Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
July 10, 2002
Palestinian church groups said Bush's speech unfair to Palestinians
By Judith Sudilovsky
JERUSALEM (CNS) — Palestinian church groups said U.S. President George W. Bush's speech on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict put the burden of the situation on the Palestinians.
"By so doing, he absolved the ... Israeli government from its responsibilities of presenting a political program that would spell out or at least indicate its plans to end occupation — not simply that which started in September 2000, but the original occupation of June 1967," the church groups said in a June 28 statement.
Among those who signed the statement were Constantine Dabbagh of the Near East Council of Churches Committee, Gaza; Bernard Sabella of the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches in Jerusalem; Khalil Aboud of the International Christian Committee in Israel, Nazareth; the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Jerusalem; and the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem.
In the June 24 speech, Bush said the United States would support the creation of a Palestinian state once Yasser Arafat is replaced as president. The U.S. president also said an earlier call for the removal of Israeli troops from Palestinian territories was conditioned on an end to Palestinian terrorism.
The Christian leaders said peace in the region could not be a "one-sided affair," that an end to Palestinian attacks on civilian populations had to be "paralleled by Israeli-expressed willingness to end occupation and live as good neighbors, and not as hegemonic occupiers and oppressors to the Palestinians."
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