wfn.org | Jerusalem Patriarch Offers Peace Position Paper

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For more information, contact:
Fr. Raed Abusahlia
Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
P.O.Box  14152 - Jerusalem 97500
E-mail address: latinpat@actcom.co.il
Patriarchate's Homepage: www.lpj.org

For more about Patriarch Michel Sabbah, see:
www.al-bushra.org/latpatra/patriarcharticle.htm

     JERUSALEM, May 8, 2002---Following is the full text of a new position
paper on the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis prepared by the Latin
(Catholic) Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Michel Sabbah:

Perspectives on the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis

     1. We believe in God, Almighty and merciful, who can do what men have
not been able to do up until now.  True peace is a gift which God alone can
give.  Therefore, we invite all believers to persevere in prayer and to
remain strong in their faith and in their hope: one day, we will see better
days in this land blessed by God, made holy by God, and regarded as holy by
the three religions that live together in it, Judaism, Christianity and
Islam.

     We mourn all the victims, Palestinians and Israelis.  We share deeply
the sorrow of their parents, their relatives and their friends.  We are
concerned for every human being. We are for the defence of every human life,
of the dignity and the security of each and every human being, whether
Palestinian or Israeli.  We believe that only the ways of peace can lead to
peace.

Present situation

     2. The State of Israel exists and has the right to exist and to live in
security.   The State of Palestine does not exist still, yet it has the same
right to exist and to live in security.

     3. The State of Israel occupies territories of another.  Palestinians
are under Israeli military occupation, with all that that implies regarding
the deprivation or limitation of freedom and suffering and humiliation.

     Palestinians have the right to see the end of Israeli military
occupation of their territories, occupied in 1967, and to create on them
their independent state.  As long as the occupation lasts, they have the
right and the duty to claim their land and their freedom and to organize
resistance in order to reach this goal.  But we affirm again, that in this
resistance, only the ways of peace can lead to peace.

The root of the conflict

     4. The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is not basically a
question of Palestinian terrorism that threatens security or the existence of
Israel.  It is a question of Israeli military occupation that started in
1967, which provokes Palestinian resistance, which then threatens the
security of Israel.

     To go on speaking about Palestinian terrorism, without seeing the right
of the Palestinians to their freedom and to end the occupation, is condemning
oneself not to see reality, and to remain impotent in reaching a solution.

     5. Therefore, one must very simply take away the cause so that the
effect, i.e. violence, exists no more. In vain one will struggle against the
various expressions of violence through condemnations, reprisals or a
declared war, but as long as the cause is there the effect will be there, as
long as there is occupation, the cycle of violence will continue.  On both
sides, fighters and innocents will continue to be killed.

To put an end to occupation

     6. As the cause of all violence is the Israeli military occupation of
the Palestinian lands, once the occupation is ended, violence will cease.  If
Israel has a sincere will to put an end to all violence, the way to take is
not war or reprisals, but a rapid and serious action which puts an end to the
occupation.

     Therefore, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the international
community must return to negotiations, but in a new and sincere way, in order
to put an end to occupation.

To put an end to violence

     7. Some people insist on the necessity of issuing declarations that
condemn violence. Condemning violence is necessary.  But to take away its
cause, i.e. the occupation, which produces it is more efficient. In the same
way, to call Palestinian violence terrorism and Israeli violence legitimate
defense, renders futile any declaration or condemnation and makes impossible
all cessation of violence.  Therefore, better than condemnations of violence,
what we need is an action which puts an end to all form of violence, by
putting an end to its primary cause, the occupation.

Peace, mutual recongnition and security

     8. What do the Palestinians want?  They want their freedom, their land
and their independent state.

     What do the Israelis want?  They want their security inside secure
borders, protected from all attacks or threats.

     The two requirements are interdependent. Palestinian independence, after
the end of the occupation, will bring  the cessation of all violence, and
hence the security of Israel.

     But, instead of putting an end to the occupation, the Israeli government
maintains it and follows ways b reprisals, and, recently, the declared war
b
which just lead to the opposite of security, i.e. to more Palestinian
reaction and violence, and hence to more Israeli insecurity.  Oppression and
humiliations imposed upon the Palestinian people can only produce violent
Palestinian reactions that threaten the security of the Israeli people and
fill its soul with fear and hatred.

     9. If the Israeli government wants truly security, the violent
repression that it has used until now is not the good way.  In fact, its
violence has only given birth to new forms of Palestinian violence.
Therefore, the security of the Israeli people remains threatened. Therefore,
it should embark on the other way, which surely will produce security: to
declare its sincere will to end the occupation and to start, as soon as
possible, serious and rapid talks in order to put an end to it.

Questions

     10. Why have the Israelis still not decided to make peace? Indeed,
making peace is in their hands.  They alone can put an end to the occupation,
and hence open the way towards peace.  Why have the Israelis refused until
now to give back to the Palestinians the Territories occupied in 1967, and
which are only 5000 square kilometers or 22% of the entirety of historic
Palestine, of which the State of Israel today has 78%?

     a. Is Israel still preserving the dream of having all Palestinian
territories, but having them empty, without Palestinians?  After one hundred
years of conflict, it is time to realize that this dream is an impossibility.
 Today, three million Palestinians live in the Occupied Territories.  Israel
must accept to deal with this living Palestinian reality and should not think
any more of suppressing it or confining it in any disguised form of
occupation or apartheid system.

     b. Israel does not trust the Palestinians?  It fears that they will not
be able, once they have their independent state, to be peaceful neighbors?
This supposition is unfounded.  Manifestations of Palestinian hostility today
are not due to inborn hostility against the Israeli people, but rather an
expression of the resistance of the Palestinian people to what it considers
as tentative to dispossess it or to send him from his land.  Once the war is
over, the hostility will be over.

Looking towards the future

     10. If Israel truly does not believe that the end of hostilities is a
possibility within the soul of Israelis and Palestinians, then the region is
condemned to permanent war and violence.  It will be an absolute deadlock for
the region and for the survival of Israel in the region.  The only way out of
this deadlock is to believe in peace and to build it by means of the ways of
peace and not through means of violence.

     11. Israel will always be surrounded by Arab countries, including
Palestine. Until now, Israel did not succeed to have normal relations with
them.  The reason is that the policy followed so far by Israel and the
international community, with the pretext of protecting the new State of
Israel, while maintaining injustices against the Palestinians, have caused
and nourished hostile feelings in all Arab countries.  If one truly wants to
protect someone, one does not surround him with enemies, but rather with
friends.

     Present policy should then be changed, in order to transform neighboring
countries into friends.  This transformation is not an impossibility. It is
enough to implement justice for the Palestinians, to put an end to the
occupation and to create the State of Palestine.  Once the Palestinians are
satisfied, once they are free and independent in their state, they will
become friendly to Israel.  Once the Palestinians are friendly with Israel,
the other Arab peoples will be just as friendly.  Only in this way, Israel,
surrounded by friends, will live within its desired security.

     The proposition of Saudi Arabia to have a general peace with Israel,
adopted by the Arab summit of Beirut, in March 2002, is a sign and an
invitation to Israel: the Arab countries are ready to initiate peace with
Israel as both state and people.

     12. The United Nations have already taken all the decisions required to
resolve the problem.  Nevertheless, the international community lacks the
courage and dares not take the necessary measures in order to implement its
own decisions, as had been done in various other places.  Again, in order to
guarantee peace in the region, world policy must change in order to deal with
peoples on the basis of justice and equal respect for all.

Jerusalem, May 8, 2002

+ Michel Sabbah

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem

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