Make Israel-Palestinian peace a priority, Christian leaders tell President-elect Obama

December 03, 2008 [Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has joined 39 other U.S. Christian leaders in calling on President-elect Barack Obama to make lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority during his first year in office.
 
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), of which the Episcopal Church is a member, is circulating the leaders' December 1 letter which is being sent to Obama's transition team.
 
Signed by leaders from the Catholic, Episcopal, Evangelical, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, the 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. It also points out that delaying the implementation of a peace accord between Palestinians and Israelis places additional burdens on the lives of the Christians remaining in the region.
 
"Without active U.S. engagement, political inertia and perpetuation of the unbearable status quo will make achievement of a two-state solution increasingly difficult," the leaders say. "Moreover, we are concerned about the negative impact a further delay will have on the Christian community in the Holy Land, whose numbers continue to decline."
 
"We believe the United States has the political ability to keep the parties at the peace table," said Jefferts Schori. "We urge the President-elect to mobilize the will to endure the heat at that table in order to find the light for which the world yearns. The lives of thousands depend on it."
 
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with which the Episcopal Church shares a full communion relationship, said the opportunity for achieving a two-state solution "is narrowing and must be seized now. Further delays will make reaching an agreement much harder and undermine long-term security for both Israelis and Palestinians."
 
CMEP is a coalition of 22 Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches working exclusively on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Maureen Shea, director of the Episcopal Office of Government Relations and CMEP chair, is currently in the Middle East with a CMEP delegation to assess the current situation in preparation for the new Administration and Congress.
 
The full text of the letter is available here. Episcopalians and other Christians nationwide are being encouraged to circulate the letter and add their names to the leaders' call for peace in the Holy Land here.

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