Hariri hails Catholic bishops' call to end Israeli occupation

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri hailed Sunday a call by Catholic bishops for the international community to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, while Israeli officials reacted angrily to the appeal.

The “participation [of Christian thinkers] in challenging the Zionist project is a necessity for Muslims not to be left alone in this confrontation, and for Arabism not to be restricted to Islam,” the Lebanese premier said in Beirut Sunday.

The bishops and patriarchs of the Middle East’s Catholic churches said at a Vatican synod on the Middle East over the weekend that Israel cannot use the biblical concept of a promised land or a chosen people to justify new settlements in Jerusalem or territorial claims.

“Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable,” said a final statement issued after a two-week synod chaired by Pope Benedict XVI.

The bishops’ statement also called on the international community to take “the necessary legal steps to put an end to the occupation of the different Arab territories.”

Palestinians welcomed a call from the synod’s conclusions and highlighted the role of Christians in confronting the threat posed by Israel.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat welcomed the remarks, saying Christians were an “integral part of the Palestinian people” and blaming Israel for their emigration from the Holy Land, which he added “gravely damages … the prospects of our future state.”

“We join the synod in their call to the international community to uphold the universal values of freedom, dignity and justice,” he said in a statement.

The Palestinians also hailed the statement’s call for Israel to “uphold its moral and legal responsibility to put a speedy end to the illegal Israeli occupation,” an apparent reference to past UN resolutions calling for Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967.

“This is a clear message to the government of Israel that it may not claim that Jerusalem is an exclusively Israeli city,” Erakat said, referring to Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel seized in 1967 and claims to have annexed in a move not recognized by the international community.

In a separate part of the document, the synod fathers also called for peaceful conditions that would stop a Christian exodus from the region.

“We have meditated on the situation of the holy city of Jerusalem. We are anxious about the unilateral initiatives that threaten its composition and risk to change its demographic balance,” the message said.

It urged Christians in the region not to sell their homes and properties. “It is a vital aspect of the lives of those who remain there and for those who one day will return there.”

Israel slammed the critical remarks Sunday, qualifying them as “political attacks.”

“We express our disappointment that this important synod has become a forum for political attacks on Israel in the best history of Arab propaganda,” deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in a statement. “The synod was hijacked by an anti-Israel majority,” he added.

Hariri also called for a continued dialogue between religious groups in order to prevent the emigration of Christians from the Middle East. – AFP, Reuters, The Daily Star