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				Pope In Bethlehem Urges Palestinian Homeland

March 23, 2000, By Nidal al-Mughrabi

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Pope John Paul made an impassioned plea for a Palestinian homeland Wednesday at the start of a historic visit to the West Bank town of Bethlehem, revered as the birthplace of Jesus.

The Pontiff kissed a bowl of earth when he arrived at a helipad in the holy town near Jerusalem, an act seen by Palestinians as a papal seal for their aspirations to an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"No one can ignore how much the Palestinian people have had to suffer in recent decades. Your torment is before the eyes of the world. And it has gone on too long," the Pope said at a ceremony at Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's palace.

Arafat and his Christian-born wife Suha applauded when the Pope said the Vatican had always recognized that the Palestinian people "have the natural right to a homeland, and the right to be able to live in peace and tranquillity with the other peoples of this area."

A Palestinian boy and girl offered the Pope a brass bowl of soil on his arrival in the Palestinian-ruled town on the third day of a week-long pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Vatican and Palestinian flags fluttered in the wind overhead as the 79-year-old Pontiff, stooped and frail, bent over to kiss the earth at the start of a full day in Bethlehem steeped in religious and political significance.

The Pope and Arafat stood together under a pavilion on a red carpet at the helipad while bagpipes played. Arafat saluted a passing honor guard.

ARAFAT PRAISES POPE

The Pope proceeded immediately in his bullet-proof Popemobile to Arafat's Bethlehem palace where, sitting beside Arafat and his wife Suha, the Pope shook the hands of dozens of senior Palestinian officials and local clergy.

"The Palestinian people value highly your principled positions in support of their cause and their rightful presence in their homeland as a sovereign and independent people," Arafat said at the palace.

Israel handed Bethlehem over to Palestinian control in 1995 under a landmark peace deal. Palestinians now control about 40 percent of the West Bank and most of the Gaza Strip, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Arafat has vowed to declare an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza this year with or without a final peace treaty in talks that resumed in Washington this week.

"In the international forum, my predecessors and I have repeatedly proclaimed that there would be no end to the sad conflict in the Holy Land without stable guarantees for the rights of all the peoples involved, on the basis of international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions and declarations," the Pope said at the palace.

He said that legitimate Palestinian aspirations could only be met through a just and lasting peace and he called for courage, compromise and "compliance with the demands of justice" from the parties involved.

The Pope, who left the welcoming ceremony holding Arafat's hand, was due to tour Dheisheh, a refugee camp that is a symbol of Palestinian suffering and hopes for statehood.

Asked how he viewed the Pope's speech in political terms, Arafat told reporters: "It was very important, especially when he focused on the issue of the Palestinian people.

"His visit is a blessing and an internationally important event in all its dimensions," Arafat said.

POPE TO CELEBRATE MASS IN MANGER SQUARE

The Pope was due also to celebrate a mass for up to 20,000 people in the town's Manger Square and later enter the Church of the Nativity, one of the holiest sites in Christianity.

The Pope's millennium pilgrimage, following journeys last month to Egypt and Monday to Jordan in the path of Moses, marks the realization of a spiritual desire he says has burned within him since the start of his papacy in 1978.

Sources familiar with the arrangements in Bethlehem had said earlier that the Palestinians had omitted proposing the tradition of kissing the soil in preparatory talks with the Vatican, which would have passed up a chance to gain a high-profile symbolic papal blessing to their statehood hopes.

But the head of the Palestinian organizing committee said last week the Pope would indeed "kiss the soil of Palestine."

The Pope arrived in Israel late Tuesday. After spending the night in Jerusalem, he flew to Qasr el Yahud for a private visit to the site on the west bank of the River Jordan where Israel says Jesus was baptized before going to Bethlehem.