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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 23.02.2004 |
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| LWF Executive Committee Calls for Peace and Reconciliation in Israel-Palestine |
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LWF Governing Body Issues Statement against Separation Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
GENEVA, 23 February 2004 (LWI) - “Break Down the Walls” is the title of a statement adopted February 22 by the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) protesting against the construction of the separation wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
At its February 21-23 meeting here, the 13-member committee reiterated the LWF’s conviction “that peace and security for all the people of Israel-Palestine can only be found through dialogue, mutual understanding and the restoration of broken relationships.”
The committee members condemned indiscriminate acts of violence that target civilians, and emphasized that “all of the people of Israel-Palestine have a right to be protected from such indiscriminate violence and collective attacks and punishments.” At the same time, however, they stressed that the wall “cannot create the peace that both Israelis and Palestinians deserve,” describing it is an obstacle to dialogue, mutual understanding and a just peace.
The committee also drew attention to the fact that the construction of the separation wall is worsening “the already intolerable situation that is forcing the exodus of Palestinian Christians." In this respect, its members expressed their fear “of the imminent extinction of the indigenous Christian church in the Holy Land.”
They quoted LWF Executive Committee member Bishop Dr Munib A. Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan (ELCJ) and LWF vice-president for the Asia region, who said, “we need to find ways to bring about more communication, not less; more face-to-face encounters, not less; more avenues to peace and reconciliation, not less.” The ELCJ has congregations in Israel, Jordan and Palestine.
The Executive Committee is made up of the LWF President, five Vice-Presidents, the Treasurer and chairpersons of the seven Program Committees. It oversees the proper functioning of the LWF between meetings of the Council, and acts as the LWF Board of Trustees and Personnel Committee. The current committee was appointed at the July 2003 LWF Council meeting in Winnipeg, Canada. It is chaired by LWF President Bishop Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The committee normally meets twice a year. (368 words)
The full text of the statement by the LWF Executive Committee follows:
Break Down the Walls
Statement of the LWF Executive Committee on the construction of the separation wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
The Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on 21-23 February 2004, joins the chorus of concern expressed by churches and ecumenical organizations around the world regarding the construction of the separation wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem. In particular, we endorse and affirm the statements of the heads of churches in Jerusalem on this topic.
The LWF unreservedly condemns indiscriminate acts of violence targeting civilians. Our prayers are with the victims of all such crimes, and with their families. All of the people of Israel-Palestine have a right to be protected from such indiscriminate violence and collective attacks and punishments.
We reiterate the conviction, often expressed by the LWF, that peace and security for all the people of Israel-Palestine can only be found through dialogue, mutual understanding and the restoration of broken relationships. Israelis and Palestinians live and must continue to live side-by-side on a small piece of land, holy to three of the world’s major faiths. Ultimately, a way must be found for all of the children of Abraham to share this heritage in peace and with justice. The separation wall represents a denial of this self-evident fact and a rejection of this inevitable responsibility.
The wall cannot create the peace that both Israelis and Palestinians deserve, and that we desire and pray for. On the contrary, history demonstrates that such efforts to divide people with physical barriers only promote the deepening of enemy images, mutual demonization, and extremism. As Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jerusalem has said, “we need to find ways to bring about more communication, not less; more face-to-face encounters, not less; more avenues to peace and reconciliation, not less.”
The separation wall in Israel-Palestine is an obstacle to dialogue and mutual understanding. It is an obstacle to a just peace. It violates applicable principles of international humanitarian and human rights law. Since the course of the wall runs well inside the West Bank, it constitutes a further unilateral and illegal annexation of territory. Its construction entails the destruction of yet more Palestinian homes and olive groves, and separates Palestinians from each other and from their farmlands, water resources and health and other essential services. It results in a worsening of the already intolerable situation that is forcing the exodus of Palestinian Christians, and heightens our fear of the imminent extinction of the indigenous Christian church in the Holy Land. The course of the wall is drawn so as to encompass the locations of over half of the settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and further entrenches those settlements. The wall and the settlements it protects create new facts on the ground which will prevent the establishment of a viable contiguous Palestinian state as part of the accepted two-state solution.
We call for an end to both the construction of the wall and to the creation and support of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Both must be removed from the landscape of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, if a just peace is to be genuinely pursued. The LWF continues to work and pray for a future in which Israeli and Palestinian children can live together in peace and can share a future in the land that all call ‘holy’.
The God that we proclaim and serve is a God of relationships and reconciliation, who works to break down barriers created by human beings, to reconcile and to make peace. We echo the words of His Holiness Pope John Paul II in declaring that what the Holy Land needs today is bridges, not walls. We pray that God will break through the dividing wall being constructed on the land of God’s gift, and through the walls of hostility that rise ever higher in the minds of the peoples that now inhabit it. “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:14).
Adopted on 22 February 2004
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