JERUSALEM — As the Pope’s special El Al flight departed Tel Aviv for Rome Friday at the end of his five-day visit to the Holy Land, he might have kicked off his red slippers, dropped his seat into recline, and wondered why he bothered to come.

GENEVA — The Obama administration seems to be in the mood to start over with the U.N.’s Human Right Council after many years in which Washington viewed the forum as hopelessly  anti-American and anti-Israeli. Esther Brimmer, President Barack Obama’s new assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, said in a briefing for reporters here that the administration was placing heavy emphasis on the fact that the United States plans to try to regain its seat on the U.N.’s Human Rights Council.

Thirty years ago I was crossing the Jordon River from Israel to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon to interview King Hussein, the father of the present monarch. I passed over the Allenby Bridge from Israeli control, displaying blue and white Israeli flags, to the Jordanian side, where most pretended that Israel didn’t exist.

RAMALLAH — Money, wrote the English philosopher Francis Bacon, is like manure: of very little use unless it is spread. Since an international aid conference in March promised $5.2 billion to rebuild Gaza, the stink of un-spread money has been strong in the nostrils. That’s particularly unpleasant for the people of Gaza, who also have to deal with a largely destroyed sewage system, thus giving them a double-helping of manure.