http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=97726&d=20&m=6&y=2007
Wednesday, 20, June, 2007 (04, Jumada al-Thani, 1428)
Church Leaders Meet on Arab-Israeli Conflict
Abdul Jalil Mustafa, Arab News
AMMAN, 20 June 2007 - More than 100 church leaders started a meeting in
Amman yesterday in a bid to find a solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict that
ensures an end to the 40-year-old Israeli occupation of Arab land, conferees
said.
"The situation is grave ... unending loss of life, displacement of
persons, violations of human rights, humiliation of one people by another,
degrading perpetrator as well as victim. Injustice is deeply rooted in the land
we call 'Holy'," World Council of Churches (WCC) Secretary-General Reverend
Samuel Kobia said.
"This conviction has only grown through 40 years of illegal occupation of
the Palestinian territory," Kobia said in keynote address to the meeting that
opened Monday.
The three-day WCC international peace conference grouped representatives
for its 347 member churches in six continents that represent 550 million
Christians worldwide, organizers said.
Patriarch Michel Sabbah, speaking on behalf of the heads of churches in
Jerusalem, briefed the meeting on the daily sufferings in the Palestinian
territories. He expressed hope that the conference would come up with "a vision
of peace, based on justice and mutual recognition, respect and hence final
reconciliation."
"We lived 40 years under occupation. Until today ... we are deprived of
the freedom due to every people or human being, freedom of movement or
political and economic freedom," he said.
Meanwhile, Jordan's largest political party, the Islamic Action Front
(IAF), said yesterday that it "understood" the pretexts cited by the Hamas
movement for its takeover of the Gaza Strip.
However, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, said in a
statement that it "rejected the geographical and political partition of the
Palestinian people," a reference to the existence of two administrations in
Gaza and the West Bank.
Given the pressures to which Hamas was exposed since its sweeping victory
in the January 2006 elections, "we understand the justifications which forced
the Islamic movement to take such a step in order to deal with the state of
anarchy that thwarted any progress in the Palestinian national project," the
IAF said.
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