Pope Benedict promises to show respect to Muslims in visit to Holy Land Pope promises to show respect to Muslims Pope Benedict XVI’s conciliatory words in visit to Jordan fall short of demands from the Muslim Brotherhood for an apology Rana Sabbagh-Gargour, Amman James Hider, Middle East Correspondent Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Jordan yesterday at the start of a politically sensitive pilgrimage to the Holy Land, saying that he would use the tour to “speak of his deepest respect” for the Muslim community.

His conciliatory words stopped short of fulfilling the demand of the influential Muslim Brotherhood, which had asked for the Pope to apologise for a 2006 speech in which he linked the Prophet Muhammad to terrorism.

Jordanian fighter jets escorted the chartered aircraft carrying the Pope, on his first visit as pontiff to an Arab state, from the minute that it entered the kingdom’s airspace until it landed at Amman’s tightly guarded international airport.

There King Abdullah, a direct descendant of the Prophet, and his wife, Queen Rania, other members of the Royal Family and top officials gave the Pope a red-carpet welcome with a 21-gun salute. Hundreds of Christians wearing shirts bearing photos of Benedict and King Abdullah lined the main road and showered the Pope’s motorcade with rose petals.

In a brief speech the pontiff steered clear of making any political remarks that might spark trouble during his week-long tour of Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam,” the Pope said shortly after landing in Amman. Queen Rania wrote on Twitter, the social networking website, about Benedict XVI’s first visit to an Arab country. “Just choppered to airport to receive the Pope. Husband piloting, he got acrobatic to quiet butterflies in stomach . . . told u he was action man!” she said on the site.

A Jordanian army band with bagpipes and drums played the Vatican and Jordanian anthems before the Pope and the King inspected the guard of honour. Abdullah Abdul-Qader, a cleric at Amman’s oldest mosque, told worshippers during Friday prayers to welcome the Pope’s visit. “I urge you to show respect for your fellow Christians as they receive their church leader,” he said at al-Husseini mosque.

As well as Muslims upset by his speech in 2006, Christians and Jews also have a bone to pick with the Pope. His lifting of the ex-communication of a Holocaust-denying bishop has enraged Jews, many of whom were upset after a Vatican cardinal said this year that the Gaza Strip resembled a “big concentration camp” during the Israeli military offensive.

On the other hand, some Arab Christians say he hasn’t done enough to condemn the Gaza offensive, or to protect Christian sites in Arab east Jerusalem from Israeli excavations.

The Pope’s scheduled visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem is likely to prove a key test of his diplomatic skills in the face of some blunt appraisals by Israeli officials, who like to recall his boyhood spent as a conscript in the Hitler Youth.

Avner Shalev, the head of Yad Vashem, said that the Pope’s speech next week “should include a reference to the memory of the Holocaust in the present as well as in the future”.

Referring to the German-born pontiff’s stint in the Hitler Youth, Mr Shalev said: “It is impossible to claim that these things do not have an impact . . . a person’s habitat bears an influence on him, despite the fact that immediately after the war he disengaged from these things and devoted himself to studying religion.”

The Vatican has asked that the Pope be allowed to skip the exhibit accusing his wartime predecessor Pius XII — whom Benedict has suggested canonising — of turning a blind eye to the Nazi massacre of the Jews.

An extreme right-wing Jewish group has even threatened to press criminal charges against the Pope when he is in Israel over Vatican treasures which it claims have been plundered from Jewish people over the centuries.

The complaint lists plunder held in the Vatican, including a golden menorah, or sacred candle holder, that was looted from the Jerusalem Temple by Roman troops in AD70.