http://www.ipforum.org/display.cfm?id=6&Sub=15

http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?mode=8&sid=0&id=2514

“It is with a great sense of relief that one notes the ‘cessation of hostilities’ on Lebanese soil, and the arrival there of the international troops, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701…[yet] no serious move seems afoot to ensure that it does not all happen again. A ‘cessation of hostilities’, a ‘cease-fire’, or even an ‘armistice’, are not peace - not even close…Belief in the very possibility of peace seems to be lacking, and with it the vision, the courage, the foresight, to try for it…Peace, as the Catholic philosophical tradition holds, is in essence ‘tranquillitas ordinis’; an absence of hostilities, yes, but one that is the fruit of order. And it is long past due to put some order in the hugely disordered situation in, and around, the Holy Land.  To help Israel make peace with each of the neighbouring nations, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon. Not separately or piecemeal - for this will never really work - but all together…”

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=7149

”September's Window of Opportunity”, Yossi Beilin, Ynet News, September 11, 2006 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3302327,00.html

 

http://www.hcef.org/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/SubMod/NewsView/NewsID/1596.cfm

http://www.worldvision.org/about_us.nsf/child/enews_lebanon_20060822?Open&campaign=12653912&cmp=EMC-12653912

http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/6473/a/68778;jsessionid=a2OC_7orbsU4

“The Stockholm Conference for Lebanon's Early Recovery hosted by the Government of Sweden in close collaboration with the Government of Lebanon and the United Nations, on 31 August 2006, gathered representatives from some 50 countries and representatives of UN Agencies, international financial institutions, the European Commission, the European Union and international non-governmental organizations. The Conference was an answer to the call in the United Nation Security Council resolution 1701 for immediate steps to extend financial and humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people.  The focus of the Conference was on the immediate needs of the Lebanese people and on supporting the Lebanese government in the early stages of recovery, in order to provide a basis for a seamless transition towards long-term reconstruction. An amount exceeding 940 MUSD was pledged at the Stockholm conference.  This amount is in addition to previous pledges, making a total of over 1.2 billion USD available for recovery and reconstruction. This larger figure includes funding for the full range of activities, from residual humanitarian needs to long term reconstruction. The conference has thus met its objective with a wide margin…”

http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/6654/a/68745;jsessionid=aV_Qqv0YqBa-

“Arbitration between Jewish and Arab groups over the building of a museum promoting religious tolerance on the site of an old Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem has failed, officials said Monday.  The Los-Angeles based Simon Wiesenthal Center will petition Israel's Supreme Court to begin construction of the Museum of Tolerance on the site in Jerusalem's center after the seven-month arbitration failed, said the dean of the center, Rabbi Marvin Hier.  The matter has pitted the center, which is funded largely by American Jews, against two Arab groups over whether or not the $200 million museum should be built on the site of the cemetery in downtown Jerusalem…”

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761415.html

“Over U.S. Objections, Israel Approves West Bank Homes”, Steven Erlanger, New York Times, September 5, 2006

”The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, authorized construction bids on Monday for another 690 homes in the occupied West Bank in the face of pro forma American criticism.  The houses will be built in Maale Adumim and Betar Illit, two settlements near Jerusalem that the Israeli government says it intends to keep in any agreement with the Palestinians.  Mr. Olmert, whose Kadima Party was elected earlier this year on a promise to pull thousands of Israeli settlers out of the West Bank, beyond the route of Israel’s separation barrier, has been clear about keeping and expanding settlements inside the barrier, even though they are on land occupied since the 1967 war…”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/world/middleeast/05mideast.html?_r=3&ref=m&oref=slogin

“…On Friday, El Salvador officially notified Israel's Foreign Office that its embassy would be packing up and leaving for Tel Aviv. Once it does, no country that has diplomatic relations with Israel will have an ambassador in Jerusalem…El Salvador, a Foreign Ministry statement said, ‘recognizes and guarantees the right of the state of Israel to live in peace within secure and internationally recognized borders.’ But, it added, "equally, the government of El Salvador repeats its recognition of the right of a Palestinian state to exist." By some measures, El Salvador's announcement has little consequence…But in a nation that has long measured its isolation through symbols of international recognition, the notice made headlines and stirred some sadness.  ‘It's a real pity,’ said Yaakov Bar Simantov, international relations professor at Hebrew University. ‘Only when we will have peace between Israel and the Palestinians and resolve the issue of Jerusalem in this case we shall expect to see them back’.  Israel's most important allies - the United States, Great Britain and France - have consistently kept their embassies in Tel Aviv…”

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/world/15382289.htm

A new report from the Foundation for Middle East Peace focuses on Jerusalem, including sections on US policy on Jerusalem, facts on the separation barrier in Jerusalem and Israeli party platforms on the issue of Jerusalem, as well as various maps and statistics.  Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, is former U.S. Consul General to Jerusalem.

http://www.fmep.org/reports/special_reports/no13-summer2006/jerusalem_report_summer_2006.html

The below articles, statements and news touch on various issues affecting Middle East Christians, including the role the Arab Christian community plays in the region, Christian-Muslim relations, settlements and the separation barrier in Bethlehem and the impact of violence and conflict.  There are a variety of factors affecting Middle Eastern Christians, as a minority community, but there is widespread agreement that achieving Arab-Israeli peace is the key to their survival.  As Fr. Drew Christiansen S.J., editor of the Jesuit magazine America and former advisor to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops observes, “When I consulted experts on reconciliation and religion and diplomacy, the one thing on which they all could agree is that peace in Lebanon, in Israel and Palestine is the sine qua non of any program to save Christianity in the Middle East.”

“…It is the eleventh hour for the ancient churches of the Middle East. They are doubly threatened by militant Islam and by the great powers’ games in the region. Can anything be done to save them?...the most important thing outsiders can help provide for both Lebanon and Palestine is peace. No partial settlement will do. It is time to return to the kind of comprehensive settlement between Israel and the Arabs that was attempted at Madrid in 1991 and endorsed by the foreign ministers’ meeting in London last month. When I consulted experts on reconciliation and religion and diplomacy, the one thing on which they all could agree is that peace in Lebanon, in Israel and Palestine is the sine qua non of any program to save Christianity in the Middle East…U.S. church groups, like the USCCB, the National Council of Churches and Churches for Middle East Peace…should push for Congressional hearings and provide briefings for public officials on the impact of the war on terror and U.S. Middle East policy on the ancient churches of the East. In addition, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom ought to examine the multiple factors leading to the decline of Christians in the region. It recently attended to the condition of Christians in the Islamic world…Nothing short of an all-out campaign by the Christian world to protect the Christians of the East stands a chance of saving them. And with such an effort, perhaps a smoother path may be paved for Muslims and Jews as well on the way of all toward a lasting peace.”

http://www.cmep.org/documents/Christiansen_9-06_ME_Christians.pdf

“Palestinians torch Qalqilya YMCA”, Aaron Klein, Ynet News/World Net Daily, September 11, 2006

NOTE: Dr. Bernard Sabella, Jerusalem Christian representative to the Palestinian Legislature, Middle East Council of Churches Executive and professor at the Vatican’s Bethlehem University, reported to CMEP on September 12th that, “governmental and nongovernmental bodies and agencies in Qalqilya are indignant about the attack and they have expressed such publicly.”  According to Sabella, the attacks are thought to be fomented by a “small religiously fanatic Muslim group that is on the margin of the society in Qalqilya and does not represent the majority Muslim community in Qalqilya, which supports the YMCA".  For additional information on Christian-Muslim relations, see:

http://www.cmep.org/documents/FAQs_Situation_Palestinian_Christians.htm. 

“Archbishop Appeals to Catholics in Holy Land, We Must Be Bridge-Builders, He Says”, Zenit, August 31, 2006

“Catholics are called to be bridge-builders in the Holy Land, says the coadjutor patriarch of Jerusalem.  Speaking Friday at the Meeting of Friendship Among Peoples in Rimini, Italy, Archbishop Fouad Twal said that the voice of Catholics from the Holy Land ‘seeks to be the testimony of the experience of faith of the first Christian communities.’  ‘We are all called to work to build bridges and to uproot hatred from hearts,’ he said. ’Peace in this land is the most immediate need,’ continued the archbishop, and it is necessary to make many ‘efforts to enable Christians to remain in their land.’ In regard to the relationship with Muslims, the prelate said that Christians proclaim that "the Holy City is mother of all the faithful children of Abraham.’ The Church will always have a prominent place "in the place in which humanity was touched by the presence of God," continued Archbishop Twal. ‘One cannot govern with arms and terrorism,’ he said, emphasizing that the Church is a ‘voice of peace and forgiveness’ in the Middle East...The archbishop hopes for a future in which freedom will be recognized ‘as God wills, in the prayer of all, in loving the other, without limits or barriers.’…”

http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=94089

“Israel formally annexes 14% of northern Bethlehem”, Bethlehem Media Net, September 2, 2006

“Israel has both effectively and officially overtaken northern Bethlehem, swallowing the entire Rachel’s Tomb area…Now historic Bethlehem is entirely cut off from its twin city Jerusalem by a kilometer stretch of the Wall. Hundreds of shops, factories, cultural institutions, religious and social centers, and residential homes were either confiscated or annexed to Jerusalem and under complete Israeli control.  Although Rachel’s Tomb has been a military installation for years, it looks quite different now surrounded by the Wall and higher sniper towers. The Israeli government confiscated what was once northern Bethlehem and is converting it into a militarized Jewish enclave like any settlement in the West Bank…[Bethlehem’s Mayor] Dr. Batarsa explained that the Bethlehem Municipality sent formal protests to foreign consuls in the region alerting them to the Israeli unilateral steps that converted the city of Bethlehem into a closed canton, confined and surrounded all sides.  Fourteen percent of the historic city was confiscated for the sole benefit of the occupying Israeli state. This damages all Christians, the Mayor continued…”

http://www.bethlehemmedia.net/press/press79.htm

"The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism”, Statement by the Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches In Jerusalem (Patriarch Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarchate, Archbishop Swerios Malki Mourad, Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate, Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal, Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Bishop Munib Younan, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land), August 22, 2006

”Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel…We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation…We affirm that all people are created in the image of God.  In turn they are called to honor the dignity of every human being and to respect their inalienable rights.  We affirm that Israelis and Palestinians are capable of living together within peace, justice and security.   We affirm that Palestinians are one people, both Muslim and Christian.  We reject all attempts to subvert and fragment their unity…”

http://www.hcef.org/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/SubMod/NewsView/NewsID/1595.cfm

For more information contact Julie Schumacher Cohen, CMEP’s Legislative Coordinator at 202-543-1222 or at Julie@cmep.org.