In Israel, Mossad’s analysts saw the pontiff’s new attitude as the first sign that the evidence presented to Poggi had been accepted. But while there was no immediate move made to invite Mossad to contribute to John Paul’s understanding of the world, the pope had become convinced of the value of Poggi’s dialogue with Eli. In Tel Aviv, Admoni told Eli to remain in contact with Poggi. They continued to meet in various European cities, sometimes at an Israeli embassy, other times in a papal nunciature. Their discussions were wide-ranging, but almost always focused on two issues: the situation in the Middle East and the pope’s wish to visit the Holy Land. Linked to this was John Paul’s continued effort to find a permanent homeland for the PLO.
Poggi made it clear the pope had both a liking for, and a fascination with, Yasser Arafat. John Paul did not share the views of men like Rafi Eitan, David Kimche, and Uri Saguy, that the PLO leader, in Eitan’s words, was a ruthless killer and “a butcher of our women and children, someone I would kill with my own bare hands.”
To the pontiff, raised against the background of the heroic Polish resistance against the Nazis, Arafat was an appealing underdog, a charismatic figure continuously able to escape Mossad’s various attempts to kill him. Poggi recounted to Eli how Arafat had once told John Paul he had developed a sixth sense—“and some measure of a seventh”—when he was in danger. “A man like that deserves to live,” Poggi had said to Eli.
Through such glimpses, Eli obtained a clearer view of the pope’s mind-set. But John Paul also paid more than lip service to the historical truth that the Jewish roots of Christianity must never be forgotten, and that anti-Semitism—so rife in his own beloved Poland—must be eradicated.
In May 1984, Poggi invited Eli to the Vatican. The two men talked together for hours in the archbishop’s office in the Apostolic Palace. To this day no one knows what they spoke about.
In Israel, this was once more a time of scandal involving the nation’s intelligence community. A month before, April 12, four PLO terrorists had hijacked a bus with thirty-five passengers as it headed for the southern town of Ashqelon. The official version of the incident was that Shin Bet agents had stormed the bus, and in the ensuing gunfight, two terrorists were shot dead and the two who had been wounded died on their way to the hospital.
Newspaper reports showed them being led from the bus, visibly not seriously injured. It emerged they had been so severely beaten in the ambulance by Shin Bet officers that both men died. Mossad, although not directly involved, was tarnished by the international condemnation of the incident.
Against this background, Poggi explained to Eli, there could be no question of John Paul establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. Until he did, Eli reiterated, there could be no question of the pope being allowed to visit the Holy Land.
Yet it was a measure of the bridge building they were engaged upon that both men agreed the issue was not dead.
On April 13, 1986, John Paul did something no other pontiff had done. He entered the Synagogue of Rome on Lungotevere dei Cenci, where he was embraced by the city’s chief rabbi. Each dressed in their regalia, the two men walked side by side through the silent congregation to the
In the back of the congregation sat Eli, who had played his part in bringing about this historic moment. Yet it still did not achieve what Israel wanted—papal diplomatic recognition.
That would only finally come in December 1993, when, despite the continuing objections of the Secretariat hard-liners, diplomatic ties were established.
By then, Nahum Admoni was no longer Mossad’s chief. His successor, Shabtai Shavit, continued the delicate process of trying to bring Mossad closer to the Vatican. Part of that maneuvering was to show the pope that both Israel and the PLO at long last had a genuine interest in reaching a settlement, and recognized the common threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Pope John Paul bore the physical scars of the truth of that.
Meanwhile, Mossad had been busy on a continent where the Vatican pinned so many hopes for the future—Africa. From there the Holy See one day expected to see emerge the Church’s first black pope. But it was there that Mossad had already shown itself the past master at the black art of playing off one intelligence service against another to secure its own position.
A few blocks from Nairobi’s venerable Norfolk Hotel, the Oasis Club had long been a favorite among Kenya’s business community. They could drink all night in its gloomy interior and take a bar girl to one of the rooms out back after checking her current medical certificate confirmed she was free of venereal disease.
