wfn.org | GAC Endorses Open Jerusalem Advertisement

[PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org]

2-October-1996 
 
 
96402       GAC Endorses Open Jerusalem Advertisement 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--The chair of the General Assembly Council was instructed 
to add the Council's signature to an ad that is being developed for 
publication in the "New York Times" calling for Jersualem to be shared by 
Israelis and Palestinians when the derailed peace process resumes. 
 
     Elder Youngil Cho of Raleigh, N.C., was authorized to sign the call 
just days after violence erupted once again in Jerusalem's Old City and 
throughout the West Bank as Palestinian Muslims protested Israel's decision 
to open an ancient tunnel that runs underneath Palestinian homes and near 
their mosques.  There were 73 deaths. 
 
     Cho's is the second official Presbyterian signature on the document. 
The Rev. Cliff Kirkpatrick, stated clerk, signed on behalf of the General 
Assembly a few weeks ago. 
 
     "It is timely now that the world should hear our voices," the Rev. 
Victor Makari, the denomination's liaison to the Middle East, told the 
Worldwide Ministries Division, while urging Presbyterians to sign the ad as 
individuals and to secure the signatures of denominational entities as 
well. The ad says that "Jerusalem at peace cannot belong exclusively to one 
people, one country or one religion. 
 
     "Jerusalem," it says, "should be open to all, shared by all -- two 
peoples [Palestinians and Israelis] and three religions christians, Jews, 
and Muslims]." 
 
     The location of the tunnel's opening illustrates the inescapable 
proximity of the sites the three religious traditions in Jerusalem call 
sacred. The tunnel opens onto the Via Dolorosa, the street in Jerusalem's 
Old City that Christian pilgrims have traditionally held to be the route 
Jesus walked to his crucifixion -- just a short walk from the Western Wall, 
a Jewish prayer site, and the Dome of the Rock, a site sacred to Islamic 
tradition.  All of the sites surround or occupy the plateau known as the 
Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif, whose religious importance to Jews and 
Muslims dates back thousands of years and that juts into both the Jewish 
and Muslim quarters in the Old City. 
 
     According to the United Methodist News Service, the tunnel opens where 
Christian pilgrims begin their walk down the Via Dolorosa, just across the 
street from a convent that sits atop the ancient ruins of the Fortress of 
Antonia.  Tradition also holds that the fortress may be the place where 
Jesus was mocked by soldiers before the Crucifixion. 
 
     "The tunnel is the straw that broke the camel's back," said Doug 
Dicks, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission worker serving in Jerusalem 
with the Middle East Council of Churches, describing frustration over what 
has become a convulsive peace process. "There are still house demolitions 
[of homes belonging to Palestinians] in the Old City and on the West Bank. 
Land confiscations are continuing.  Settlement expansion is continuing. 
There is a lack of freedom of movement for Palestinians. ... 
 
     "All these things coupled together are creating a mood of 
frustration," he said, explaining that Palestinians believe  that -- 
despite promises of peace -- little is changing.  "What are Palestinians 
getting out of the peace process?  I guess that's bottom line." 
 
     Acknowledgment of that frustration is the message that the U.S. 
Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East sent to both Yasir 
Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority, and Benjamin Netanyahu, 
prime minister of Israel, on Sept. 27 -- signed by representatives of the 
U.S. Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities. 
 
     The letter reads, 
 
     "While opening the tunnel entrance was the spark which ignited 
Palestinian anger, at a deeper level the current crisis reflects the 
frustration Palestinians and Israelis feel toward the peace process based 
on their experience of recent months -- for Israelis, the persistent fears 
of new Palestinian terrorist attacks; and for Palestinians, the terrible 
daily hardships caused by continuing military closure of Jerusalem, the 
West Bank and Gaza and the threat posed by new Israeli Government decisions 
supporting further land confiscations and expansion of settlements.  We 
call on Israel and the Palestinian Authority immediately to renew 
negotiations and implement existing agreements, including ongoing 
Israeli-Palestinian cooperation on security and the agreement for Israeli 
redeployment in Hebron."    
 
     The group also insists that the Israeli Government close the tunnel, 
pending negotiations, and that the Palestinian Authority act to halt 
violent demonstrations in terrorities under its control. 
 
     It is signed by Dawud A. Assad, president of the Council of Mosques; 
the Rev. Joan B.  Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of 
Churches; and Albert Vorspan, vice president (emeritus) of the Union of 
American Hebrew Congregations. 
 
     The letter tells both Natanyahu and Arafat that the "current crisis 
should convince all of us that interfaith cooperation and a negotiated 
solution for Jerusalem are absolutely essential to achieving lasting and 
reconciliatory peace." 
      
     "Jerusalem is quiet at the moment," Dicks told the Presbyterian News 
Service, early in the evening on Oct. 1.  "But I think a lot hinges on what 
comes out of the summit [under way in Washington, D.C., at press time] ... 
on what Arafat and Netanyahu get out of this summit." 
 
     The Rev. Walter Owensby of the Presbyterian Washington Office said 
multiple Presbyterian signatures on the ad will only reflect the depth of 
Presbyterian concern about Jerusalem and about the peace process itself. 
 
     The ad was developed by Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) and the 
deadline for signatures is Oct. 31.  Individual signatures cost $25 and 
organizational signatures, $100.  Fees will be used to raise the $33,000 
necessary to pay for the full-page ad in the "New York Times." 
 
     The address for CMEP is: 110 Maryland Ave., NE, Suite 108, Washington, 
D.C. 20002. 

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