It was no surprise to see the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Yasser Arafat, smiling broadly throughout Pope John Paul II's warm and sympathetic address to refugees in the West Bank's Dehaishe refugee camp yesterday. More animated than at any time since arriving in the Holy Land on Tuesday, the Pope said bluntly that his presence in the camp was designed "to draw attention to your continuing plight".
He expressed his pain "at the sad memory of what you were forced to leave behind - not just possessions, but your freedom". He pleaded for "a just solution". And he promised that the Church "will continue to be at your side, will continue to plead your cause before the world".
In a crowded camp of 10,000 Palestinians set up after the 1948 war for Israel's independence, to an audience of first, second and third generation refugees, surrounded by graffiti pleading for the refugees "right of return" to homes now inside sovereign Israel, the Pope's words blazed out like rays of sunlight.
Yet, despite that evident sympathy, despite the concern for the camp's "degrading conditions", despite the call for "political leaders to implement agreements already arrived at", the Pope at Dehaishe, as at adjacent Bethlehem earlier in the day, managed to show his support for the Palestinian cause without infuriating an Israeli leadership which was scrutinising his every word.
In Bethlehem, he had spoken of the Palestinians' "natural right to a homeland" and of the need to fulfil "legitimate Palestinian aspirations". However, equally significant to the watching Israel was what he did not say on this, the "Palestine Day", of his pilgrimage. He did not formally endorse Palestinian statehood. He avoided all mention of the disputed holy city of Jerusalem. And, even after hearing two speakers at Dehaishe insist on the "right of return", he himself eschewed that formulation.
"He walked between the raindrops", said Mr Boaz Moda'i, an Israeli diplomat recently returned from a stint as envoy to the Vatican.
"He steered clear of the minefields," echoed Rabbi David Rosen, the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland who is active in inter-faith dialogue.
Mr Arafat had every reason to smile: the issue of the refugees and their descendants - some three million of them in the Palestinian areas and beyond - is now higher on the international agenda as a consequence of yesterday's visit. The Pope, like President Clinton before him, has come to Palestinian territory and endorsed the ambition for a "home land".
However, as officials in the Israeli Prime Minister's office said last night, he used formulations that have been used in the past, and said nothing that caused offence. Most importantly, they noted, he was speaking in an era when Israel and the Palestinians are already working together, albeit painstakingly, toward some of the solutions that Pope John Paul II said he hoped God would help them achieve.