Jerusalem Christian religious leaders guest speakers at the HLF conference, held in Washington ,D.C., from left are: Jerusalem Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan; Archmandrite Inokenitios Exarchos, representing the Greek Orthodox Patriarch;Episcopal Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal; and Latin Rite Roman Catholic Patriarch representative Fr. Emil Salayta. 

Road to Middle East Peace Goes Through Jerusalem

By Ed Calis

This year, unlike in other years, Arab Christian religious leaders from Jerusalem visited Washington, DC to plead with Americans to save their churches from Israel’s unjust dominance and oppression. The cry for help comes not only because Palestinian Christians continue to leave the Holy Land due to Israeli strong-arm policies, but of Israel’s recent campaign to break the will of the Jerusalem churches. 
Churches in the Holy Land usually manage schools, hospitals and senior citizen homes for refugees and the poor. With the elimination of the 500-year tax exempt status, Israel has demanded all local churches to pay taxes retroactive to 1991, the year Israel initially decided to establish a tax on the churches’ hospital employees. One major hospital affected by this decision is Augusta Victoria Hospital, located on the Mount of Olives, and administered by the World Lutheran Federation. If the churches comply with this new requirement, they will be left drained of their resources, and will, without a doubt, be forced to declare bankruptcy. 
Annually, Christian leaders attend a conference organized by the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, an American charitable organization founded to help the original Christians of the Holy Land. 
This year’s attendees included, Lutheran Bishop Munib; Episcopal Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal; Archmandrite Inokenitios Exarchos, representing the Greek Orthodox Patriarch; and Roman Catholic Patriarch Michel Sabbah. 
They came together with one message. We need urgent help from Americans for the Palestinians in the Holy Land. This is the most desperate call for help they have issued to date regarding the political situation which continues to have a damaging effect on the lives of the local Christians, who are the most vulnerable, but also on their Muslim brothers. 
Is it because we are Palestinians that you don’t recognize us, asked Bishop Abu El-Assal at the press conference held at the Methodist Church in Washington, DC, October 22, 2004. 
"We came here for your help, Washington. We expect that before we leave, there will be at least some form of action, whereby Christians in the conference will commit themselves to see that we continue to live there on your behalf as your ambassadors in that part of the world.
"Don’t come to us in 15 years when they [Palestinian Christians] vanish from the Holy Land and tell us you never warned us," Bishop Yunan told his audience. 
He added that Christian Palestinians consider themselves an integral part of Palestinian society, part of a nation that is struggling for peace and justice and reconciliation. 
"We are peace seekers, brokers for justice, defenders of human rights, a bridge between conflicting parties Palestinians and Israelis, and initiators of dialogue." 
Bishop Yunan went on to explain the current economic status of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. He noted that 65% live under the poverty line, according to the World Bank. In other words, Christians and Muslims live on $2 a day.
Bishop Riah Abu Al Assal said that as Palestinian Christians, his people kept the faith for 2,000 years, and now their presence is at stake. Today we make up less than 1.5 percent of the population in Palestine, while 60 years ago we were 23 percent of the population. It’s not the rise of Islam that caused the dwindling of the Christian presence in the holy land, but the way that we Christians, Western and Eastern Christians, behaved towards each other. We were left alone to die on the side of the road.
When asked by the Arab American Affairs magazine what the Church leaders expect from the new American administration, he replied, 
"Make sure you work for justice on both sides. If it [the administration] really wants to defend Israel, then it should see to it that Israel itself has to comply to all United Nations Resolutions, which in the long run, will guarantee its rights as an independent state."
He highlighted Jerusalem’s integral role in Middle East peace. "Now they [decision makers in the U.S. government] realize the war in Iraq will not bring peace to the Middle East. I told the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, before I came here. The shortest way to Baghdad is through Jerusalem. Bring peace to Jerusalem and you will have peace in the whole region."