wfn.org | Christian Peacemakers Ask Christmas Silence, Prayers

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Contact:  
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Box 126, Hebron, Palestine
Mobil Phone: (973) 050-397.506; 050-316.162
Email: CPTeam@palnet.com

or
CPT U.S. Office
Box 6508, Chicago, IL 60680
Telephone: 312.455.1199
Fax: 312.432.1213
Email: cpt@igc.org
www.prairienet.org/cpt

For Immediate Release

BETHLEHEM, December 10, 2000--Since the beginning of the new Intifada, or 
Uprising, in early October, the town of Bethlehem and the adjoining, 
predominantly Christian, villages of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala have suffered 
from repeated bombings by the Israeli military.  

Many Beit Jalan families facing the Israeli settlement of Gilo and Beit 
Sahourian families whose houses are next to a military camp have fled their 
homes.  Additionally, the military has sealed off even the side roads into 
the area, which is leading to the economic strangulation of the three towns.

The annual Christmas festivities in Bethlehem's Manger Square have been 
cancelled, because the organizers have deemed it inappropriate to celebrate 
when Palestinians all over the West Bank and Gaza are being killed.  

The current 60 percent unemployment rate in the area is making it nearly 
impossible for Christians and Muslims to buy what they need for Christmas and 
Ramadan feasts and gifts.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is calling on the churches of North
America to show solidarity with the Christian and Muslim residents of
Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jala by sitting in darkness and silence for 
five minutes during their annual Christmas services. 

"Ask the members of your congregation to pray for the families living in the 
war zone that encompasses Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour and for an end 
to the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza", Team Members 
located in Hebron have urged.  The Team is drawn primarily from the historic 
"peace churches" in the United States and Canada--Mennonites, Quakers, and 
the Church of the Brethren.  Also participating are Roman Catholics and other 
Protestants.

Additionally, the CPT is asking U.S. residents to write their legislators and 
President Clinton, notifying them that their congregations will be 
remembering the struggles of people living under the Israeli occupation in 
the three villages during their Christmas services.  

"You may refer to the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams, which is in the 
process of setting up a new project in a neighborhood in Beit Jala that has 
been repeatedly bombed," the Team Members suggested.  "Note that CPT's 
presence in Hebron has helped to reduce violence there, and requests that all 
Palestinians and Israelis receive more comprehensive international 
protection."

The Peacemakers urged that "Canadian citizens should write to the Prime 
Minister and their members of Parliament commending the government for its 
recent vote in the U.N.  The Security Council recently condemned Israel's use 
of excessive force against Palestinians." 

They described the intolerable conditions that the residents of Bethlehem, 
Beit Sahour and Beit Jala are living under and appealed for unarmed 
international observers to provide protection for the Palestinians in the 
West Bank and Gaza.

Christian Peacemaker Teams, has helped to serve as a violence-deterring 
presence in the West Bank city of Hebron for the last five years. A similar 
project in Beit Jala will be established the next week.

As a sign that they do not count their lives as more valuable than
Palestinian or Israeli lives, Canadian and American CPTers have moved into a 
neighbourhood in Beit Jala that has been a target of repeated shellings.   
They hope that unarmed international observers in the Occupied Territories 
will demonstrate that Palestinian lives are worth the same as Israeli and 
North American lives.

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