To our beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord!

The prophet Hosea says: “Yahweh indicts the inhabitants of the country: there is no fidelity, no tenderness, no knowledge of God in the country, only perjury and lies, slaughter, theft, adultery and violence, murder after murder. This is why the country is in mourning, and all who live in it pine away” (Hosea 4, 1-3). These words may be applied, at least partially, to our days. And we all carry the responsibility to purify our time and return to rectitude, justice and goodness.

Brothers and sisters: We are close to you. Together with you we experience the storm happen during these days. With God´s help this crisis will pass. We are with you in these difficult times. We would like to encourage you: Love each other with patience and faith. With the psalmist we say: “Princes persecute me without a cause. But my heart stands in awe of Your word” (Ps 118, 161), and further: “Consider my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget Your law. Plead my cause and redeem me; revive me according to Your word (118, 153-154).

Our destination is to be born under occupation and be exposed constantly to death. Every human person has the right and the duty to do all possible to him in order to obtain his own liberty. The international community finally has to come to understand that the Palestinian is a human being like all the others and has the right, as every human being, to reconquer his proper dignity and liberty in his own country.

Killing is evil. All violence is evil. All war disfigure the countenance of God, and is therefore

evil. Only the murderer strives for murder. He opens the gates of death and makes the person enter. In our Holy Land the element that opens the gates to death is the military occupation. Therefore we say: the suffering of the Palestinian people until today is enough. It´s time to end its tragedy.

To the Israeli people we say: you merit also security and peace. We wish you security and peace. In everybody and in everyone of you we see the dignity which derives from that of God and which is a gift to every human person being Palestinian or Hebrew. The key of death or peace is in your hands and in that of the government you have elected. It is the government that can open or close the gates of death. It is the government that can give you peace or take it away from you. Those who today fight eachother and are thrown into the abyss of death have the right to live and enjoy security. Therfore, it depends on your government to put an end to all occupation that has been pressing upon the Palestinians during decades from this part, depriving them from their dignity and liberty. The United Nations have formulated regulations as base of peace. It would be sufficient to implement them.

With our Brothers, the Patriarchs of the Holy City and all the Heads of the Churches of Jerusalem we declare: It is enough with the bloodshed; it is enough with the fight! Shut the gates of death, of hatred and terror. Stop the shedding of blood that call for other bloodshed. The blood of all victims cries before God and before every human conscience. Restitute the occupied land to the real owners, thus allowing the hearts to regain serenity and for every human being to regain the proper humanity, and for Palestinians and Israelis to regain in equality the proper dignity given by God!

                                                             + Michel Sabbah

                                                                Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem