Religious leaders call for urgent U.S. leadership for Israeli/Palestinian peace
Episcopal News Service. December 5, 2008 [120508-01]
Matthew Davies
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has joined Jewish, Muslim and other Christian leaders in advocating for urgent U.S. leadership in the quest for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine and lasting peace in the Holy Land.
The National Interreligious Leadership Initiative (NILI) for Peace in the Middle East released a November statement, titled "A Window of Hope for Peace in Jerusalem," and wrote to President-elect Barack Obama December 4 calling for "engaged, urgent U.S. leadership for peace" as soon as he takes office.
"The United States has a unique and indispensable role which gives our nation a special responsibility to pursue peace. Israeli-Palestinian peace must be an urgent priority for President-elect Obama from the day he takes office," the leaders' statement says. "Achieving Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace will have positive reverberations in the region and around the world. Our nation and the world will be much safer with the achievement of the peace of Jerusalem."
On November 21, a delegation of religious leaders from NILI met with U.S. Undersecretary of State William J. Burns, the latest in a series of such meetings initiated by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. (In January 2007, Jefferts Schori was one of five religious leaders who met with Rice to discuss the Israeli/Palestinian situation. Earlier this year, Jefferts Schori joined other NILI leaders, including heads of more than 20 national organizations, in writing to President George W. Bush supporting his pledge to provide active U.S. leadership for Israeli-Palestinian peace in 2008.)
In their December 4 letter to President-elect Obama, the religious leaders said they look forward to an early opportunity to meet with him and to continuing these high-level meetings at the State Department with his administration.
"We have appreciated your clear and consistent commitment to making active U.S. leadership for Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace a high priority from the beginning of your presidency," the letter says. "We believe it is essential that the leaders and people of Israel, the Palestinian territories and Arab states be assured that you intend to implement this priority with a sense of urgency following your inauguration."
Maureen Shea, the Episcopal Church's director of government relations, has been a major participant in the NILI initiative and the Rt. Rev. Allen Bartlett, bishop pro tempore of the Diocese of Pennsylvania and former assisting bishop of Washington, D.C., has represented the Presiding Bishop in NILI at several meetings at the State Department.
"This work in the U.S. among Jews, Christians and Muslims for the peace process is one of the few signs of hope in an often dismal political environment," said the Rev. Canon Brian Grieves, senior director for Mission Centers and director of the Advocacy Center for the Episcopal Church. "With a new U.S. administration committed to the peace process from the beginning rather than the end of a U.S. presidency, we have a legitimate hope that the efforts of NILI and others will not be in vain."
The NILI letter and statement come just three days after Jefferts Schori joined 39 other U.S. Christian leaders through the Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) coalition in calling on President-elect Obama to make lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority during his first year in office.
Signed by leaders from the Catholic, Episcopal, Evangelical, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, the CMEP letter urges Obama's incoming administration to "provide sustained, high-level diplomatic leadership toward the clear goal" of establishing a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
Shea, CMEP chair, is currently visiting the Middle East with a CMEP delegation to assess the current situation in preparation for the new Administration and Congress.
For the past five years, NILI leaders have worked together for a two-state solution that will bring both Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace, based on U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and 1397, and the peace of Jerusalem.
"As religious leaders in the United States, we have prayed for peace, made public statements, met with public officials, and stood in solidarity with the religious leaders in Israel, the Palestinian Territories and throughout the region," their statement says. "We refuse, now and always, to give into cynicism or despair. We are people of hope. We call upon the members of our religious communities to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and to urge our political leaders to advance a two-state solution with vigor both now and in the early months of the new Administration.
"The time for peace is now."
The full text of the letter to President-elect Barack Obama is available here.
The full text of the NILI statement is available here.