Pope offers symbolic backing for Palestinians

STANDING in the cradle of Christianity, Pope Benedict XVI told Palestinians yesterday he understood their suffering and offered his strongest and most symbolic public backing yet for an independent Palestinian state.

To get to Jesus’s traditional birthplace of Bethlehem, Benedict crossed through the towering concrete slabs of the separation barrier that Israel has erected to wall off the West Bank’s Palestinian areas.

On a visit to a nearby refugee camp, he expressed regret over Israel’s construction of the separation barrier. A section of the barrier, fortified by an Israeli military watchtower, provided a stark backdrop as he spoke.