Thursday, October 25, 2012

Church leaders support Palestine


 

This month 15 prominent church leaders sent Members of Congress a letter in which they spoke of “widespread Israeli human rights violations committed against Palestinians.” They also wrote that “unconditional U.S. military assistance to Israel has contributed to this deterioration, sustaining the conflict and undermining the long-term security interests of both Israelis and Palestinians.”  The full text of the letter can be found at http://www.kairosusa.org/?q=node/55.

The signers of the letter include leaders of denominations including Presbyterians, Methodists, United Church of Christ, and the National Council of Churches (USA), among others.

This historic letter is not an isolated incident.  The support by church leaders of the just cause of the Palestinians has been a little advertised aspect of the conflict for decades.  Another example of such is the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, which includes Christian leaders from many different denominations from many different countries. http://eappi.org/en/home.html

The letter is featured as part of the Peace Not Walls campaign of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Justice/Peace-Not-Walls.aspx It is also supported by the Presbyterian Church on their website http://www.theipmn.org/

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has more details on their blog, http://blog.endtheoccupation.org/2012/10/pro-israel-groups-react-to-church.html  The following link has been copied from an article on the subject http://endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=3295


 
Pope Benedict XVI, although not a signer of the letter, pledged his support for Palestinian statehood on a visit to Bethlehem in 2009, as documented in the following video.

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