From the Tablet:

THE ANNOUNCEMENT last week that the President of Israel, Moshe Katsav, is to visit the Vatican on 17 November has been widely seen as momentous. After almost 2,000 years of enmity, this is another giant step towards lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews. It is clear already, after Benedict XVI’s visit to a synagogue in Cologne on World Youth Day, and his hosting of a visit by senior rabbis on 15 September, that relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism will be a main focus of his papacy.

Less remarked on has been the commitment on the part of Israel to this process, which has its roots not only in theological concerns but also in deeply political ones.

On the day of the announcement on 30 September, I spent an hour and a half in the company of Obed Ben-Hur, Israel’s Ambassador to the Vatican. It was plain from our conversation that Israel is looking to Rome to help bring about a new climate – what Obed Ben-Hur called a “psychology of peace” – in the Middle East. “Jesus being the Prince of Peace,” the ambassador said, “the Church has a major role in the potentially new psychology of the whole Israeli-Arab conflict”. The diplomatic initiative on both sides is rooted in and built around Nostra Aetate, the shortest, but one of the most far-reaching, of the Second Vatican Council declarations. The fortieth anniversary of the publication of the declaration on 28 October is being used as a handy peg on which to hang a number of important proposals.

Israel believes that a strong alliance with the Vatican could promote real progress towards ending a conflict that has defeated generations of politicians.