“Muslims, Christians and Jews see in him, albeit in different ways, a father in faith and a great example to be imitated. He became a pilgrim, leaving his own people and his own house in order to embark on that spiritual adventure to which God called him,” he said... Pope Francis noted that Abraham’s attitude should be an example for every person.

[He also] stressed, “Dear friends, from this holy place I make a heartfelt plea to all people and to all communities who look to Abraham: may we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters! May we learn to understand the sufferings of others! May no one abuse the name of God through violence! May we work together for justice and peace!”

The Pontiff closed by encouraging continued collaboration. “Together, we can make a great contribution to the cause of peace; together, we can bear witness, in this rapidly changing world, to the perennial importance of the divine plan of creation; together, we can firmly oppose every form of anti-Semitism and all other forms of discrimination,” he said.

“Welcome to the gates of Jerusalem, City of Peace… a peace which has been removed by the Israeli occupation.

“Our goal is to fight the Israeli occupation of oppression, and we must do to be removed from our land. It is the occupation that wants to wipe our presence - both Muslims, both Christians - and obscure the identity through the severe oppressive measures of cutting off Jerusalem from its Palestinian attempt to Judaize it and hurt its people, and to take control of the holy places contrary to all divine laws and international conventions… the preventing the arrival of believers at places of worship is a violation of freedom of worship and the fight against faith.

“There are ferocious attacks against the holy places… and attempts to change the status-quo which are dangerous and constitute aggression against the Muslim nation …also a violation of the Hashemite Kingdom under the auspices of the holy places in Jerusalem. This can trigger a religious war in the region and the world. Israeli government bear [in mind] those consequences of this policy.

“Hence we turn to Your Excellency - saw your call for peace - will work to stop the attacks and acts of oppression those that harm the residents of Jerusalem, Muslims, and Christians.”

…and Muhammad Hussein

“This blessed mosque and all contained therein are subjected to aggression and invasions of extremist settlers, under the auspices of the Israeli occupation authorities, who seek to Judaize the mosque and share - both in terms of time [= at certain hours of the day] in terms of the areas [= at certain specified places].

“We want freedom and an end to the occupation, and that the Palestinian people will fill their legitimate rights, self-determination and an independent state with its capital in Jerusalem…”

According to police, upon opening the main gate to the holy site, rocks and bottles were thrown at officers, forcing them to disperse the crowd with stun grenades and to temporarily cordon off part of the site to visitors. “Police immediately responded to the rioting and pushed them back into al-Aksa Mosque,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, adding that one officer sustained a light injury.

After containing the scene, Rosenfeld said, over 1,000 tourists and 250 Israelis entered the compound to tour it under police protection. The violence comes after the pontiff’s Monday visit to the Temple Mount. After entering the Dome of the Rock, Francis held a private meeting with Jerusalem’s Grand Mufti Muhammad Hussein to discuss tolerance and nonviolence as a means of resolving long-held differences with Jews.

According to Muslim media reports, during the meeting Francis implored Hussein and a number of other Palestinian religious leaders to disavow violence and “work together [with Jews] for justice and peace.”

“May we respect and love one another as brothers and sisters,” the pope reportedly said during the discussion.

“May we learn to understand the suffering of others. May no one abuse the name of God through violence.”

Hamas uses the Islamic Movement to transfer money to projects in Jerusalem, such as paying for Arab youths to remain constantly on the Temple Mount in the guise of religious students in order to prevent Jewish pilgrimage to the holy site, Toama told the Shin Bet. Hamas pays the youths a permanent salary of NIS 4,000-5,000 each month. Toama added that Hamas keeps its ties with the Islamic Movement secret in order to prevent the movement from entanglements with Israeli authorities.

Toama, who served in a key financial position in Hamas's leadership, told his Shin Bet interrogators that, until recently, Iran was the main source of Hamas funding. Iran stopped its funding in the last year, causing a financial crisis in the organization. Toama said that Hamas had decided to enter into a unity government with Fatah out of necessity, and the move did not mark a change in the organization's world view.

According to MEMRI, members of the group issued a call to the ‘Islamic nation’ and the army of Pakistan to liberate ‘al Quds’ (Jerusalem) from ‘Jewish filth.’

“Where is the Caliph of the Muslims? Don’t you care that the Jews are defiling the place of the Prophet’s nocturnal journey with their filth? The Jews are the most hostile people towards the believers… They conquered Jerusalem,” called the rally activists.

“O people of Pakistan! O people of Islam! The place of the Prophet’s ascent to Heaven is calling for your help! What are you doing? The Al Aqsa Mosque calls for your support! Will you heed the call?”

“O Pakistani Army! America wants to destroy you. America is your enemy. Free yourselves from subordination to it. This is the call of Hizb Al-Tahrir: Advance with your mighty army to Jerusalem. You are worthy of the honor of liberating it.”

The Holy See has no hard power. The Pope can’t tax or arrest the estimated 1.2 billion adherents of the Catholic Church. His only influence over them is voluntary, driven by powerful images and narratives of redemption and belonging. In an important sense, then, the Pope is a symbol, a stand-in for a higher reality, and all his statements and actions are consciously undertaken as part of his symbolic role.

So when the Palestinian Authority brought the Pope to a concrete-walled portion of Israel’s West Bank security fence, he was hardly confused by the intentions of his hosts. They wanted to create a symbol, and he, a master of symbolism, gave it to them willingly. The Pope’s visit, together with the repeated mention of the “State of Palestine” in Vatican press releases and in the pontiff’s own speeches, quickly set Twitter atwitter with the predictable cheering and hand-wringing.

Yet while the Palestinians claimed the Pope for their own, one Palestinian official noted to the press that the visit to the wall was engineered because the Pope’s Israeli itinerary included, for the first time, an explicit Vatican recognition of the justice of Zionism, in the form of the first papal visit to the tomb of Zionism’s founder Theodor Herzl — something no previous Pope, and no Palestinian leader, had done before.

And in the wake of the visit to the wall, the Pope was invited by Israel to the national memorial for terror victims — with Israeli leaders noting that over 1,000 Israelis were killed in Palestinian suicide bombings by the time the government decided to build fences and walls between Israelis and Palestinians.

This time, too, the Pope acquiesced, even delivering live on Israeli national TV news a brief but strident rejection of terrorism.

By the time he left the region on Tuesday, Pope Francis had gone out of his way to accept both sides’ narrative. Unlike previous Popes or more junior Vatican officials, Francis did not hedge or equivocate for a moment. He signalled without hesitation his belief that the Palestinians are traumatized by occupation and deserving of long-denied national freedom, and simultaneously that the Jews of Israel are victims of indiscriminate violence who also deserve to live as a free people in their land.

Pope Francis commented: “Every time we put behind us longstanding prejudices and find the courage to build new fraternal relationships, we confess that Christ is truly risen!”. Patriarch Bartholomew drew attention to a wider vision inspired by the place of the tomb of Christ: “history cannot be programmed; that the ultimate word in history does not belong to man, but to God. In vain did guards of the secular power watch over this tomb. In vain did they place a very large stone against the door of the tomb, so that none could roll it away.

“This Declaration sets the course once for more ecumenical activity in a number of areas, it places the Church of Christ at the heart of the world’s life in dialogue and activity, in mission and prayer. As a Greek-Catholic, it is heartening because it once again reminds the world that the Church of Christ cannot fully live unless she ‘breathes with both lungs’, as that famous phrase of the Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV puts it! In the West we have many Eastern Churches including those from the Middle East. Time to really get to know them!

Christ is Risen: He is Risen indeed!!”

Dore Gold, a key security advisor to PM Netanyahu, wrote a 2011 article entitled "The West Bank Airspace, the Forgotten Factor of Israeli Security," which iterated Langfan’s central point. "Indeed, Israeli security experts still insist that no matter where borders are ultimately drawn, Israel must control the airspace over the entire West Bank in any future peace arrangements. Brigadier General (reserve) Udi Dekel, who as a former air force officer headed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s negotiating team with the Palestinians, has made this very point.

He wrote a few months ago that Israel must have 'control over a unified airspace… which cannot be divided.' Gold concluded his 2011 article by echoing Langfan’s very words that Israel “must make absolutely certain that Israel retain control of the West Bank’s airspace, over which there is a strong security consensus that it must be retained by Israel and not divided with the Palestinians.”

Langfan simply observes, “Any Israeli security officer who thinks that the Palestinians will ‘agree’ to allowing Israel to ‘retain’ the airspace of the West Bank is delusional.”

Pope Francis was then addressed by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Kotel and the Holy Sites, and heard him speak proudly of the Jews’ history, of their exile and redemption. “The Jerusalem you have arrived at, honored Pope, is not only the physical Jerusalem. It is also the Jerusalem of dreams; the dream of millions of Jews throughout two thousand long years of exile. Jerusalem is a dream that has been realized; we are still walking in it as dreamers, expecting the full realization of the dream,” said Rabbi Rabinowitz.

Relating to the destruction of the Second Temple, Rabbi Rabinowitz spoke of Titus’s Arch in Rome, which depicts the exile of the Jews. “It is true, Titus succeeded in taking the Menorah (candelabrum) and the tools of the Temple; but the light of faith, and the hope to return to the land of our fathers, he was not successful in extinguishing,” he remarked. “We have traveled a long road on the way home; we have journeyed from the four corners of the land.”

Possibly hinting to Christian persecution, Rabbi Rabinowitz said: “For two thousand years we have had our fill of scorn and sadness, but every day we prayed and believed ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’ We merited a great miracle to return here after a long exile and a horrifying Holocaust. Thank God, the People of Israel live on, in the Land of Israel.”

Parallel to the Pope’s visit, The Temple Institute in Jerusalem, which educates about the Temple and actually prepares for the building of the Third Temple, released a statement demanding that the Pope return the vessels of the Temple. Under the title ‘Give Back the Vessels’, the statement read: “Today the Pope is in Jerusalem, and we demand: Return at once the Holy Temple vessels stolen by Titus in 70 CE and later hidden away in the Vatican where they have remained for over 1000 years. In your own words, Pope Francis, the situation is “increasingly unacceptable.” Return the stolen vessels at once!”

Artifacts said to be transferred to the religious city-state via the Roman Emperor include the shulchan (Showbread table), the menorah (candelabra), several priestly garments, and others. More than just an 1800 year-old report, there is recent evidence that the Vatican still has these vessels in its possession, he argued, citing the testimony of several 19th and twentieth century Rabbis.

Rabbi Shtenzel spoke at length about the personal experiences of Rabbi Israel Miller, a Satmar Hasid from Jerusalem who visited the Vatican and stated that he had seen several of the Temple vessels in person, and of former Religious Affairs Minister Professor Shimon Shitrit, who stated several years ago that Italian academics had contacted him about the vessels. The information later led to a diplomatic falling-out between the Religious Affairs Ministry and Pope John Paul II; yet the Vatican still remains quiet over the fate of the vessels.

Rabbi Shtenzel argues that the Israeli government is too passive in its handling of the issue of the vessels, choosing to smooth over relations instead of demanding answers on the objects which could spark the building of a Third Temple.

The Rabbi also turned to religious leaders, as well, noting that while meeting with the Pope - who, by traditional Jewish laws, represents an idolatrous sect - is problematic, the issue of the whereabouts of the Temple vessels is too urgent to overlook. He stated that if the Vatican continues to deny involvement with the Second Temple artifacts, Israel should turn to more meaningful channels to procure them.

Pope Francis knows full well where the vessels are, the Rabbi claimed, lamenting that "diplomatic evasion" is the status quo. The Vatican is concerned, according to Shtenzel, that they will be brought to the Hague over the issue and be forced to give the artifacts back to the Jewish people.

Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, also spoke at the Jerusalem Day ceremony, where he placed an emphasis on the unique role of the city in Jewish and Israeli identity. "The first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, said that 'if there is a soul to Israel - Jerusalem is the soul of Israel'," Barkat noted. "Jerusalem has become once again, in recent years, not only Israel's soul - but Israel's beating heart."

"Jerusalem is once again becoming increasingly relevant to the people of Israel," he added. "The Zionist movement is back again in Jerusalem, where young people are taking responsibility for the direction and influence of the Jewish people in the future."

"We can see that young people are beginning to believe in Jerusalem again," the mayor reflected. "The polls reflect that Jerusalem is a city where the residents are most satisfied in this country."