wfn.org | Latin Patriarch tells Israeli soldiers to stop attacking Christian

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Note #6240 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

village
30-October-2000
00380

Latin Patriarch tells Israeli soldiers to stop attacking Christian village

by Ross Dunn
Ecumenical News International

JERUSALEM -- The Latin Patriarch in the Holy Land has called on Israel to
stop its troops firing at an Arab Christian village and to surrender all
occupied land to the Palestinians.

	Archbishop Michel Sabbah, the highest-ranking Catholic official in
Jerusalem, made the appeal during a tour of Beit Jalla, near Bethlehem on
the West Bank.

	Beit Jalla has been subject to Israeli tank fire since Palestinian gunmen
began using the village as a base to fire at Gilo, a neighboring Jewish
suburb of Jerusalem. Gilo is built on land annexed by Israel following the
1967 Middle East war.

	Archbishop Sabbah said that Israel must not react by increasing levels of
firepower.

	The patriarch was accompanied by Beit Jalla's mayor, Raji Zeidan, who said
the Palestinian Authority was working to restrain gunmen from using his
village to fire at Gilo.

	Zeidan also criticized Israel for using heavy fire against Beit Jalla,
saying it was making victims of residents who took no part in the violence.
"No shots came from the houses that were bombed [by Israel]," he said.
"There are other ways to deal with that matter."

	About 130 people, most of them Palestinians, have died in violent clashes
with Israeli security forces that began on Sept. 28. Israeli officials claim
that the Palestinians fired from Beit Jalla hoping that Israeli tanks,
returning fire, would damage a church in the village, thereby igniting the
wrath of the Christian world, including the Vatican.

	But Archbishop Sabbah, the first Palestinian to serve as Latin Patriarch of
Jerusalem, said it was Israel that must ease tensions by giving up territory
to the Palestinians. "This is the only salvation, also for Israel itself to
convert all of its neighbors to friends," he said. "As along as they have
enemies, they will be afraid, they will have no security."

	He said Israel must end its military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and East Jerusalem, the areas captured by Israel during the 1967 war.

	The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has claimed that all of the
territories are necessary for the founding of an independent Palestinian
state.

	Archbishop Sabbah urged both sides to return to the negotiating table.

	Peace talks have stalled since the peace summit at Camp David in the United
States in July between Chairman Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud
Barak, failed to produce an agreement. The two leaders met again in the
Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, again under the patronage of
U.S. President Bill Clinton, whose dream of brokering a comprehensive peace
in the Middle East during his last months in office has now been shattered.

	Archbishop Sabbah denied claims that the violence was pitting Palestinian
Christians against the much larger majority of Palestinian Muslims.

	Two weeks ago, several hundred Palestinians, led by Islamic militants, set
fire to a hotel and some Christian-run stores in the Gaza Strip, saying it
was a violation of Muslim law to sell alcohol. Archbishop Sabbah said that
the mob was condemned even by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of
Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement.

	Christian leaders have also angrily denied reports claiming that hundreds
of Christian Arab families have been fleeing the region with the assistance
of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and various embassies.

	Father Raed Abushalia, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem,
dismissed the claims as a "fabrication. The Arab Christian community in the
Palestinian territories is an integral part of the Palestinian people," he
said. "It suffers with it, rejoices with it, [shares] the same hopes and
aspirations ... these recent Israeli rumors about getting the town of Beit
Jalla involved in the recent clashes is not a coincidence, but [part of the]
aim to ‘divide and rule' among one Palestinian people."

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