In visit to California, Melkite archbishop from Holy Land says his mission is for peace in Israel Julie Sly12/20/2007 c/o Catholic Herald

In visit to California, Melkite archbishop from Holy Land says his mission is for peace in Israel
By Julie Sly12/20/2007
Catholic Herald (www.diocese-sacramento.org/herald)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Catholic Herald) - Archbishop Elias Chacour speaks with the hope that after decades of violence there will someday be peace with justice in the troubled Holy Land.
" hspace=5 src="http://www.catholic.org/images/ins_news/2007122121.jpg" width=250 vspace=5 border=0>OPTIONS – “What I do is try to understand the alternatives to violence and hatred, because both Israelis and Palestinians have tried all kinds of violence,” said Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour during his recent visit to Sacramento, Calif. (Herald/Cathy Joyce)
“I am a citizen of the state of Israel, but I am also a Palestinian Arab and a Christian,” he says. “For many this is a contradiction because they think that all Palestinians are born to violence. But what I ask of you to go beyond your prejudices and preconceived ideas and to think about ways that diversity can exist in the Holy Land.“I do not have all the answers or pretend to understand all the issues. What I do is try to understand the alternatives to violence and hatred, because both Israelis and Palestinians have tried all kinds of violence. They’ve tried to hate each other and they still do. And that has led us nowhere but to mutual catastrophe. We need to change policy, we need to change tactics and we need to understand that war can bring only more misery for both sides.”The archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church for Akko, Haifa, Nazareth and Galilee in Israel visited Sacramento Oct. 15-17, addressing audiences at three area events. He was invited to visit the Sacramento Diocese by Bishop William K. Weigand.Nobel Peace Prize nomineeThe archbishop, who was ordained in February 2006, served as a parish priest for more than 40 years in the northern Galilee village of Ibillin, a small Arab village where Christians and Muslims have lived together peacefully for many generations. He founded and directed the Mar Elias Educational Institutions there, where thousands of children and young adults of several faith traditions learn to live and work together in peace.As archbishop he has continued to build schools that are open to students of all ages and all religious backgrounds.He has been active in reconciliation and interfaith dialogue in Israel, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times, and was awarded the 2001 Niwano Peace Prize.His archdiocese includes nearly all of Israel, but not East Jerusalem or what Palestinians consider to be Israeli-occupied territories, which make up a separate diocese.Archbishop Chacour, 68, is originally from the Melkite village of Biram, whose residents were evacuated by the fledging Israeli army in 1948 with the promise that they would be able to return in two weeks; villagers are still fighting in court to be allowed to return to their land.In a talk Oct. 16 at the Diocesan Pastoral Center, Archbishop Chacour said Israel currently has approximately 147,000 Palestinian Christians grouped into four different religious traditions: the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Maronite Church.Security barrier disrupts Palestinian lives“The main enemy now of Palestinian Christians surviving is emigration abroad,” he said. “No one wants to stay in Palestine. Bethlehem, which once was 60 percent Christian, is now about 10 percent Christian. My main concern is what to do to convince young Christians that this is their land, that if they leave they will always be foreigners, so they should stay in their own country.”Archbishop Chacour was sharply critical of the security barrier being constructed by Israel -- a system of fences, trenches and walls designed to stop Palestinian terrorist attacks.Israel began constructing the separation wall in June 2002 and maintains it is needed to prevent terrorist attacks, pointing to the fact that there have been fewer attacks since the construction of the wall began.Palestinians say the barrier has disrupted their lives and complicates the establishment of a Palestinian state. The wall eventually will become a 400-mile-long barrier of concrete slabs and barbed-wire fences separating Israel from the West Bank. In some places it physically divides Palestinian communities.“With the construction of this barrier, both Christians and Muslims are excluded from Jerusalem and Jerusalem is severed from Bethlehem,” the archbishop said. “It has divided so many villages and towns and it has destroyed so much of Bethlehem.“I can see nothing positive about this wall except that it has given money to those who work with concrete and cement. That is not enough reason to destroy so many families and their livelihoods. Peace does not mean walls, but needs bridges in order to build. This is nothing but a huge wall of separation that will create more and more problems.”Many Jews in Israel “don’t know what to do with the wall because it creates a silent bitterness,” he added. “It’s a very strong bitterness that will one day destroy the wall because neighbors cannot be that drastically separated.”Justice for allIn an interview, the archbishop said Americans can be more reasonable in their perceptions of Palestinians and urge the U.S. government to start serious negotiations toward a two-state solution to the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.“I always hope Americans will better understand the plight of the Palestinians because you seem to have such extensive power,” he said. “I hope people will awaken the American public’s conscience to the fact that the Third World does not go with the United States only because of its money or weapons.“We don’t want the U.S. to solve our problems and we don’t expect the U.S. to complicate the problem even more than it is complicated now. We are happy that Americans are friends of the Jews, but we are not happy that the U.S. excludes us from its respect and that the U.S. interprets its friendship with the Jews as meaning that Americans are automatically at enmity with the Palestinians.”With the present situation of discrimination against Palestinians by the Israeli government “it is impossible to hope for peace, for shalom,” he said. “Because peace requires, as the prophets teach us, the implementation and pursuing of justice and integrity. And when we deal with justice, justice has to be imparted not only to your friend, but to everyone in your society.” - - -
This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of the Catholic Herald (www.diocese-sacramento.org/herald), official newspaper of the Diocese of Sacramento, Calif.