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Pope John Paul II is going to say Mass on Wednesday on Bethlehem's Manger Square -- so what? A few minutes before noon, in the middle of the Mass, the muezzin's voice will boom as usual from loudspeakers on the minaret of the Omar mosque towering over the square, calling Muslims to prayer. The pope will just have to stop in midservice and wait.

"We cannot stop the call to prayer. We will do on that day what we do on other days," said Sheikh Suleiman Aweidah. In fact, he said, Wednesday was supposed to be his day off and he might just let a colleague sing the call in his place.

Muslims outnumber Christians 2-to-1 in the town of Jesus' birth, and the importance of the Catholic pontiff's visit is not as obvious as it would seem to be. In Israel, where the pope's official visit beginning today is a historic first, the meaning of John Paul's mission of peace and reconciliation between Christians and Jews has become secondary to the political role many here hope he will play.

Although people in the Holy Land sometimes seem caught in a time warp, bogged in old rituals and rivalries, the arrival of the pope -- with 2,000 reporters, photographers and television crew members in tow -- signals the opening of a six-day public relations frenzy on the part of Israelis and Palestinians.

Both Israelis and Palestinians hope the pope will intercede on their behalf to secure their competing claims to Jerusalem and uphold their competing rights to live in the Holy Land. They have prepared speeches, pageants and events to touch the frail pontiff's heart and try to sway world opinion. And both sides have lined up public-relations teams ready to pontificate, via e-mail and faxes, on the political meaning of the man's every word and gesture.

Even the muezzin of Bethlehem eventually woke up to the thrilling potential of a billion pairs of ears hearing his voice during the televised papal Mass on Manger Square. "I'll definitely try to be there," said Aweidah, suddenly anticipating the highlight of his career.

Many others will clamor for more pointed attention. Although the 79-year-old pope has presented his trip to the Holy Land as a personal pilgrimage and the culmination of a long spiritual journey, there is almost no chance he will be allowed to pray in peace. John Paul is awaited less as a religious leader and humble pilgrim than as an all-powerful politician -- a sort of super-human mediator between people and that modern-day God which is world public opinion.

"It's a short visit, so we won't have a chance to talk about religion or God," said Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, Islam's grand mufti in the Holy Land who will meet the pope one-on-one. "However, we'll give him a short message about the political situation in Jerusalem," he said, listing a series of Palestinian grievances against Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem since 1967.

John Paul had barely set foot on the Israeli tarmac Tuesday morning, stooped as though he were carrying the weight of the world, when Israel's President Ezer Wiezman was briefing the pope on Israeli policy towards Jerusalem. In his welcome address carried live by the world's television networks, the president called the disputed city, the capital of Israel, the heart of the Jewish people and "the eternal city of the kings and judges of Israel."

Next page | The pope's apparent position will depend on when people switch on their televisions