Pope cannot avoid Israeli wall on Bethlehem visit

BETHLEHEM

In the town of Jesus's birth, before a grim concrete backdrop topped by a watchtower defaced by graffiti, Palestinians are putting the finishing touches to an amphitheatre for Pope Benedict's visit.

But Israel has ordered a halt to construction and the pope may not even use it when he speaks in Bethlehem on Wednesday.

The site was proposed by the Aida refugee camp to dramatise the reality of Israel's barrier through the West Bank.

For Israel, the mainly razor-wire tipped fences and, in some segments, walls symbolise security. To Palestinians they are plainly oppressive. The World Court has said the barrier is illegal because it is in occupied territory.

It was on the understanding that the Vatican would accept the location that the refugee camp received funds from the Palestinian Authority to build the stage, say local officials.

It is not clear whether, as Palestinian officials here say, the Vatican at first endorsed, then rejected, the site.

"When we started to work on this stage, a group from the Catholic church came to check our work. They told us to raise the eastern side of it, to make it more secure for the pope when he stands on the stage," said Monther Ameera, coordinator of his visit to the refugee camp.

But instead, Benedict is due to meet pupils at Aida's United Nations-run school which stands nearby.

Overlooked by the ornate minaret of an old mosque and garlanded with coils of razor wire, the school is directly across the street from where the little stone amphitheatre, with seating for no more than 500, is being built.

Towering Wall

There is no missing the towering wall and its paint-splashed watchtower just 30 metres (yards) away.

Last week, as workers were facing the amphitheatre with thick tiles of sand-coloured Jerusalem stone, an Israeli official delivered a legal notice, in Arabic and Hebrew, that they could not build at the site.

The spot is in an area designated by interim peace accords as under Israeli military control.

"You may apply for a permit", the legal notice said, and it laid down a formal procedure. The Palestinians, however, believed from past experience that there was no chance of obtaining a permit and ignored the order.

Israel began building the West Bank barrier in 2002 with the declared aim of preventing Palestinian suicide bombers from reaching its cities, as they had done with devastating effect in the previous two years.

When complete, it will run 790 km (490 miles) from north to south, coiling around Palestinian villages and Israeli settlements in what the Palestinians charge is a permanent grab for land. Israel calls the barrier a temporary measure.

A U.N. report said last week only 13 percent of land in the Bethlehem area is open to development by Palestinians. The rest is cut off by Israeli settlements, control zones and the barrier.

The only way the pope could visit Bethlehem without confronting the massive wall that slices between the town and Jerusalem would be to travel blindfold.

To travel the ancient "Hebron Road" from Jerusalem to Bethlehem via Judaism's holy site at Rachel's Tomb, requires Israeli security to open big three steel gates, like locks in a concrete canal.

The wall is made of prefabricated concrete slabs some 6 metres (20 feet) high, a type of construction probably familiar to Benedict, a native of Germany whose Berlin Wall symbolised bitter ideological division and lasted 28 years.

Reuters