Pope John Paul II and PLO leader Yasser Arafat. (Collage by Céline Bejjani/L'Orient-Le Jour)
On Sept. 15, 1982, at 4:30 p.m., Yasser Arafat arrived at the Vatican. Three months after the Israeli invasion, the Lebanese Civil War weighed on everyone’s mind.President Bachir Gemayel had just been killed in a bombing and a bloodbath followed the next day, in apparent retaliation, in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps.In Tunis, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — expelled from Beirut a few weeks earlier — faced a historic defeat.Eleven years before recognizing the State of Israel, and while the resistance movement was still calling for Israel’s annihilation, Pope John Paul II was nonetheless preparing to offer the PLO its first major diplomatic victory. The pontiff became the first Western head of state to meet privately with its leader, Arafat.Almost no information came from the meeting, which lasted 30...
On Sept. 15, 1982, at 4:30 p.m., Yasser Arafat arrived at the Vatican. Three months after the Israeli invasion, the Lebanese Civil War weighed on everyone’s mind.President Bachir Gemayel had just been killed in a bombing and a bloodbath followed the next day, in apparent retaliation, in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps.In Tunis, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — expelled from Beirut a few weeks earlier — faced a historic defeat.Eleven years before recognizing the State of Israel, and while the resistance movement was still calling for Israel’s annihilation, Pope John Paul II was nonetheless preparing to offer the PLO its first major diplomatic victory. The pontiff became the first Western head of state to meet privately with its leader, Arafat.Almost no information came from the meeting, which lasted...
