Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2005 16:20:16 -0500
Sender: ELCA Mid-East Networking List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: Ann Hafften <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Action Alert on the separation wall 050801
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Aug. 1, 2005
>From the ELCA Middle East Networking List...
Action Alert from ELCA Advocacy:
Stop Construction of the Separation Wall on Palestinian Land!
We Want Peace, not Walls!
Take Action!
Write Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and your members of Congress,
asking the administration to call upon the State of Israel to immediately
cease construction of the Israeli separation wall and to remove all existing
portions of the wall on Palestinian land.
Go straight to the ELCA Advocacy web page to join E-Advocacy and register
your views:
http://www.elca.org/advocacy/action/default.asp?cavid=issues
The ELCA social statement "For Peace in God's World" states that "the Church
is a disturbing presence when it refuses to be silent and instead speaks the
truth in times when people shout out, 'peace, peace,when there is no peace'"
(Jeremiah 6:14) and calls on ELCA members to diligently pursue peace
initiatives.
Background
What is the Separation Wall? One of the most alarming developments in
Isarel's West Bank construction activities has been the building of a
"Separation Wall" or "security fence" designed to physically separate the
remaining Palestinian areas of the West Bank from the Israeli settlements
built there and also from Israel itself. The "wall" is a means of enforcing
separation through force and coercion. The wall, in places, is more than 8
meters in height and also has guard towers. The wall effectively annexes
land and water resources to Israel, leaving Palestinians encircled in what
amounts to reservations.
In an open letter this Easter from Bishop Younan, the Anglican Bishop of
Jerusalem and the Middle East and the Latin (Roman Catholic) Patriarch of
Jerusalem, "A Call from Jerusalem to the World", these Christian leaders
noted that "the wall splinters our community in many pieces and makes it
impossible to maintain normal family, economic and human relations."
Dr. Tawfiq nasser, chief executive officer of the LWF's Augusta Victoria
Hospital has also pleaded with Lutherans throughout the world to remember
that the hospital's work cuts across religious and cultural barriers and to
understand how the wall has compounded the difficulites in providing
health-services in particular, and for chronic care for Palestinians (e.g.
dialysis, cancer treatments).
According to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ), the wall
has already annexed vast areas of Palestinian agricultural lands that now
contain approximately 57 Israeli "settlements" of about 300,000 people.
The wall will displace roughly 385,000 Palestinians from their lands,
schools and hospitals.
(All ELCA action alerts are built upon the eight social statements and
eleven messages that constitute the social policy of the church. For more
information about how the ELCA does advocacy, explore these links: How the
ELCA does advocacy, Social statements and messages of the ELCA, and Social
policy resolutions adopted by the Churchwide assembly of the ELCA.)
http://www.elca.org/advocacy
---- ---- ---- ----
If you have received this bulletin directly from us, it is because you
subscribed to the ELCA Middle East Networking List. Please forward this
bulletin to others who are interested in a just peace for Palestine and
Israel.
To Join (or Leave) this List, go to www.elca.org/middleeast
Ann Hafften
Coordinator for Middle East Networking
Division for Global Mission, ELCA
www.elca.org/middleeast
800-638-3522, ext. 6466
"The Church must work even when nothing is changing."
Bishop Munib Younan, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
---End of Forwarded Message---
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