Episcopal Press and News

Episcopal Church's Position on Middle East Issues is Clear

Episcopal News Service. May 8, 1998 [98-2162]

"The Episcopal Church has been a leader in the movement to support the peace process and work towards a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians," said the Rev. Brian Grieves after returning from the presiding bishop's pastoral visit to the church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. "It may be the clearest position of any American denomination."

At the same time, Grieves was careful to point out that Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold is seeking to work with all the parties involved in peace efforts. "That is why he joined other church leaders in signing an open letter [see Newsfeatures for text] to President Clinton that has just been released."

The letter says that "the creation of Israel and its fifty-year struggle for stability and security is seen by many in the United States as an incredible testimony to the human spirit." At the same time, Palestinians suffered "al Nakba," the Catastrophe, and have spent decades as "a pawn in a power game between nations within and outside the Middle East."

The hopes that the 1993 Oslo Declaration would provide "a framework for ending the conflict" have been dash by the "year-long deadlock in the peace process," leading to "a profound and dangerous sense of discouragement."

Arguing that the status of Jerusalem "is essential for peace and cooperation among the three Abrahamic faiths," the letter says that "we stand at a point in history where the future of Jerusalem is open to peaceful resolution."

"The absence of a resolution of the question of Jerusalem can only sow the seeds of new religious conflicts between Muslims, Jews and Christians," the letter says. "It is essential that the two peoples who call Jerusalem their home and capital openly negotiate its future." It calls on Clinton to "redouble your efforts to achieve a negotiated peace...." And "continue your principled stand for a Jerusalem that is shared by its two peoples and by three religious communities...."

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church has on several occasions called for a shared Jerusalem as the capital for two sovereign and independent states and free access to the city for Palestinians. It has also denounced Israeli settlements in Gaza and the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, calling them "illegal...and an obstacle to peace." One convention called on the U.S. government to withhold funds equal to the amount used for such settlements or hold it in escrow until the policy changed.

At the same time that it has supported "the existence of Israel as a sovereign state, the democratic and humanitarian inspired homeland for displaced Jewish people," the church has called for assistance in creating a Palestinian State.

The General Convention has also expressed its solidarity with the Anglican presence in the Middle East, encouraging American Episcopalians to visit the area on pilgrimage. It has expressed alarm and the dwindling presence of Christians and their fear that "their total absence" is being sought by some forces. And resolutions have said that the church "deplores all expressions of anti-Arab and anti-Jewish presence in our culture and among Christians" and strongly supports inter-religious dialogue.

On several occasions the Episcopal Church has spoken on what one General Convention resolution called "our acts of moral blindness and outright prejudice throughout history and today that have contributed to the abuse and mistreatment of Jews." Another resolution recognized "that a distinction exists between the propriety of legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy and action and the impropriety of antiJewish prejudice." It urged the "total elimination" of what is called "anti-Semitism in whatever form, on whatever occasion...from the deliberations and affairs of the Episcopal Church, its individual members, its various units."