VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Israel cannot use the biblical concept of a promised land or a chosen people to justify new settlements in Jerusalem or territorial claims, a Vatican synod on the Middle East said yesterday.
In its concluding message after two weeks of meetings, bishops from the Middle East also said they hoped a two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians could be made a reality and called for peaceful conditions that would stop a Christian exodus from the region.
“We have meditated on the situation of the holy city of Jerusalem. We are anxious about the unilateral initiatives that threaten its composition and risk to change its demographic balance,” the message said.
US-brokered peace talks have stalled since Israel rejected appeals to extend a temporary moratorium on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank which expired last month.
Since then, Israel has announced plans to build another 238 homes in two East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, provoking condemnation from Palestinians and world leaders.
In a separate part of the document — a section on cooperation with Jews — the synod fathers took issue with Jews who use the Bible to justify settlements in the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967.
“Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable,” the document said.
Many Jewish settlers and right-wing Israelis claim a biblical birthright to the occupied West Bank, which they call Judea and Samaria and regard as a part of historical, ancient Israel given to the Jews by God.
