“The shortest way to achieve peace in Iraq passes through Jerusalem” and “the Churches must dedicate themselves to the Palestinians just as they did for South Africa”. So said the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal, in recent days, recalling that since the beginning of the Intifada over 800 Israelis and over 2,400 Palestinians have been killed. Expressing strong reservations about the Road Map, Nora Kort, representative of the Orthodox Fund for International Aid, called it “a route that leads to disaster because it does not solve the problems of the Palestinian community in the right way”. Despite the results achieved, such as “a ceasefire observed for various weeks prior to the return of violence, the people on the ground do not notice any change”, said Ramzi Zananiri, executive director of the International Christian Committee, a service of the Council of the Churches of the Middle East. “We’ve had enough of declarations. We want to see something concrete”, stressed Bishop Riah, though he expressed satisfaction for the action of the ecumenical programme of accompaniment in Palestine and Israel launched by the World Council of Churches (WCC) with the support of the Common Action of the Churches (ACT), an international network of Christian organizations of mutual assistance that has created jobs and is providing medical treatment in the Palestinian territories.
