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Alan Harper: All Palestinians are being punished by Israel

08 May 2008

by Bill Bowder

Positive: left to right: Dr John Finlay, the Presbyterian Moderator; Cardinal Seán Brady; Archbishop Alan Harper; and the Methodist Church President, the Revd Roy Cooper CHURCH OF IRELAND

ON THE 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd Alan Harper, has said that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the annexed territories could amount to collective punishment.

“What for Israelis was a cause of rejoicing — the birth of the state — for Palestinians was the Nakba, the catastrophe,” he said on Wednesday, after his return last Friday from a three-day visit to the Holy Land together with the leaders of the Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches in Ireland.

“Palestinians are poor, weak, and divided, yet possessed of unbelievable resilience. Walls, weapons, and checkpoints can never guarantee security. Security is guaranteed only by creating circumstances that disarm hostility,” he said.

“Any country that takes upon itself the responsibility of annexing another surely also takes on responsibility for the well-being of the inhabitants of that annexed territory, extending the same level of dignity and care it owes

its own citizens. Not to do so is at best discrimination, and, at worst, collective punishment.”

The four leaders had met 16 young people from a Christian village near Nablus, who had come “to tell their stories, and to begin to believe they are not a forgotten people. The journey took three hours. Going home will take another three, yet there are tears of joy in their eyes because being noticed matters,” he said.

Archbishop Harper criticised the requirement for thousands of workers to queue from 2 a.m. to pass through the Bethlehem-Jerusalem checkpoint. Unmarried men between 16 and 35 were not allowed through at all. Women travelling to Jerusalem hospitals needed permits, and “every last scrap of their medical records for scrutiny by checkpoint guards”.

In a letter to mark Israel’s 60th birthday, due to be published in The Independent yesterday, 140 Christian leaders speak of the anniversary as a celebration for Israel, but a catastrophe for Palestine. They call for “a courageous settlement, whose details will honour both people’s shared love for the land” (News, 11 April).

The Foreign Minister of Israel, Tzipi Livni, was in London last week to discuss how to improve the situation for Palestinians, the Israeli Embassy said. “With respect to the negotiations our objective is clear: to realise the vision of two states for two peoples, living side by side in peace, security and prosperity,” she said.

Advancing the Palestinian economy and easing daily life for Palestinians was an Israeli interest, Mrs Livni said, in the same way as the security of Israel was a Palestinian interest. “We are talking about translating these interests into actions.”

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