Recess Advocacy: With members of Congress home on recess this week, now is a key time to contact your Representative's district office and ask them not to co-sponsor HR 4681.  An AIPAC memo sent out yesterday, urged activists to “Contact House Members in District Offices During Recess and Urge Them to Co-Sponsor Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act.”  Advocacy guidance can be found in CMEP’s March 3rd Alert at: http://www.cmep.org/Alerts/2006Mar3.htm. For your Representative's district office contact info, go to: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt?command=congdir.

Jerusalem Patriarch's Message: Around the world last week, church members joined in a World Council of Churches initiative, “International Church Action for Peace in Palestine and Israel.”  In Jerusalem, at the opening ceremony of the international action week, Latin Catholic Patriarch Michel Sabbah spoke about what the Churches and people of the Holy Land ask of the world’s Churches and Christians.    

LATIN PATRIARCHATE – JERUSALEM

March 11, 2006   

Patriarch Michel Sabbah

1. We gather here this evening in order to pray with the world Churches and to open a week of international action for peace in Israel and Palestine. This land indeed, being the land of the roots for all Christians, in which every Christian is born, in which all Churches were born, all Christians bear the responsibility of keeping it holy, and of liberating it with all its inhabitants from the evil of war, death and hatred. This international week is a signal that the Churches take awareness of their responsibility and want to act accordingly.

2. Brothers and sisters in all the Churches taking part in this International week for the peace of the Holy Land, what do we, Churches and peoples of this land, what do we ask you to do?

First to pray. God is the first agent of peace, here, in the Land he made holy. Second you accompany your prayer with a strong, efficient, decisive advocacy work, full of sincere love for both peoples in conflict, Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinians need to be helped to regain their freedom as persons and people, to see the Israeli military occupation come to an end. The Israelis need to be helped to have security, to be free from all fear, to win the last battle of peace. Both need to have stable mutual relations of trust, recognition and collaboration, in order to give back to this land a new face, based on justice, love and reconciliation.

3. In this period of time, despite the new complexity of the situation, there could be a new chance for peace. The coming in power of Hamas, seen by so many as a negative sign, could rather be a positive factor and mark a new phase in the history of the conflict. On the Israeli side, new elections will bring new leaders having a new vision and a new will to reach a final agreement. Though the new vision reposes so far on unilateral measures imposing a unilateral solution, the positive in this vision is the will to reach a final agreement. We, Churches concerned in the salvation of both peoples from their long conflict, we have to seize the opportunity in order to help this new Israeli vision find the right way to reach the final agreement. Because unilateral measures are only another form of maintaining the state of war and hostility. Two have done the war. One alone cannot make peace. The two parties have to make peace together.

4. We assume our responsibility as Churches in order to bring reconciliation to all. We address our appeal to both peoples: Israelis, in search of your security and permanent peace, we love you all. Palestinians, in search of your freedom and dignity, we love you all. Both of you are capable of loving each other. The language of violence has replaced so far, for too long time, this language of love, though many of you have already practiced it. Here we think of the Peace movements, of the Parents forum, and other similar movements, and we conclude: if some are able to love each other, all of you have the same ability.

5. The Word of God chosen for us today in the three readings is the following: The first reading from Micah (6:6-8) reminds us that repentance before God does not consist in offering sacrifices of animals or even one’s own child. It cannot consist only in rituals and mechanic prayers. Repentance means doing justice: “Only this, says the Prophet, to do what is right, to love loyalty and to walk humbly with God” (v.8).

In the second reading to the Philippines (4:6-9), Saint Paul strengthens us in our will to be peace makers: “Never worry about anything; but tell God all your desires of every kind in prayer… Let your minds, brothers, be filled with everything that is truth”.  Truth is that God loves us, all, Israelis and Palestinians, and has given us all the capacity of loving each other, hence the capacity of building each other’s freedom or security.

In the third reading of the Gospel of St Matthew, we listen to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mountain. In their light we, Christians and we Churches, are invited to reassess our actions and intentions. We listen to the words of Jesus here in this land where they were said and try in their light to reflect on our situation. We are facing since years a big confusion, human cruelty, hatred, Israeli fight for security, Palestinian fight for justice and freedom misunderstood and condemned as terrorism. We are facing a confusion in which the concepts of nation, race and religion are used and abused. Moreover we are facing in a big confusion among Christians, those called Zionist, and those merely Christians, in the understanding of this conflict. To all we remind that Jesus said: Be perfect as your heavenly is perfect, and God’s perfection is the love for all His children, Palestinians and Israelis. 

6. For all of us who want to make a move in this International week towards Peace in the Holy Land, we have to overcome this confusion. We have to know that we deal with the human being in this land, whether Israeli or Palestinian, and we have to save him from the evil of this permanent war. We have to help the leaders to get free from their limited egoistic nationalistic visions, so as to plan not only for one side’s security or freedom but for both sides’ security or freedom. We have to see how we can put the love of life instead of the love of military power, preventive killing or hatred in the hearts of all. An international week for peace in the Holy Land is a time for restoring the humanity of so many human beings, Palestinians and Israelis.

First truth to know and to make known: both peoples are equally human beings and equally loved by God. And therefore, we, Christians from all the Churches, we who want to be peacemakers, a transformation within our hearts is to be done: we have to be the imitators of God and like him, we have to love all the children of God alike, Israelis and Palestinians.

Second, we must believe and affirm that both peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, are capable of living together in peace. What is happening today and since decades between Israelis and Palestinians inside the state of Israel within the 1948 borders can be lived and experienced as well in the Palestinian Territories, once the Palestinians regain their freedom and their rights.

Third, violence can be stopped, by the will of both sides. Both sides have to stop all manifestations of violence.  “Preventive” killing or violence will only bring more death and hatred on both sides. Both sides have to be brought to a firm decision to stop all violence and to start sincere talks for a final agreement.

Fourth, peace is possible, and solutions for all pending questions (Jerusalem, refugees, borders, settlements and others) will be found if there is a true will to find solutions.

7. We are launching an international action for peace. The question is: how can we convey the message to those for whom we want peace, those concerned, Israelis and Palestinians? The international community is of course an important factor that can favour or impede peace according to its way of understanding the conflict of this land. But more important are those concerned, Palestinian and Israeli peoples who give their governments the mandate to prolong or to put an end to the conflict. The Israelis want recognition, and security, in the present and in the future, facing the Palestinians, the region and the world. They need to feel, to experience the friendship of the international community as well as of the Palestinians and through them of the Arab peoples surrounding them. The Palestinians want their freedom, their land, their liberation from Israeli Military Occupation. Both requirements are not contradictory, they are complementary. 

We call for reconciliation.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of Heaven is theirs, says Jesus. Poor are those leaders who cannot achieve piece while the aim of their mandate, the expectation of their peoples is to reach peace. Poor are those who prefer the ways of violence or military action to reach peace. Blessed are the gentle, they shall have the earth as inheritance. The opposite is the glory of the leaders: they want the earth as fruit of military power or of violence.

8. We pray and hope that this International week will be efficient, will not remain a transitory initiative. We pray and hope that it will help this particular moment in the history of our conflict to reach its so long desired end.

We remain filled with the spirit of the Sermon on the Mountain. We meditate on it. We live it, so that we become able to communicate it.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness: they shall have their fill.

Blessed are the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them.

Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: they shall be recognized as children of God.    Amen.