|
1. We
believe in God, Almighty and merciful, who can do what men have not
been able to do up until now. True peace is a gift which God alone
can give.
Therefore,
we invite all believers to persevere in prayer and to remain strong
in their faith and in their hope: one day, we will see better days
in this land blessed by God, made holy by God, and regarded as holy
by the three religions that live together in it, Judaism,
Christianity and Islam.
We mourn
all the victims, Palestinians and Israelis. We share deeply the
sorrow of their parents, their relatives and their friends. We are
concerned for every human being. We are for the defence of every
human life, of the dignity and the security of each and every human
being, whether Palestinian or Israeli.
We believe
that only the ways of peace can lead to peace.
Present
situation
2. The
State of Israel exists and has the right to exist and to live in
security.
The State
of Palestine does not exist still, yet it has the same right to
exist and
to live in security.
3. The
State of Israel occupies territories of another. Palestinians are
under Israeli military occupation, with all that that implies
regarding the deprivation or limitation of freedom and suffering and
humiliation.
Palestinians have the right to see the end of Israeli military
occupation of their territories, occupied in 1967, and to create on
them their independent state.
As long as
the occupation lasts, they have the right and the duty to claim
their land and their freedom and to organize resistance in order to
reach this goal.
But we
affirm again, that in this resistance, only the ways of peace can
lead to
peace.
The root of
the conflict
4. The
conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is not basically a
question of Palestinian terrorism that threatens security or the
existence of Israel. It is a question of Israeli military occupation
that started in 1967, which provokes Palestinian resistance, which
then threatens the security of Israel.
To go on
speaking about Palestinian terrorism, without seeing the right of
the Palestinians to their freedom and to end the occupation, is
condemning oneself
not to see reality, and
to remain impotent in reaching a solution.
5.
Therefore, one must very simply take away the cause so that the
effect, i.e. violence, exists no more. In vain one will struggle
against the various expressions of violence through condemnations,
reprisals or a declared war, but as long as the cause is there the
effect will be there, as long as there is occupation, the cycle of
violence will continue. On both sides, fighters and innocents will continue
to be killed.
To
put an end to occupation
6. As the
cause of all violence is the Israeli military occupation of the
Palestinian lands, once the occupation is ended, violence will
cease. If Israel has a sincere will to put an end to all violence,
the way to take is not war or reprisals, but a rapid and serious
action which puts an end to the occupation.
Therefore,
Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the international community
must return to negotiations, but in a new and sincere way, in order
to put an end to occupation. To put an end to violence.
7. Some
people insist on the necessity of issuing declarations that condemn
violence. Condemning violence is necessary. But to take away its
cause, i.e. the occupation, which produces it is more efficient. In
the same way, to call Palestinian violence terrorism and Israeli
violence legitimate defense, renders futile any declaration or
condemnation and makes impossible all cessation of violence.
Therefore, better than condemnations of violence, what we need is an
action which puts an end to all form of violence, by putting an end
to its primary cause, the occupation. Peace, mutual recognition and
security.
8. What do
the Palestinians want? They want their freedom, their land and their
independent state. What do the Israelis want? They want their
security inside secure borders, protected from all attacks or
threats. The two requirements are interdependent. Palestinian
independence, after the end of the occupation, will bring the
cessation of all violence, and hence the security of Israel.
But,
instead of putting an end to the occupation, the Israeli government
maintains it and follows ways “ reprisals, and, recently, the
declared war which just lead to the opposite of security, i.e. to
more Palestinian reaction and violence, and hence to more Israeli
insecurity. Oppression and humiliations imposed upon the
Palestinian people can only produce violent Palestinian reactions
that threaten the security of the Israeli people and fill its soul
with
fear and hatred.
9. If the
Israeli government wants truly security, the violent repression that
it has used until now is not the good way. In fact, its violence
has only given birth to new forms of Palestinian violence.
Therefore, the security of the Israeli people remains threatened.
Therefore, it should embark on the other way, which surely will
produce security: to declare its sincere will to end the occupation
and to start, as soon as possible, serious and rapid talks in order
to put an end to it.
Questions
10. Why
have the Israelis still not decided to make peace? Indeed, making
peace is in their hands. They alone can
put an end to the occupation, and
hence open the way towards peace. Why
have the Israelis refused until now
to give back to the Palestinians the
Territories occupied in 1967, and which
are only 5000 km˛ or 22% of the
entirety of historic Palestine, of which the
State of Israel today has 78%
a. Is Israel still preserving the dream
of having all Palestinian territories, but
having them empty, without
Palestinians? After one hundred years of conflict,
it is time to realize that this dream
is an impossibility. Today, three million
Palestinians live in the Occupied
Territories. Israel must accept to deal with
this living Palestinian reality and
should not think any more of suppressing it
or confining it in any disguised form
of occupation or apartheid system.
b. Israel does not trust the
Palestinians? It fears that they will not be able, once
they have their independent state, to
be peaceful neighbors? This supposition
is unfounded. Manifestations of
Palestinian hostility today are not due to inborn
hostility against the Israeli people,
but rather an expression of the resistance of
the Palestinian people to what it
considers as tentative to dispossess it or to
send him from his land. Once the war is
over, the hostility will be over.
Looking towards the future
10. If Israel truly does not believe
that the end of hostilities is a possibility within
the soul of Israelis and Palestinians,
then the region is condemned to
permanent war and violence. It will be
an absolute deadlock for the region and
for the survival of Israel in the
region. The only way out of this deadlock is to
believe in peace and to build it by
means of the ways of peace and not
through means of violence.
11. Israel will always be surrounded by
Arab countries, including Palestine.
Until now, Israel did not succeed to
have normal relations with them. The reason
is that the policy followed so far by
Israel and the international community, with
the pretext of protecting the new State
of Israel, while maintaining injustices
against the Palestinians, have caused
and nourished hostile feelings in all Arab
countries. If one truly wants to
protect someone, one does not surround him
with enemies, but rather with friends.
Present policy should then be changed,
in order to transform neighboring
countries into friends. This
transformation is not an impossibility. It is enough
to implement justice for the
Palestinians, to put an end to the occupation and to
create the State of Palestine. Once the
Palestinians are satisfied, once they
are free and independent in their
state, they will become friendly to Israel.
Once the Palestinians are friendly with
Israel, the other Arab peoples will be
just as friendly. Only in this way,
Israel, surrounded by friends, will live within
its desired security.
The proposition of Saudi Arabia to have
a general peace with Israel, adopted
by the Arab summit of Beirut, in March
2002, is a sign and an invitation to
Israel: the Arab countries are ready to
initiate peace with Israel as both state
and people.
12. The United Nations have already
taken all the decisions required to resolve
the problem. Nevertheless, the
international community lacks the courage and
dares not take the necessary measures
in order to implement its own
decisions, as had been done in various
other places. Again, in order to
guarantee peace in the region, world
policy must change in order to deal with
peoples on the basis of
justice and equal respect for all.
Jerusalem, May 8, 2002
+ Michel Sabbah
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
|
