 21st century, there is a state which says it is going to destroy the Jewish state, and there is no aggressive voice being heard condemning this," the Israeli leader told Israel TV.

He said Benedict said that "he condemns all such things, anti-Semitism, hate," adding: "I think we found in him an attentive ear."

The Israeli leader called his meeting with Benedict "very good and important," noting that the pope heads a church of one billion followers, and Israel wants good relations with them.

The pope's ventures into diplomacy reflected what a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, called the focus of his Middle East pilgrimage - "peace, peace, peace." He said the pope could be a "bridge" among the various positions.

On his Mideast trip, the Vatican has been active on the diplomatic front, seeking to protect Christians in the Holy Land and elsewhere in the region, while supporting a solution to the Israel-Palestinian dispute through creation of a Palestinian state and security for Israel.

On the next-to-last day of his pilgrimage, Benedict drew the largest crowd of his trip, 50,000 at an open-air Mass in Nazareth. He issued a message of reconciliation, urging Christians and Muslims to overcome recent strife and "reject the destructive power of hatred and prejudice."

The choice of Nazareth - home to many key sites in Christianity - as the venue reflected the interfaith strains the pope has tried to ease. The city, in northern Israel's Galilee region, is the country's largest Arab city. Roughly two-thirds of its 65,000 people are Muslims and a third are Christians. While the two communities usually get along, they have come into sporadic conflict.

A decade ago, Muslims outraged Christians by building an unauthorized mosque next to the Basilica of the Annunciation, where Christians believe the Angel Gabriel foretold the birth of Jesus to Mary. Israeli authorities later tore down the mosque.